Mythology Gag / The Legend of Vox Machina

The Legend of Vox Machina has a lot of gags related to things found in Critical Role, whether or not it was from Campaign 1.

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• In the opening title sequence, Keyleth shifts into a white tiger. In the livestream, this was a favored strategy of Keyleth, with the tiger being nicknamed “Minxie”.
• The many background characters resembling Matthew Mercer references Matt voicing all the NPCs in the original stream.
• Keyleth's astonishing lightning spell powering up the blue dragon is a reference to the trend on the stream for Keyleth's long and complicated spells to have side effects that made the party's job harder, like giving them flight at the expense of taking away their ability to attack.
• After the bar brawl, Grog can be seen slipping "one random arm" into the Bag of Holding.
• The Theme Tune Roll Call Scanlan sings references the Running Gag of people being unable to tell the twins apart.
  Vex'ahlia: He's Vax.
  Vax'ildan: She's Vex.
  • Even more so, that both Laura and Liam wore T-shirts about this running gag, with Laura's reading "I'm Vex That's Vax" with an arrow pointing at Liam and Liam's saying "I'm Vax That's Vex" with an arrow pointing at her (much like how their characters do in this introduction). Both the twins are positioned similar to how Liam and Laura sit next to each other in Campaign 1 (with Laura to Liam's left and Liam to Laura's right).
• A young boy that Vax'ildan awes with a magic trick asks him if he's a wizard. His voice actor would be one in the next campaign.
• Scanlan, Keyleth and Pike each attempt to open the same door with their magic before Vax'ildan gets through it by picking the lock. Throughout Campaign One, doors were long-running enemies that gave Vox Machina a fight—at least once causing Scanlan to burn several spell slots and injure himself. This last incident is adapted during the prison-break in Episode 6, when Vax, Scanlan, and Percy struggle to pick a lock to open a door.
• Keyleth uses Heat Metal the wrong way: the spell causes creatures who touch the metal to take damage, not the actual metal. Vax was on the receiving end of a similar mistake in "Against the Tide of Bone", in which Keyleth heated up his daggers in a misguided attempt to help him do more damage, but ended up burning Vax's hands instead.
• Among all of the dragon-related items in General Kreig's hidden room, there is a rug with the unholy symbol of Tiamat, the goddess of evil dragons. Fitting, as the general is the evil blue dragon Brimscythe.
• Among Brimscythe's hoard, Scanlan finds a troll dick, which was originally in the Actual Play party's Bag of Holding because Vex shot it off. Right next to him as he finds the dick is also a tabletop dice tray.
• A copy of "Tusk Love"^note A trashy romance novel Laura Bailey's character was obsessed with in Campaign 2 can be seen in the foreground of Gilmore's Glorious Goods. The cover portrays a half orc man romantically clutching a blue tiefling woman, a reference to Fjord and Jester from the Wildmount campaign.
• In the same sequence, a stuffed red weasel can be seen in the background, referencing Sprinkle, the pet kept by Laura's character in campaign 2 she famously poorly took care of due to forgetting its existence most of the time.
• Also in the same sequence is a display case featuring a skeleton with Beau's distinctive hairstyle.
• A tapestry portraying a roc and some cows are visible behind Allura in her visit to Greyskull Keep as a nod to "Vox Moochina" - the time the party turned into an array of very strangely sized cows in order to investigate a roc.
• Pigeons are commonly seen throughout Emon, including two that fly past Keyleth as she enters the kitchen. "Metagaming pigeons" were created by Sam Riegel in campaign two of Critical Role to explain the cast's comments on information that their characters in-universe does not have or cannot share; they would coo like pigeons after making such comments. The production company for The Legend of Vox Machina is called "Metapigeon" as a result.
• During a shopping trip to Gilmore's in Episode 4, Vax mutters his catchphrase "Dagger, dagger, dagger..." while examining various daggers (plus a wooden stake).
• The table that gets destroyed during the wraiths' attack on Greyskull Keep resembles the table on the set for Campaign 2 of the web series.
• As Vox Machina and the rebels plan their rescue of Archie, they use a hand-drawn map on graph paper, similar to those used in the home game and the early days of the stream, before Matt had access to lavish Dwarven Forge maps and props.
• Keyleth being the one to voice the party's shock at the message the Briarwoods left hanging for them on the Sun Tree echoes the same reveal from the stream, where Marisha was the first of the cast to realize what Matt was describing to them.
• When the party discusses the strangest things they've ever killed around the campfire, Vax, Keyleth, and Grog all reference enemies that they defeated in the tabletop campaign: Vax threw a dagger through a rakshasa's eye during the Trial of the Take, Keyleth knocked a duergar into lava and immediately felt remorse over its horrible, burning death, and Grog bit the tongue out of a bulette while holding its jaws apart— although as bulettes are copyrighted by Wizards of the Coast, the monster Grog kills is a more generic, bony beast.
