Headscratchers / The Legend of Vox Machina

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Everlight and Pike

• This might be too early to ask and maybe there will be an answer in the next episode, but why is the Everlight mad at Pike? In the show, she didn’t do anything wrong in the Briarwood fight that caused her holy symbol to fracture.
  • If it runs off typical D&D/Pathfinder style rules, magic users need a focus for their magic. In Pike's case, as a divine caster, she needs a (not broken) holy symbol of her deity. Odds are this is a way to include Pike in an adventure she was mostly absent for without having to entirely rewrite sections to account for her magic powers being available.
  • Delilah damaged Pike's holy symbol during the fight.
  • This may also be an adaptation of an element of the Underdark arc, when Pike's holy symbol cracks and her powers weaken after she violates the Everlight's teachings and principles.
  • (OP here) This was what I was referring to. I was remembering the symbol cracking in the original specifically because it was symbolic of her straying from the Everlight's path. Someone on Tumblr proposed that the symbol cracked because Sylas' taunting of "Your gods can't help you now" made Pike briefly believe him and doubt herself in a moment of desperation and fear.
  • The crack also might just be a crack that wouldent normally effect her ability to cast spells, but its her self doubt and lack of faith that comes form her worrying over that crack that causes the issue
  • As revealed in Episode 9, Pike's personal worries that she wasn't acting properly as a follower of the Everlight due to her time with Vox Machina is the primary reason her connection was severed. After coming to terms with who she is, her powers have been restored.

Dog-person

• So, in the first episode, one of the other patrons that starts fighting Vox Machina looks like an anthropomorphic dog. And he/she/they looks so specifically like a dog-person that it seems unlikely that they are a Gnoll or Werewolf. Any idea what this person is? Am I missing something from D&D and/or Exandria lore?
  • Probably a gnoll, they are listed in the Tal'Dorei Reborn sourcebook as existing in Exandria and generally living alongside the other sentient races. Werewolves transform like in most media, so that is less likely.
  • I wouldn't take the D&D lore too seriously. The blue dragon's appearance was altered likely to avoid trademark issues with Wizards of the Coast. Its possible the appearances of other monsters and races have been altered as well.
  • OP here. Ah, I hadn't considered the licensing stuff. In that case, yeah, they are probably a gnoll, but visually tweaked to avoid trouble with Wizards.
  • Just going by the streams, the Exandria setting includes quite a few types of animal people, such as the eisfuura (bird-folk such as Cerrit from Calamity), pachydan (elephant-folk), and katari (cat-people such as Ishir the innkeeper in Campaign 3). Might as well have some dog-folk too.

Briarwoods and Cassandra

• What in-universe reason do the Briarwoods have to hide Cassandra's survival? The out of universe reason is obvious in that (barring the red band trailer straight up showing Cass) they want to make her survival The Reveal. In the original, Delilah taunts Percy by telling him he should visit his family once in a while. In the series, she specifically refers to Percy as "the pup who survived" (even though Cassandra also did), and merely says he's always welcome back home.
  • During the stream, Vox Machina's scuffle with the Briarwood was far less one-sided. Sylas almost got himself killed and Delilah got hit pretty hard and they had to flee using a teleportation spell after Percy blew their coach's wheel away. They were wary of the party and needed a strong insensitive to make sure Percy would come to them in a hurry, without having time to make more allies. In the adaptation, they pretty much curbstomped Vox Machina and Percy doesn't represent the slightest threat to them in their mind, so this isn't taunting for the sake of trap, but really just a dick move.
  • The simple answer may be that they didn't think they needed to. As of yet, we don't know (in this series) exactly what happened to Percy after Cassandra took her arrows and he thought she died. If they thought that Percy thought Cassandra was just wounded and he abandoned her, they wouldn't have to taunt him that she was alive. They might taunt him that she was working with them. Alternately, they might be keeping it for a surprise attack in the future.
• What reason did Cassandra have to tell Percy to inspire the rebellion if she was on the Briarwoods' side, whether by force or by Stockholm Syndrome, the whole time?
  • To get them all out in the open and crush them once and for all. The Briarwoods just underestimated how competent Vox Machina can be when they have a reason to.

Krieg

• Krieg. General of the Emon Arms. Respected member of the Council of Tal'Dorei. Presumably has been around for a while, considering the trust he was given. So was Krieg a long con by Brimscythe? Or was Krieg a real person and Brimscythe took his place? Some combination of the two?
  • According to the Critical Role wikia, Brimscythe's schemes were unaffiliated with the Conclave, and in the divvying up afterwards he wanted Emon for himself. A long con sounds reasonable. Granted, the show is in its own canon and not that of the stream, but given that blue dragons are egomaniacs who love power and authority, it would be in-character for Brimscythe to have both his human and dragon identities in positions of power.

Earrings of Whisper

• In the stream, the twins had 2 of the 4 Earrings of Whisper crafted by Tiberius, who along with his player, Orion Acaba, left the campaign and respectively parted ways with Critical Role. There's been no mention of them obtaining such earrings thus far, so, how is Vex able to tell when her brother is in grave danger after he whispered the "chenga" safeword?
  • When Vax went down during the stream, Matt described Vex as having a sudden feeling that something was very wrong and that Vax was in trouble. The same thing appears to have happened here.
  • Yup, Twin Telepathy seems at play here. No mention was made of the earrings at any moment.

