As a Fridge subpage, all spoilers are unmarked as per policy. You Have Been Warned.

Fridge Brilliance

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Campaign 1: 2015- 2017

Percy claims that the Briarwoods were invited in to his home as they were travelling, after which they killed his entire family. It's later confirmed that Sylas Briarwood is a vampire. This means their elaborate deceit was necessary in order to reach a position to kill the de Rolos - they had to be invited in.
Brilliance in a sad way, but Percy's fascination and love for Quall's Home Alone house of traps makes sense beyond his love of tinkering - of course Percy wants a booby-trapped home rather than one where, say, mysterious strangers can easily come in and murder your entire family and trap you in the dungeons.
And yet another one for Percy: at the end of the Whitestone arc, he tells Orthax that he believed that, when they first met, it was a dream like any other, not that he was signing a contract. Like the Briarwoods Orthax needed to be "invited" in, and achieved it through an elaborate deceit without Percy understanding what he was actually accepting.
There's a lot with Garmelie and his true identity. For example, why did he ask Vox Machina to avoid a particular hut, and then vanish before they could approach it? Artagan mentions that the person living inside it is "an ex". If Garmelie/Artagan had stayed with them, or if they had gone inside, she might have recognized him and given his whole game away.
Taryon's backstory gives you a big one. First, Sam knew they'd have been sure to learn about it, not to repeat the mistake they made with Scanlan, and then it was made to get everyone's sympathy. He was full of shiny, weird things and what's basically a huge robot, that immediately got Grog (and the armor could interest Pike), has issues with his dad and the fact he can't get his respect, which gets the twins, it's actually not much sure about himself and set out to prove his worth, much like Keyleth, and lastly not only can write and read but actually likes that, plus he's capable of understanding complex engineering and create a couple of things of his own which is, as Percy himself puts him, a "dark mirror", but also finally someone he can share his interests with. Well played, really.
More like Fridge Comedy, really, but Marisha/Keyleth's joke about it being the darkest timeline once Scanlan left is oddly appropriate given that the game they're playing requires an awful lot of dice-rolling and that's exactly what Abed in Community claims is the source of the alternate timelines.
An in-universe (well, on-table) example when Matt reveals the true criteria that decided which attacks hit the Trickfoot's curse creature: the ones Ogden could see.
How did a vengeful Delilah Briarwood know about Vax and Keyleth's relationship? Cassandra was there for their first kiss, back when she still answered to the Briarwoods. Besides, Vax was charmed by Sylas - he might have been the one who told them he was in love with Keyleth.
Artifacts requires extremely powerful magic to be destroyed. The Hand of Vecna is an artifact. So when Arkhan raises his axe, it's Five-Second Foreshadowing that he isn't actually trying to destroy it. The fact that he prays to Tiamat, another evil deity who would have no issue in exploiting it after its original owner is gone, also counts.
In episode 115, Scanlan reveals his age to be only 70 (69 when the campaign started), which makes a very young adult in Gnome years. This puts his -2 Wisdom modifier and generally flirtatious antics in a whole new light.
Fridge Tear Jerker: the mournful track with the One-Woman Wail that plays over tragic moments is named Elven Dirge - I Lament. A dirge is a lament for the dead. By the end of the campaign, the (half-)elven members of Vox Machina have all undergone their share of sorrow: Vax and Vex lost each other, Keyleth lost both her mother and the love of her life. While campaign 2 returned Vilya to Keyleth, they still have lost over two decades, and Keyleth is nothing like the little girl Vilya last saw upon embarking on her Aramenté. Similarly, it plays over the all-too-brief return of Vax'ildan to the living world at his sister's wedding; temporary and bittersweet, a stark reminder of what could have been.
One of Victor’s (the black powder merchant) most prominent traits is that he shouts almost everything he says. While it could be explained by his personality and his age, another explanation is that he’s partially deaf from his repeated exposure to black powder explosions.