• A phrase from “Elven Dirge - I Lament”, the One-Woman Wail Matt Mercer uses for heartwrenching moments, shows up in the score, but in a different key.
• Pike's struggle to reconnect with the Everlight following the team's first clash with the Briarwoods takes cues from a moment in the Underdark where she was a bit too eager to kill off an enemy (which the Everlight was unhappy with), causing her to pray to re-earn the favor of her goddess later.
  • Attached to this, Pike chooses to stay behind when the party goes to Whitestone, choosing to seek out a temple and figure out what's wrong. This brings to mind how Ashley Johnson (Pike's player and voice actress) frequently had to leave the campaign for extended periods of time due to other acting commitments. Though here, we cut back to Pike fairly often to see how she's faring, rather than just never hearing from her until she rejoins the group.
• In Episode 9, the party holes up in a derelict tavern to hide from a zombie horde. A blink-and-you'll-miss-it sign in the background reveals that it's the Crass Sailor, which was the setting of the "Bar Room Blitz" one-shot run by Sam.
• During Scanlan's rampage upon Vedmire's manor, he comes across a group of soldiers playing a game with dice rolls and a game master screen. Grog's oneshot, run by Travis Willingham, reveals that Bunions and Flagons exists as Exandria's version of Dungeons & Dragons (though knowing Grog, "Bunions and Flagons" might not be the name of the game at all).
  • Scanlan's declaration to the party that he'd "burn down [Vedmire's] motherfucking house" alludes to his Badass Boast from the stream after doing so.
• Some blue poop in a glass jar is visible in Greyskull Keep. In the original, Scanlan was able to use that to scry on a location or a person (the kitchen of the keep, and Pike in her temple to Sarenrae).
• Keyleth parts the cloud over Whitestone, revealing Exandria's two moons Catha and Ruidus. The cast didn't find out Exandria even has two moons until campaign two because, according to Matt, they just never looked up through the entirety of campaign one.
• During the battle of Whitestone, Vax attempts to initiate the web series canon kiss with the line "You know I'm in love with you, right?" Keyleth leans in, but then turns him away because she doesn't think they should be kissing when they're meant to be fighting a horde of undead.
• "Pike Trickfoot", the song about Pike that plays over the credits of "The Tide of Bone", borrows a line or two from Ashley Johnson's original character video for Pike from back in the early days of the stream.
• When Grog grapples Sylas in order for Keyleth to blast him, he says, "Real men hug!" In the stream, Keyleth was the one who "hugged" Sylas, blasting Sunbeam through his chest (though this was not the attack that killed him).
• During the fight with Sylas, he appears to charm Grog, but Grog closes his eyes and resists the effect. In the same fight on-stream, Sylas landed a successful charm on Grog, only for Travis to remember at the last second that Grog is immune to Charm while raging.
• As Orthax attempts to corrupt Percy, the names of Vox Machina appear on The List's barrels. While this never happened on-stream, this calls back to a question Matt answered in the Campaign Wrap-Up: if Percy had killed all 6 people on the list, 6 more names would have appeared, and this would have continued indefinitely.
• When Keyleth turns down Vax, he says that he's going to "walk away." On stream, Liam would often have Vax exit conversations by saying "...and I walk away." The other players would occasionally use the phrase on him as well, as a joke.
• One of the mages Keeper Yennen sent to check on the "orb of death" below Whitestone tries to touch it, and proceeds to have their flesh dissolved and pulled into the orb. As per Matt in the Campaign Wrap-Up, this would have happened to Keyleth if she hadn't rolled a Natural 20 to pull her hand away.
• After telling the party about her new ability to cast Transport Via Plants, Keyleth launches into an awkward explanation of its limitations, mirroring Marisha's struggle to memorize and use the vast number of Druid spells correctly.
• Percy's prosthetic hand at the end of Episode 12 bears a striking resemblance to Diplomacy, his weaponized gauntlet that doesn't make an appearance and get named specifically until midway through Season 2.
• In the final episode, Uriel is discussing adding members to the Tal'dorei Council, but is interrupted. The players asking who was on the Tal'dorei Council (and Matt foiling their attempts to learn) was a Running Gag in Campaign 2.
• Vecna's title of The Whispered One really is from D&D, specifically the Vecna Trilogy.
• The official trailer for Season 2 begins with Grog dramatically attacking Raishan, only to break his axe on her hide and have an Oh, Crap! moment. This references the players' reaction on-stream when Matt declared Grog's roll of 19 to hit as a miss, their first indicator of how far beyond them the Chroma Conclave were.
• From the same trailer we see Scanlan suggest he and Vax get inside a dragon. This was how the two at least badly injured Umbrasyl, though their "boarding action" in the stream was done via dimension door and ended up with Scanlan in the beast's stomach but Vax somehow ending up literally under the dragon's skin. Since the series' version of Scanlan doesn't have that spell, he's getting them in via Scanlan's Hand... the other way.
