Thanks to Merasmus, the mercs find themselves in a land of fantasy, swords, magic, and a lot of hideous monsters that will kill them without a second thought. Join them as they team up with another band of misfits that tolerate each other just as much as they do. Can Team Fortress and Vox Machina survive, or will they just get in a mess?
Official Summary
Critical Roles are Fair and Balanced
is a Team Fortress 2 & The Legend of Vox Machina Crossover by Benderisgreat
, where team RED find themselves at Exandria after Merasmus uses the statue of Vh'ygho to send them away, encountering a group of adventurers called Vox Machina, who currently travelling a dungeon to find a gem named the Eye of Vh'ygho...
Beware of Spoilers!
Critical Roles are Fair and Balanced has the following tropes:
- Accidental Truth: The disguised Spy and Scanlan team up to manipulate the Rustguarde's gate guards, so that they believe that the Gnome Bard is the diplomat the town is expecting, to get them into the town. Soon after, the actual diplomat shows up, and he's as short as Scanlan and also wears purple.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Merasmus ends up begging Team Fortress to fight him with tears when all form of persuasion fails.
- Ammunition Conservation: Sniper switches to bow and arrows to preserve his rifle's bullets, because he can tell that guns are rare in Exandria, and thus bullets are hard to resupply.
- Androcles' Lion: Sniper rescues a Midnight Owl that was injured by the boar he and Vex killed. He decides to bring it to Pike to heal it and later feed it with jerky. The owl ended up becoming Sniper's companion.
- Bavarian Fire Drill: After hearing that the Rustguarde's guards are expecting diplomats from Dricisha, Spy, disguising himself as Rustguarde's guard captain, tells the town gate guard that Scanlan is the diplomat they're expecting, with the rest of Vox Machina and Team Fortress being their bodyguards. This allows them to go in.
- Blinded by the Light: Midnight Owl can produce a flashbang-like light from its third eye.
- The Bore: Heavy explains to Merasmus that the reason Team Fortress didn't want to fight him is because in the last 5 years, the wizard's challenges are getting stale and that the rewards are not worth the effort.
- Commonality Connection: Demoman, Pike, and Grog share a love for alcohol, and later spend their time in Rustguarde having a drinking competition.
- Failed a Spot Check: Soldier and Grog work together on Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique on the Vox Machina's current employer and end up killing him as he won't talk regardless of their torture...until it was pointed out that he doesn't talk because he still has a gag on his mouth.
- Fallen-on-Hard-Times Job: Merasmus is so far in debt with the Chinese mafia that he lets them smuggles drugs inside him for steady income.
- Good Job Breaking It Hero: With Medic's ÜberCharge, Soldier manages to defeat Bulette single-handedly...while causing the monster to collide with the statue of Vh'ygho, destroying the only way for Team Fortress to go back to Earth they currently had.
- Last-Second Word Swap: When Merasmus promises that the Team Fortress will be rewarded if they clashes again, Heavy asks if the rewards will be yet another "weapons that they already own but in different colors" again, to which the wizard about to say yes before backtracking with a "no".
- Morton's Fork: From the note Vax pickpocketed from their now dead employer, said person is intending to sacrifice Vox Machina at the altar of Vh'ygho at their arrival, meaning that he was never intending to pay the adventurers' group, regardless of whether they succeed at recovering the Eye of Vh'ygho or not.
- Power Crutch: When infiltrating the Rustguarde town's guards' barracks, Spy agrees with Vax's comment that he might have become overreliant on using his Invis Watches for sneaking rather than relying on proper stealth skills.
- Third Eye: Midnight Owl has a third eye on its forehead, and Keyleth claims that the species is smarter than the average owl.
- Trapped in Another World: Merasmus opens a portal that sucks away Team Fortress using the idol of Vh'ygho, which sends them to a hidden temple in Exandria, where a copy of the statue is located.
- Underestimating Badassery:
- Team Fortress questions how Scanlan would fight with a lute. Then they see how he boosts Demoman's vigor, allowing the bomber to fight a group of Gnolls before joining in by summoning Scanlan's Hand to deck plenty of Gnolls.
- Engineer asks Percy if he could look at The List, as the gun seems to have malfunctioned mid-fight with the Gnolls. The nobleman initially declines, claiming that his gun is an intricate device, only for the Engineer to repair it quickly.
- Scout questions how someone as short as Scanlan would be able to woo women. The Bard then demonstrates it by poetically complimenting a nearby barmaid, to which she tells him to go to her place in an hour, causing Scout's jaw to drop.
- We Work Well Together: Team Fortress and Vox Machina work together to fight off the swarm of Gnolls and their tamed Bulette, and plenty of people in either group enjoy one another's company and agree that the former is better off joining the latter as they adjust to life in Exandria.
- You Remind Me of X: Both Scanland and Scout are compared with one another, with Pike groans as Scout keeps flirting with her, calling him a "second Scanlan", while Spy claims that they finally meet someone as boastful as Scout when the Bard is bragging about himself.