Campaign 2: 2018- 2021

In Campaign 2, due to the running gag of the group rolling an unusually high number of nines, and shouting "Nine!" every time, they have taken to calling themselves The Mighty Nein. The name doesn't make much sense as a number, because there are usually only six of them, but when Yasha is around that makes seven, plus Frumpkin, Caleb's familiar, makes eight, and when Jester uses Duplicity there is an illusory copy of her, so potentially they could in fact be a group of nine!
- By the end of the campaign, with Caduceus joining the party, Yasha appearing regularly, Essek being named an official member, and Molly being restored to life, the group finally hits a true count of nine.
It comes up in the conflict with the gnolls that Caleb has some sort of PTSD when it comes to fire. Go back to the first episode and look at the players when Orna the Fire Fairy does her fire dance. Caleb is the only one not clapping. Liam was dropping hints from the very beginning.
The reason Caleb was so insistent on staying alone with the beacon the first night wasn't just paranoia; his anti-scrying necklace would keep people from seeing where he was, and therefore where the beacon was too. He just couldn't explain this cause he didn't trust the group yet.
In Campaign 2, Nott's reveal that she sees her and Caleb's relation of that of a parent and child, but she is the parent, and Caleb is the child. Looking back, a lot of her actions can be interpreted in this regard.
Mollymauk is known to wield two swords and is openly bisexual. In other words, he's a dual-wielder in more ways than one.
In Episode 24, when the gang is talking about who to leave Kiri with for the night, Nott suggests getting a prostitute to watch over Kiri. Everyone, even Molly, finds the idea ridiculous, save for one: Jester, who has a frown on her face when the others laugh at and shoot down the idea, petulantly commenting that she doesn't "think [it's] a bad idea." It's a bit of a missed moment for everyone in the table, but of course Jester's the only one who's completely fine with the idea: her mother is the Ruby of the Sea, and she turned out perfectly okay!
Most of Jester's pranks in the past have been, while looked down upon by their targets, relatively mild. However, the mayhem that happens in Episode 31 with the Temple of Bahamut elicits a much stronger response - partly because of Jester and Nott's extremely noticeable antics, yes, but also because of what Jester's prank consisted of. She painted the statue of Bahamut, the Platinum Dragon, in bright primary colors. Chromatic colors. AKA the colors of Tiamat, one of the Betrayer Gods and Bahamut's sworn enemy. No wonder the town criers thought it was an anti-religious cult. Jester committed very serious blasphemy by accident.
The reveal that Jester's father is a Water Genasi and likely The Gentleman himself has a lot of brilliance to it; Jester as a Tiefling would normally be resistant to fire damage and normally Hellish Rebuke is (naturally) fire in nature. However, Jester was specifically designed to instead be resistant to cold damage and her Hellish Rebuke is ice-themed. All of this, adding on to her blue colouring, certainly ties in nicely to the reveal she's half Water Genasi.
- Notably, Laura was under the impression that Jester was half Marid, as she and Matt had worked out all of the alterations to Jester's racial traits, so she never even suspected The Gentleman - her reaction as Jester was completely genuine.
Nott's fear of water makes more sense when you consider that she was killed by drowning and resurrected as a goblin. Water is her Trauma Button.
Nott's character in general makes a lot more sense in light of the Episode 49 reveal and the subsequent Talks Machina shedding a bit more light on it. Nott is a mother so of course she mothers the rest of the group. Her hatred of goblins? She was actually a halfling turned into a goblin and was raised to dislike them before hand. Her anxiety? You'd be in a bad mental state after being killed and forced into being reincarnated as a goblin.
In Episode 70, most of the Mighty Nein are convinced that if they tell the Bright Queen what happened they'll be thrown in jail or worse. Only Caduceus seems to think that that'd be ridiculous, at least at first. Now remember how the Nein met. They went to a circus and were arrested for fighting off the infected patrons. Back in the Empire, they were convicted of conspiracy despite their innocence. It makes sense that when a similar thing happens in Xhoraus they'd expect a similar result, especially since some of them did feel guilty for failing to stop Obann. The only member who wasn't present and therefore doesn't have that expectation is Caduceus who joined the group much later.
Sam Riegel you magnificent bastard. In episode 4 Nott and Caleb take a bath, and Nott asks if Caleb will still be himself. Why would Nott ask that? In Episode 49, we learn Nott used to be a Halfling before she was killed by drowning and brought back as a goblin through what is implied to be the Reincarnate spell. While the Reincarnate spell allows the DM the option of picking the form someone returns as, the form can also be random. It's possible Nott was drowned and Reincarnated more than once to ensure she'd come back as a goblin.
Caleb's "final exam" involving becoming a Self-Made Orphan doesn't just serve as a test of loyalty to the Empire; it also erases any traceable evidence of the identities of secret royal assassins.
- The asylum guard carrying an anti-scrying necklace makes more sense given that he was likely a "Scourger" too. Also Fridge Horror in that those 11 years could have been filled with more secret experiments, and Caleb wouldn't remember a thing.
In episode 80, a bit of fridge brilliance by Caduceus. At one point in the episode the Nein discover the bright queen has started spying on them on a regular basis, and that Essek is not aware of that happening. Shortly after that they have a meeting with Essek while they are under surveillance. During the conversation Caduceus practices some brutal honesty and just tells Essek everything the Nein have learned about the potential that 1) there is a third party manipulating both the empire and the dynasty and that 2) they suspect members of the dynasty and the empire are both willingly working with that third party to weaken both sides. Caduceus even says they hope Essek is not one of those agents. Why is this fridge brilliance? Because by having the conversation while the bright queen is listening he set up a series of ways to prove who is loyal to the dynasty. No matter what happens, the Bright queen will now find out about the conversation and what was said, and who ever does not report the conversation is a traitor and most likely working for that third party.
Yasha attempting to bathe Sprinkle is described as resembling those videos of cleaning struggling animals from an oil spill, leading to two of the guys singing "In the Arms of an Angel". Yasha is fallen aasimar so that's partly correct.
Veth having the same voice as Nott sheds a bit of light into how Yeza was still so accepting of her in that form - because she still sounded just like she used to.
In Narrative Telephone episode 6, the Stassman rival winery family is eventually mutilated into "Tossman". Surely Beau would invoke a Foreign Cuss Word on purpose.
Retroactive Heartwarming from Episode 125 when Beau first met Dairon: When Beau mentioned that she'd been forcibly inducted into the Cobalt Soul by Zeenoth, Dairon believed her and immediately removes Zeenoth's authority over her.
Dairon: Enough! I've heard enough, Zeenoth. You are removed of your responsibility to oversee Beauregard. This is not a student you can help.
During the trek trough Aeor, the guys come across some creatures who resemble primates with dog faces, and immediately assume that they're also rape monsters - likely because they resemble the fursuit guy from The Shining.
Isharnai having no interest in going after Jester in retaliation for her trick makes sense. 1) As revealed by Matt, she appreciates the good trick, even if she was on the receiving end of it. 2) Her turning Nott into a goblin was solely to pay back a favor, there was no bargain or grudge involved so she had no investment in keeping Nott a goblin. 3) She receives cupcakes on a regular basis from Jester. And given how Jester is, she probably also sends Isharnai messages that eases her loneliness. From her perspective, she may have come out on top even if she didn't get the bargain she was angling for.
Caduceus calling Whitestone a tourist trap is a funny line on its own, but it gets funnier when one considers that the formerly-isolationist Whitestone is now considered a tourist trap is probably specifically because of Percy, as he was the one who built a massive storytelling clocktower, like the one in Prague, and set up an annual fair for tinkerers and craftspeople, both of which would attract a lot of tourists to Whitestone, even more than the lack of vampires.