• Percy finds a Lance of Dragon Slaying in Gilmore's shop, only for it to be crushed by rubble. Percy actually had a Dragon Slayer Longsword for most of the campaign, which he treated as an Emergency Weapon due to his preference for his guns. (He would loan it to Vax for the Chroma Conclave arc)
• Vorugal seeing through Scanlan's illusion spell in Season 2 Episode 1 references the party's attempt at slowing him down with the Darkness spell on-stream, only for Matt to reveal he had Blindsight.
• In the brief shot of the Wildmother's temple in "The Trials of Vasselheim", a figure resembling Caduceus Clay from Campaign 2 can be seen. Characters resembling Yasha (in front of the Stormlord's temple), Veth and Twiggy (in line to enter Vasselheim) were also spotted by fans.
• One of the Slayer's Take members in "The Trials of Vasselheim" uses a Combat Wheelchair, like Dagen from the second campaign.
• Vax and Vex are wanted by the Slayer's Take for poaching a Hydra and running off with the Take's share of the spoils. In the campaign, killing a Hydra the Slayer's Take already had a claim on was how the "Trials of the Take" arc started, though this happened much earlier (before the Briarwoods arc).
• Osysa's trial in Vasselheim is, by the cast's admission in interviews, a nod to a scrapped concept for the show's pilot, where Vox Machina would see some of their greatest fears.
• All of the snarky comments Vox Machina makes on Purvan's name in "The Sunken Tomb" were jokes the cast made out-of-character on stream.
• "The Sunken Tomb" sees the group separated into two groups with Zahra and Kashaw, some newcomers they met in Vasselheim. The make-up of these groups is roughly the same as those from the "Trials of the Take" episodes from the livestream. (Including Vax and Vex being separated)
• "Pass Through The Fire" has Keyleth reuniting with Allura and Kima as the Fire Domain is consuming Pyrah, and then this exchange happens:
  Allura: Keyleth, if we fetch your friends, can you buy us some time?
  Keyleth: I mean...we can certainly try.
• The Deathwalker's Ward, in an allusion to Vax's boots of haste from the original campaign boost Vax's speed significantly. His solo effort in taking down the monster Zahra summoned may be a reference to how they were often considered to be overpowered after the conversion to 5th edition.
• A corrupted Vex'ahlia under Saundor's thrall cries black ichor, just like her body double Laudna (bound to Delilah Briarwood's similar corrupting influence) does in Campaign 3.
• The running gag of the cast chorusing "Making my way!" gets referenced with Scanlan and Pike singing a (completely different) song with the same line.
• Keyleth's Disney Acid Sequence involves her apologizing to some sentient cartoon flowers for hurting them. In the on-stream Feywild adventure, this is something she actually had to do, while not high, after she accidentally pissed off some sentient grass.
• Vex's portion of the same sequence includes a part where she's being circled by nine eyes, significant symbols throughout Campaign 2.
• Grog's exclaiming that "This is worse than death!!" after Craven Edge is destroyed and saps Grog's strength in retaliation is a nod to the fact that, in the stream what ultimately made Grog give up Craven Edge was the sword causing his death.
• Vex's surprise at Trinket's voice (while high) recalls the first time she talked to him using Speak With Animals in the stream.
• Garmelie calls Percy "fancy-pants" which, given that he's actually Artagan in disguise, harkens forward to the Go-to Alias of his future protégé, Jester.
  • He also at one point reassures that he "was merely the traveler on this journey."
• Scanlan turns into a dragonfly right after seeing one fly past. Matt made a habit of reminding players with the Polymorph spell that they could only turn into creatures they'd seen before.
• Vex steals two Herd of Storms members' drinks just as one tells the other "And then I said, 'you can certainly try.'"
• Kaylie's sword has the same functionality as an Immovable Rod, and Scanlan uses it against Umbrasyl the same way they used the Rod against him on-stream.
  • This actually probably made it relatively easier on Umbrasyl to get away - the sword at least had an edge to cut a hole, the Immovable Rod was just a rod.
  • Scanlan's Badass Boast after pinning Umbrasyl comes from the stream, when Scanlan stopped a different dragon from flying away.
    Scanlan: You will leave when Scanlan Shorthalt tells you to leave!^note In the original version, Scanlan used the name Burt Reynolds.
• Scanlan kills Umbrasyl the same way he killed the Pit Fiend Ghurrix in the campaign: awakening Mythcarver through his promise to be a better person for Kaylie.
• The ominous chanting for "No Mercy Percy" consists of the cast's names, followed by the catchphrases, "It's your turn to roll! How do you want to do this?" Extremely fitting because these lines are the stream's Finish Him! cues, and whenever "No Mercy Percy" plays, someone's bound to die.