Trivia / Critical Role: Exandria Unlimited

Season 1 and Kymal

• Acting for Two: Played for Laughs when Orym opts out of the Byroden pageant, only for Aabria to assign him the character of contestant Cinna, who then proceeds to involve Orym anyway.
• Actor-Shared Background:
  • Aimee confirmed that Opal is "whatever Exandria's version of Latina is" in response to a question about her racial status, much like herself.
  • Liam briefly plays as an alternate character participating in the Byroden pageant, Cinna, and opts to voice her as very Irish (Liam is just Irish-American).
  • Anjali Bhimani gave Fy'ra Rai an Indian accent and last name.
  • Fearne should already be good with animals as a druid, but episode 6 takes it to a meta level when she gets close to a Big Friendly Dog, as Ashley Johnson is herself a dog lover.
• Creator's Favorite Episode: Maxwell James (senior producer of Critical Role) has stated that Episode 4 is his favorite episode.
• Playing Against Type: Not so much against characters Matt has played before Matt mentions in the first episode of cast interview show 4-Sided Dive that Matt's job as DM during most of Critical Role is to be super responsible all the time, whereas Dariax's attitude to responsibility is in Matt's words "Got none, don't care".
• Throw It In!:
  • Orym's Neutral Good alignment was a spur of the moment decision from Liam when he was closing the circlet.
  • Due to some confusion with the D&D Beyond interface, Robbie Daymond incorrectly read out that Dorian had darkvision, blindsight, and tremorsense. Aabria amended his character sheet to include limited blindsight as a part of his backstory from then on.
  • Aimee didn't know that Illusory Script was an actual spell and not just something that Opal could just write down. Aabria then opted to make Aimee do a deception check, which led to the party (and Opal herself) believe that she did Illusory Script as a result.
  • Fearne was able to purchase "Stonky's Ring" (a Ring of Telekinesis) from Gilmore's when it appeared in a list of purchasable magic items on D&D Beyond. This was likely a programming error, as it's a ring owned by an NPC in the Candlekeep Mysteries adventure. Aabria let her buy it, and Fearne still has the ring in Campaign 3.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Dariax initially started out as a Light Domain cleric, but Matt eventually changed him into a Divine Soul sorcerer.
  • Episode 4 - Aabria had set up contestant names for all six players if they opted out of the Byroden pageant. Cinna and Lisle are the only ones used, and Ashley would have ended up as "Rosie".
• Write Who You Know: Aimee Carrero drew upon her friends from Laredo, Texas, modelling Opal after those girls who are "local legends" known just by their first names.

Calamity

• Production Posse: Brennan Lee Mulligan and Lou Wilson are regulars in Dropout's wildly popular Dimension 20, where Aabria and Marisha have guest-starred as players (and GM in Aabria's case).
• Tuckerisation: Played for laughs when Sam makes up ad spots for a Mulligan's Tavern (referencing DM Brennan Lee Mulligan, who uses to work as a bartender, and is now telling stories on a set named the Tavern of Tales) and Mercer Spell Ink (Matt Mercer, of course).
• Word of Gay: Aabria has confirmed on her Tumblr that Laerryn is bisexual, hilariously asserting that being married to a changeling has its perks.
• Word of God:
  • For Calamity, Matthew Mercer wrote in the Twitch chat for Episode 1 that only a handful of cities could float during the Age of Arcanum, due to a finite amount of Brumestone, so it was greedily taken by the most advanced cities (such as the campaign's setting of Avalir).
  • Matt claims to be the only one that knows the Matron of Ravens' true name.
  • On a lighter note, Matt also "confirmed" in twitch chat that spaghetti-os were among the technological marvels lost to the Calamity after Travis-as-Cerrit referenced a body being "uh-oh spaghetti-os all over the floor"
• What Could Have Been:
  • Marisha revealed in an Q&A on Instagram that Laura was going to be part of Calamity before scheduling conflicts got in the way. She had gotten so far as very early character design. Marisha took what Laura had built and continued from there.
  • In the Campaign Wrap-Up, Brennan discussed a few ideas for progressing things if the players hadn't triggered the Calamity themselves, namely by having outside villains like the Septarion, the devils who stole Zerxus's blood, or Vespin show up and push things along. Additionally, if Laerryn had died before completing her final spell Loquatius would have had to pass an Arcana check to finish it for her.
  • Aabria and Luis played around with revealing that Laerynn was Elias' mother, but decided against it as they thought it wouldn't have added anything to the story.