Campaign 3: 2021-Present

Ashton has trouble remembering which of his acquaintances he should be warier of, heavily implied to be a result of his head injury.
Ashton: The head came up, the head got hit...
From a meta perspective: Bertrand being so generous with his money makes sense since Travis knew he wasn't going to be playing him for long.
Laudna's unique accent is not just a Call-Back to her character from the Wendy's one-shot, it's also a reference to the "scream queens", the early female leads of horror movies, albeit as the victims. Combined with her Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl aesthetic, and you basically have a homage to female representation in horror.
The secret entrance to the Hubatt Corsairs' hiding place is a vertical stairway leading to a floor hatch - military people and anyone with knowledge of urban combat will know that this is a very disadvantageous way to approach an objective, and provides Five-Second Foreshadowing that the whole thing is a trap.
The ogre cook named Pretty is not just a Call-Back to Buddy the Ogre from the Darrington Brigade one-shot (it was pretty much his Catchphrase), but likely the result of people introducing him by saying "he's pretty..." and then never really finishing the sentence.
Ashton's gold filing that keeps his skull together is like the practice of kintsugi, which repairs broken pottery or lacquer by mending them back together with gold powder. While Milo may not have any healing expertise, they've had plenty of experience repairing things. Ashton being an earth genasi likely inspired part of that process.
As it turns out, Chetney was being literal when he said he was armed to the teeth.
Chetney makes constant note of hating metal and doing everything he can not to incorporate it into his work. While his pride as a woodworker is certainly in play, him being a werewolf, could make it hard to work with metal anyway, since silver is also deadly towards werewolves.
Chetney saying that you don't truly know someone until you fight them makes way more sense once you find out he is a Blood Hunter (Order of the Lycan). As part of the process of becoming one involves, potentially, a fight to the near death to deal with being infected with lycanthropy)
Orym getting uncomfortable during Gus and his ex's therapy session with F.C.G. hits a bit harder when Orym later reveals he had a husband, with the two of them both serving as bodyguards to Keyleth. It's likely the two of them may have had similar arguments in the past about "being married to my work" as Gus's ex jabs.
Paté being named De Rolo and having a raven's skull might be a nod towards Vax and Percy since Laudna was one of the people who was hung on the Sun Tree as "Vex".
Chetney's a firm believer in the Alpha and Beta Wolves mindset, and he's arguably the oldest member of the party, which parodies the well-known trope of seniors with backdated beliefs. Judging from Matt's reaction, Travis nailed it.
Orym's reaction to discovering how Laudna originally died isn't just because it was pointlessly cruel, but because Keyleth told him the story of how the Briarwoods murdered innocent people just to threaten her and her friends. It's like growing up learning about the Holocaust, to one day meeting an actual victim.
Laudna has named two animal "companions" so far: Pâté (the rat) and Escargot (the horse). Both are fancy food associated with rich people. Most likely, they were on the menu the night she died, and the feast stuck with Laudna through death as a happy memory among the horrific things that happened to her.
- The trend continues with her new doll, Sashimi. Laudna mentions to Orym that seafood was served during her final meal.
- However, on Talks Machina, Marisha explains her reasoning: the names are all dead things that people pretend is something else, and the food theme was the closest thing that came to mind.
Dusk hitting on everyone in the party is pretty fun. But it also makes perfect sense, with the reveal that Dusk is actually a highly competent agent of the Unseelie Court whose goal is apparently to wipe out the Calloways. She is trying to find someone in the group she can seduce and turn to her side.
F.C.G. has no idea what happened to Dancer or the other automatons. This is despite Ashton finding him with one of his eye-lamps damaged, implying he was involved in the fight. This is explained in Episode 31 where FCG snaps and attacks the party after he gets in touch with Dancer. Ashton later realizes he found F.C.G. with only one eye, taking him over to Milo who gave him a replacement eye, thus the mismatched eye sizes.
Chetney brings out a flexible wooden doll, and Fearne starts playing with it roughly, with Imogen pointing out that she just spat on the crotch of the doll. It's funnier if you know that crotch is a legit term from woodworking (it's the part of a trunk that divides into two equal branches, greatly limiting its uses).
Why would Ludinus think Vax would come back to save Keyleth when the Raven Queen said he would serve her in the celestial realm? Two reasons: first, it’s shown that he can come back because the Raven Queen allowed him to say some words at his sister’s wedding. Second, what Ludinus was planning would most likely put all life at risk and sending Vax to deal with it was her way of getting involved. Saving Keyleth was a side benefit.
Matt introduces a new NPC, the Shore Shrew, who lives inside the mouth of a giant toad, except he didn't have a toad mini and ends up using a tiki mug, after which Sam joked about it having a straw. Since the Shore Shrew has a fireplace in there, the only way to safely let the smoke out would be to have the chimney sticking out of the toad's mouth like a straw. (Another way would be to have the toad exhale the smoke out through its nostrils, but that causes cancer.) Assuming Matt has learned how chimneys work by now...