Kerrion race

• What race/species is Kerrion Stonefell supposed to be? For that matter, what the heck are those dog things Delilah sends after Vox Machina? They look like the offspring of a displacer dog and the Demogorgon.
  • Looks like a Duergar to me.
  • The dogs seem to be necrocrafts of sorts.

Grog's mind

• When Professor Anders took over Grog's mind, why did none of them try to shoot Anders who was both unprotected and standing perfectly still?
  • As the possessed Grog was the more active threat at the moment, they prioritized subduing him. Vex later changes priorities to attacking Anders when she realizes fighting Grog is going nowhere.
  • It wasn't their turn yet.

Healing

• In the first episode, Pike's healing fails, and someone dies because of it. But... she's not the only healer in the party. High-level rangers like Vex have limited healing, high-level bards like Scanlan have limited healing, and druids like Keyleth have lots of healing. Why couldn't one of them lend a hand?
  • Vex and Scanlan don't seem to have healing spells in this show as the cartoon isn't operating that closely to D&D mechanics due to being a different universe than the original webshow. As for Keyleth, it's established later on how she isn't as proficient in healing as Pike is, and needs specific materials as shown when she healed Cassandra.
  • Two things: the party in the show is clearly not as proficient as the party was when the Briarwoods arc took place in the stream. Secondly, and more generally, this isn't a D&D show. It is inspired by a D&D campaign but the creators and cast have been clear that they didn't write the show according to D&D rules. Considering that media that has tried to use D&D rules to control a narrative generally turn out disappointing, this is probably a good thing.
  • Putting more of a limitation on who has access to healing helps the series keep the stakes high. In a D&D campaign, where an unlucky roll or two of the dice can turn an encounter sour in a hurry, a party needs a broad variety of healing options so they're not screwed if their primary healer gets taken out of commission. For a scripted narrative, on the other hand, it would rob the scenes of urgency if half the party had reliable healing abilities on tap.

Try Doing Some Good This Time?

• Pike's suggestion for Vox Machina to "do some good" is weird and kind of comes out of left-field. While a nice sentiment, how exactly would going out of their way to be heroes improve the party's living situation?
  • Since the current way they were doing things as adventurers weren't doing them any good, Pike believed they might as well have tried a different angle. It's understandable to think that doing good will lead to rewards, especially considering how slaying the dragon that's been terrorizing villages led to Vox Machina finally getting a home.
  • Pike's personal plot in the first season is coming to terms with the company she keeps and how she behaves when she's with them, so it makes sense that she'd want to push them towards doing morally upstanding deeds. Besides, they're out of money and have no prospects, so it's not as if doing some good is going to make their situation any worse.

Vex's Dragon Sense

• How is Vex able to sense dragons?
  • Ranger stuff.
  • To elaborate, in the original canon Vex is a Ranger and has the ability Primeval Awareness, which allows her to sense specific types of creatures within a certain radius (a radius that expands if she is in a favored terrain). Vex's favored enemies include dragons specifically because of her backstory, and she uses Primeval Awareness to sense dragons more often than she does for anything else.
    As to how she's able to do it in TLOVM's canon, we're not told, since it's not a 1:1 adaptation of Critical Role with all the class abilities therein; in the webshow, for example, Vex could use minor healing spells, while in TLOVM, she doesn't. She says that "I've studied dragons my entire life [...] I can feel when they're close", so I think we're meant to assume that it's connected to her determination to study dragons. We may find out more about how it works in season 2, since Vox Machina will be facing off against four dragons.

Scanlan's power

• Why is Scanlan's magic so weak? He was a lot more powerful in the campaign.
  • This is a different universe than the original webshow. So certain characters like Vex, Keyleth, and Scanlan don't have the same level of magical abilities as they did in the websjow.

No Mercy tactics

• When fighting the Briarwoods in episode 3, why didn't Percy go into No Mercy mode until after they left?
  • 'No Mercy Percy' only appears when his to-be victim is actually at his mercy, when they're either disarmed and helpless (like Anders and Delilah) or are simply not a threat regardless (like Stonefell).

Tavern keeper

• What was the tavern keeper? A minotauress or some kind of werecow?
  • They are a chaotic good, middle-aged, nonbinary, changeling bard created by Matt and the Twitch chat in the Tavern Keeper Build video.

Cassandra as a hostage

• Why didn't Percy shoot Anders in the fucking face when he had a knife to Cassandra's throat?
  • Probably out of worry that Anders would slit Cassandra's throat before he fired the bullet.
  • Or worry that he might accidentally hit Cassandra if Anders shoves her in the way.

Tusked guys in the intro

• Which species might the tusked guys in the intro (those that Vax and Vex are fighting) be? They resemble Warcraft trolls, but in D&D-based series, they are probably something else?
  • D&D inspired. While this was originally a TTRPG they have made a number of cosmetic changes to distance themselves from Wizards of the Coast. Using something that looks more at home in Warcraft isn't totally out of left field for them.