One-Shot Adventures

A Running Gag in the UnDeadwood adventure involves the women of The Gem suddenly getting very interested in Aloysius Fogg (Special Guest Khary Payton). While DM Brian W Foster brings up that Fogg still carrying the money he was paid by Al Swearengen had something to do with it, the Deliberate Values Dissonance hanging over the whole environment implies something else is (metaphorically) pricking the women's curiosity.
In the Doom Eternal one-shot, all the players get painted minifigs that turn out to be too big for standard D&D gameplay, so Matt settles for using just the Pain Elemental since it's depicted as hovering and on a stand that takes up less floor space. Later on, the Pain Elemental turns out to be a Squishy Wizard who can't even flee very well - which makes sense since moving in formation as a squad involves matching speed with the slowest member.
- The Pain Elemental's lack of mobility also serves as a nod to its video game incarnation, which is animated with a bobbing motion as it's moving, like it's actually running despite obviously hovering.
The mooks in the Lorelei oneshot are based on the missing members of the principal cast (who were away at Burning Man). One has "long, dark brown hair and an angular face" (Matt), one is a man whose head "is mostly shaved, but [with] wet blue hair pasted to his skull" (Taliesin), and Ray is a "ropy... red-haired woman" (Marisha). Liam also described Ray's death throes as "a goldfish gasping for breath", alluding to the Keyfish incident: In Campaign 1, Keyleth swan-dove off a cliff, turned into a goldfish, and died a bloody mess upon hitting rocks. Ray was thrown off a roof by Aurra, hit a wrought-iron fence, and died in bloody, gurgling agony. This was confirmed on Talks Machina, but flew over the oneshot cast's head.
In Exandria Unlimited episode 3, Fearne the faun druid makes a miraculous performance roll when playing the flute despite having never played it before. This is likely the instrument she chose as part of her race (she uses the stats of a satyr) - which makes sense considering the best-known satyr in fiction is the Greek god Pan, who's also the patron of music, and known for playing the pan flute.
In Liam's Quest: Full Circle, the cast are turned into children or teenagers, but the pattern for what ages they get turned into makes little sense at first glance; Marisha is said to appear oldest, then Ashley, Laura and Matt appear to be in a similar zone, and it's hard to tell between Sam and Taliesin. The pattern is actually quite simple: the younger they are, the older they appear in their reverted state, hence why Marisha (born in 1989) appears to be in her mid-to-late teens, while Sam (October 1976) and Taliesin (January 1977) are in the single digits.
- In relation, it's been noted in the Characters section for the one shot that while everyone else still acts like their normal selves, Travis freaks out about everything much like a child would. It's no secret that Travis, despite being a very tall and muscular man, scares easily when it comes to anything horror-themed. Suddenly being reverted to the size of a child and thrust into such a situation probably would have him screaming in terror.
- Confirmed on Talks Machina, where Travis recounts his childhood of being an asthmatic with ADHD who nevertheless ran everywhere - including out of The Neverending Story and Jurassic Park. He didn't see an R-rated movie until he was 25.
In the Red Nose Day 2022 adventure, Lucky Jack (Stephen Colbert) starts asking his new teammates (Yasha, Beau and Nott) what class they are, and Nott just says "thief and rogue". While rogue is the correct name for Nott's class, "thief" is also true since Nott is famously a kleptomaniac.
- Nott turning into an Abhorrent Admirer for Lucky Jack takes on added meaning if you remember Stephen is a massive The Lord of the Rings fanboy, and Nott easily comes across as a Captain Ersatz of Gollum.

Fridge Horror

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Campaign 1: 2015- 2017

Clarota was a fan of slow jams, but when he turned on Vox Machina after K'varn's death, he goes after Scanlan first, and tried to suck his brains out. Maybe he just wanted the knowledge of the slow jams?
The party finds Kima naked and chained to a rack in a torture chamber full of hot irons and hooked instruments, and while Grog murders the torturer, Percy is the first one to actually attempt to free her. He was subjected to torture as well, probably with the very same instruments being used on Kima, and is likely reliving what he went through.
- The leadup to finding her involved the party having to hide in cells containing dead and dying tortured dwarves. In the first part of Episode 27, Matt describes a dream Percy has where he recalls his younger siblings' dead bodies tossed in a pile and the smell of death filling his dungeon cell, suggesting that he was forced to share a dungeon cell with his siblings' corpses. This whole experience had to have been pretty rough on the poor guy.
Scanlan trying to expose his magically enlarged penis to Lady Kima to distract her and then later trying to use Suggestion (minor mind-altering magic) on her to make her more attracted to Grog, becomes a lot less funny (despite the DM's No-Sell reaction which in the second case involved an in-character threat to rape Scanlan "with the business end of her warhammer if he ever tries to mess with [her] mind again") once you remember that Scanlan is effectively sexually harassing a traumatized woman who has just been rescued from weeks of torture, which likely involved sexual assault as well.^note Also, considering her deep hatred of mindflayers, it seems likely that she was psychically dominated / mind-raped by the duergars' mindflayer companion as well, at some point in her interrogation. So Scanlan's actions were not just in poor taste but would probably have been seriously triggering for Lady Kima.
After the team hunts and kills Hotis the rakshasa, Keyleth begins enthusiastically butchering his corpse to harvest the remains for the Slayer's Take, causing to Kashaw stumble away gagging. It's Played for Laughs and the others tease him for his squeamishness, but the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount goes into more detail about what exactly the ceremonies of Kash's patron deity, and wife, entail. Among the many horrors Kash experienced on his wedding night, on his fifteenth birthday, he may have witnessed his bride butchering and eating the wedding guests.
Percy's noticeable anxiety early in "Aramente to Pyrah," after Vox Machina learns that induction to the Slayer's Take includes being branded with the Guild's mark. It's played pretty light, complete with Grog frog-marching Percy down the stairs when he tries to hang back, and it winds up a moot point since the branding is magic and therefore not a big deal. Then you get to the Whitestone arc, with its revelation of Percy's Cold-Blooded Torture at the Briarwood's hands and his eventual compulsion to torture enemies, often by burning them with his gun. Doesn't take too much to guess that Percy may have been branded before.
- He also panics when he nearly drowns in the Raven Queen's temple in Episode 57. Then you remember that all the way back in his backstory video, he described jumping into a freezing river and passing out to escape the Briarwoods. He probably has a pathological fear of drowning, as well.
- Speaking of Pyrah, in "The Family Business", when Keyleth is talking to Cerkonos, the Flamespeaker mentions a certain young girl named Raishan who was living with the Fire Ashari for 4 years prior to the Chroma Conclave's attack on Emon. And then it's revealed that Raishan herself opened the tear in the Plane of Fire that led to Thordak's release. AND she's the ancient green dragon that attacked Vox Machina in "Omens" along with the rest of the Conclave. As if things weren't bad enough, Matthew Mercer confirmed that Raishan was among the Fire Ashari when Keyleth arrived for her Aramente training in "Aramente to Pyrah". Which means that she was there the entire time and no one was the wiser.
In "Crimson Diplomacy", Vax is knocked unconscious at the Briarwoods' feet. Scanlan heals him a tiny amount (just enough to get him back to consciousness). Lord Briarwood then immediately tries to grapple him and fails due to Scanlan's goofy distraction song, after which Vax flees to safety. The thing is, Lord Briarwood had to know that Vax was hanging on by a thread and that he would be turned if he were brought to unconsciousness by a vampire bite. Vax was one ridiculous distraction song from becoming a vampire.
Percy's confirmed to be in his early twenties, and says in Episode 24 that he escaped from the Briarwoods "four or five years ago". Even with the most generous math, he would have been nineteen or so when the Briarwoods invaded his home and tortured and killed his family. That in itself is bad enough until you do the math on Cassandra. There were three other siblings between her and Percival, meaning that - unless Whitney, Ludwig, and Oliver were triplets or something - Cassandra would have been fifteen at the absolute oldest.
It was briefly mentioned in "Dangerous Dealings", but then kind of glossed over what with the more pressing dragons rampaging through Tal'Dorei, but the nature of Vax's entanglement with the Clasp means that Vex'ahlia has A) a very determined and ruthless stalker and B) a child rapist who is now wearing her face.
In "Trial of the Take, Part 4", just as Vax deals the fatal blow to Hotis the Rakshasa who had threatened Vex's life, his last words are "I'll find you." He wasn't lying. The thing is, unless they are killed in the Nine Hells, Rakshasas are eventually resurrected until they are killed there. And once they come back, they exact revenge on the ones who killed them before, going after their friends and family as well. And then, in "Duskmeadow", under the guise of Gilmore he does come back and manages to trick Vax into isolating himself away from the party as well as completely removing his weapons and armor. And then, he stabs him with a poison dagger. To everyone, this probably meant that Gilmore was already dead, and chances were that if he managed to kill Vax... his sister and quite possibly Keyleth would've been the next to die. Fortunately, Gilmore was still alive and Hotis was destroyed again in "A Cycle of Vengeance", this time by Pike, but there's no denying that sooner or later, unless he is slain in the Nine Hells, he will return and have yet another target for revenge.
- Here's another scary thought. While he may have concentrated his efforts on revenge on Vax for having killed him, we know that Hotis hired assassins to kill Keyleth, and Kashaw. However, we don't yet know the fate of Thorbir, who hasn't been heard of since Episode 42, long before Hotis reformed and tried to kill Vax...
The Chroma Conclave already proved himself more than willing to raid cities for their treasure, and hoard it. Vasselheim so far is holding out, but should it fall, the Conclave might gain to every artifact currently held there, which at the very least includes the horn of Orcus. Just imagine how much more dangerous it would make them.
While it's not strictly stated to be canon, The Goblins Pathfinder One-Shot goes from hilarious to disturbing when you consider the fact that Zedd, the drummer of Scanlan's old troupe, made a cameo, then remember that Scanlan's mother died in a Goblin invasion. This one-shot may have depicted those very moments...
Dr. Ripley has been spying on the party ever since Percy took her gun. A genius without a conscience, who's obsessed with Percy, knows everything Vox Machina does and has heard every private moment Percy has had.
- It gets even worse: in episode 58 Percy mentions that he sleeps with the pistol under his pillow. Here's hoping he doesn't talk in his sleep...
- Also, Ripley is an established Torture Technician who canonically used the listening device on the gun to manipulate information. So who knows what she might have done to Kynan.
Similarly, Raishan has been skulking around Whitestone in the guise of Asum for a number of episodes. While Ripley was terrifying, all she really wanted was to kill Percy, which she nearly accomplished. By contrast, Raishan is actively invested in manipulating Vox Machina for her own gain, and she could feasibly target any of them.
Everything about the fates of the victims of Orthax. We learn in Episode 69, through Percy's resurrection ritual, that Orthax is indeed consuming the souls of anyone killed by one of his demonic weapons. Percy narrowly escapes that fate, but everyone he killed during the Whitestone Arc - the Briarwoods, Stonefell, and Professor Anders - would have been devoured by Orthax. Kind of disturbing, though at least they were all terrible people. But there are two more terrifying thoughts: One, Ripley's gun had four names including Percy's, and two blank barrels, meaning two other people might have been devoured already. Since they were enemies of Ripley, they could have been evil or good - and now we'll never know. Two, Vax and Grog came within inches of killing Cassandra while her name was on the List, meaning they narrowly inflicted that fate on a teenage girl. Oh dear.
In Episode 63, Vex'ahlia is offered a chance by Saundor to earn the power she needed to fight the dragons in exchange for her heart. She refuses. What's frightening, however, is what the alternative would've been if she had accepted. Had Vex accepted Saundor's offer, she would have become a part-Fey Plant Person, gaining +2 Constitution and a weakness to fire, and would have been "loaned" Fenthras until "her task was complete". Considering she would've been weak to fire, that would've made Thordak even more lethal to fight against, quite possibly to the point of flat-out, burnt-to-ashes instant death if his fire breath were to hit Vex full force in that state. And even if she somehow survived, what would happen to her after her "task was complete"? Would Saundor have taken her as his own forever?
Both times Thordak's underlings target Allura directly, they stop short of killing her. Vorugal checks her (thankfully empty) tower before destroying it in what would otherwise have been a lightning strike; Xanthas hits her with Feeblemind, which renders her as a wizard utterly helpless, while he's alone in a room with her...and then, despite no one discovering his duplicity until ten minutes later, does not follow it up with a physical attack she would be unable to fight off. Both of them are acting under Thordak's orders, striking at the woman he holds responsible for sealing him away. And he wants her alive.
- The equally horrifying follow-up thought—Feeblemind would be an inherently traumatizing spell, especially to a wizard. But it does not inherently cause fear, especially not the kind of hyperventilating half-sobbing terror in which Vox Machina finds Allura. That terror could be the simple result of finding herself suddenly trapped in the middle of a battle while incapable of coherent thought...but Xanthas was alone with her for at least ten minutes. We don't know that he didn't physically hurt her. We only know he didn't leave visible marks.
  - Allura may not even be certain of what was and was not done to her in that state.
- Judging by the condition they find her in—huddled in a corner, holding herself and whimpering, rushing to cling desperately to her friends but crying out and trying to escape when Pike moves to heal her—we get a very good idea of what Thordak wants for Allura. Stripped of the magic she used to bind him, stripped of the intelligence she used to defeat him, unable to escape, unable to defend herself, unable to speak, overwhelmed by a world she can't make sense of, and incapable of comprehending anything but fear, ever again.
  - But still capable of recognizing her friends—all of whom he intends to kill.
Now that Raishan is no longer an ally of Vox Machina, what's stopping the dragon who knows how to infiltrate Whitestone from getting vengeance on the adventuring party that tried to kill her when they least expect it? Fortunately, as of Episode 83, she's very extremely dead.
Keyleth falling to a bone devil's brutal strikes in Episode 93, coming close to death, nearly marked the moment of her first death. And then the horror of realization dawns on the party (and even Matt) that if she had failed her death saving throw after suffering an auto-crit, that would've meant the loss of Plane Shift, their only means of escape from the Nine Hells, and being sentenced to eternal suffering and damnation in prison. Even worse, she had a 45% chance of failing the save, which only further shows how close the party came to a TPK right then and there.
Percy's Tranquil Fury regarding the Trickfoots' false curse con gets much, much darker when you remember his background. A bunch of people coming to Whitestone, seemingly friendly and in need, but in the end only there to exploit his family? That was sure to bring back bad memories. It's worth mentioning that, when discussing the shadowy creature, Orthax was mentioned in-universe.
Keyleth's natural 20 when touching the siphon back in Episode 34 ends up being sort of an example of failure by success, in that it delayed the Shadowfell reveal considerably until Episode 94. Matt revealed on Talks Machina that Keyleth could’ve died from the damage it dealt, or gone unconscious and bled out on the other side. If she had made it through, she wouldn't have had Plane Shift and would've had to find a way back and started the Shadowfell stuff early. So they would've had to work out their priorities given that the Chroma Conclave attacked shortly thereafter.
Sam's comment in episode 102 about how Tary is on the floor weeping and holding his necklace while the rest of Vox Machina are fighting. The necklaces are enchanted to inform their wearers if one of them is unconscious. That means Tary had to feel Vex and Vax die.
At the end of the campaign, Vecna is sealed beyond the Divine Gate. However, Vecna's phylacteries are not. Should Vecna choose to kill himself or get himself killed, he could very well escape and regenerate through that horrifying loophole.

Campaign 2: 2018- 2021

In Episode 27, Beau hires a “Companion” for the night... in a town run by slavers. It’s very possible Beau just took advantage of a sex slave rather than someone who went into that line of work consensually.
In Episode 37, we finally get detailed information about Fjord's patron... Uk'otoa, a sealed away servant of the Cloaked Serpent, one of the Betrayer Gods! Considering the Dwendalian Empire's strict views on even benign deities, imagine what would have happened to Fjord if the Nein had learned this information from the Soltryce Academy.
In Episode 8, Caleb yelling "Take them out! Take them out!" after waking up the morning after a bandit attack is just at first taken to mean the arrows that he'd been shot with during the attack. But after learning in Episode 18 that Caleb had been brainwashed into killing his parents by burning down his home with them inside... that phrase takes on a very different meaning.
- Alternatively, learning in Episode 49 that Trent used to cut open his apprentices' arms and put crystals inside during experiments. Liam confirms this theory in Episode 49's Talks Machina.
Episode 30 carries a heavy implication that the reason Jester asks about Molly so quickly, and in such vulnerable tones, is that she heard Beau calling for him when he was killed in the ambush attempt. That would mean she heard Molly die feet away from her, while bound and unable to move, and has no way of knowing that everything happened so fast Molly was dead before anyone could have reacted. She wasn't meant to be on watch the night they were taken; she should have been safe in her tent and thus left alone, free to be part of the rescue mission. We know that Fjord blames himself for Molly's death because he thinks his complacency led to their capture... but ''Jester is their healer.]'
In Episode 49, we learn Nott used to be a Halfling before she was killed and brought back as a goblin through what is implied to be the Reincarnate spell. While the Reincarnate spell allows the DM the option of picking the form someone returns as, the form can also be random. It's possible Nott was killed and Reincarnated more than once to ensure she'd come back as a goblin.
In Episode 57, we learn that anyone "consecuted" who dies within a certain radius of a Beacon is reincarnated. The Nein have been carrying a Beacon all around Wildmount and beyond for several months. What if some of the antagonists they fought, like Avantika and Lorenzo, had been consecuted in previous lives? The Nein might have ensured they could be reborn...
In Episode 62, we learn that Trent's students are trained to be "Scourgers", or secret royal assassins for the Empire. Nott and Jester's earlier letter to Astrid mentions her by name, when she shouldn't even ''exist'' as anything more than a ghost story. Given that they signed the letter with "Lavorre", the likelihood of Jester's mother (and/or Jester herself) being in danger from Empire forces has drastically increased.
In the tail end of Episode 82, the Nein discover an Astral Dreadnought has been chained up and set to be used as some sort of personal room by Halas. The horror isn't the Dreadnought itself, although it IS plenty terrifying - it's the reinforcement that Halas is NOT someone the Nein should EVER meet, considering he was powerful enough to turn a CR 21 monster with an ability to INSTANTLY KILL SOMETHING into what is essentially a glorified Faraday Cage/study.
Ava Endelwood has the Mighty Nein steal back a ring that can be used to shape the dreams of others. Reani is guided by an Angel (at least apparently so) that speaks to her in her dreams. This raises the horrifying possibility that not all the things she's done have been furthering Samliel's aims. While it's ambiguous how good Samliel actually is, he at least encourages her to stop relying on him so much, but the woman with the Imp security system is very likely far less scrupulous.
More of a Fridge Tear Jerker when Jester uses scrying to check in on how Kiri is doing, which is a non-intrusive way of watching over her rather than something interactive like Sending. Which was all for the best, because Jester might have ended up having to explain to Kiri what happened to Mollymauk...
From what we know about the witch and Beau's father telling of their meeting, is unclear whether his marriage is genuine or only due to her boon. The fact that Beau's mother doesn't look particularly happy doesn't help.
Another Fridge Tear Jerker out of Narrative Telephone instead, where Marisha's story is about Beau wreaking havoc at a rival family winery. It may be the only time Beau has legitimately earned her father's approval - and it may not even be canon.
When Veth asks about the meat in episode 114 and the merchant mistakes her question for asking about the animals in general, there's a silly gag where she explains what a wolf and mammoth are to Veth. Except that in the description, Matt mentions that the mammoths are scavengers. Traditionally and historically, mammoths are herbivores. What the hell kind of things happened to turn a mammoth into a carnivore?
When Molly died, he was a level 5 Blood Hunter - not particularly powerful, as far as D&D characters go. Lucien, on the other hand, is powerful enough to one on one kill a member of one of the Cerberus Assembly, a feat that the Mighty Nein has been understandably reluctant to even seriously consider at this point in time. Taliesin mentioned once that Molly gaining levels was him remembering how to use talents that Lucien had. How powerful could Molly have become if he had managed to stick around?
The art book The Chronicles of Exandria contains the writings of Beau as an Expositor. The principal editor/annotator for it is Archivist Zeenoth. He is one of her abusers, responsible for her traumatic kidnapping, and he's being allowed to edit his victim's story. On Beau's page in the artbook, he even leaves a note requesting more discretion from the junior archivists about Thoreau Lionett, who "has been a very good friend to the Archive". The Doylist explanation is less horrifying: the choice of Zeenoth as annotator most likely happened before The Reveal. Taliesin, credited as one of the writers for the text, even dressed as Zeenoth for Halloween.
In the Campaign 2 wrap-up, Liam demanded to know who the members of the Tal'Dorei Council are. Matt told him that the last one just died because he asked. The last announced member of the Council is the Mistress of Coin, Lady Vex'ahlia de Rolo. If Matt decides to follow through with it, it wouldn't be the first time Liam is responsible for the death of one of his PC's family members (Vex and Caleb's parents). That's without mentioning all the other council members.
- Vex made an appearance, alive and well with a big, happy family, in campaign 3 - but she's still not off the hook yet.

Campaign 3: 2021 - Present

In Laudna's introductory scene with Imogen, she accidentally scares some dwarven children off - which saddens her, since she claims to love children. Given her backstory of being one of the Vox Machina corpses hung on the Sun Tree, one could only imagine her horror at seeing the young child who was "Pike" being tortured and strung up alongside the others.
- Also, Laudna's portrait art has her tilting her head to the side slightly. Some comments have been made that it's due to her being hanged from the Sun Tree, thus the odd angle she's at.

Fridge Logic

Percy's running gag of constantly introducing himself by his Overly Long Name. Funny, yes, but it's eventually revealed that said name includes both a patronymic (Fredrickstein) and his mother's family name (Klossowski). With that in mind, even if the extended de Rolo family "has influence elsewhere" as he once claimed, how the hell did no one on the Tal'dorei Council ever figure out his relationship to Whitestone and the Brairwoods? Yes, many of them were charmed, but even Seeker Asum — the Council's spymaster, who'd been specifically investigating and plotting against the Brairwoods and didn't fall under their charms until later — could sit at Vox Machina's dinner table and casually discuss the de Rolo family's supposed death from disease while Percival was directly across from him. What's more, it's specifically stated that the bridge project with Wildmount (ie, the reason the Briarwoods were in Emon in the first place) had been in the works for a decade prior, had always been an initiative between Wildmount, Emon, and Whitestone, and was something that the Briarwoods effectively inherited from the de Rolos along with the castle and lands. Which means that the Empire definitely had past political dealings with Lord Frederick and Lady Johanna de Rolo at the very least — and besides, what ruler wouldn't at least know the names of the people in control of neighboring sovereign states? The Briarwoods might be good at keeping secrets but they can't erase history.
- Taliesin himself conjectured that people might not believe him when he introduces himself as Percival de Rolo, and Whitestone is both very small and very isolationist. Also, the bridge is something that has been attempted, but not for a long time and the current incarnation of the plan is solely an excuse to get close to Sovereign Uriel.
- Matt addressed it in the campaign wrap up Q&A. People just think Percy's lying.

Fridge / Critical Role

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Fridge Brilliance

Fridge Horror

Fridge Logic