Critical Role has wrapped its third campaign, which focused on Bells Hells, but their past heroes, Vox Machina and Mighty Nein, played important roles as well. While the Mighty Nein’s main adventure wrapped in 2021, they have reappeared a few times. First in a reunion one shot and then the final stretch of Campaign Three.

On the publishing side, “Mighty Nein Origins” shows their stories before coming together, while the “Chronicles of Exandria Mighty Nein” are art books focused on their adventures. One of their main antagonists, Lucien, was the focus of his own novel. And of course the highly anticipated animated series, “Mighty Nein,” will bring Campaign Two to life in a new way.

“[The Mighty Nein] Are My Adventurers”

Carr revisited a portion of the Mighty Nein’s adventures when writing “Chronicles of Exandria Mighty Nein Part Two.” In an exclusive interview with Temple of Geek, Carr revealed why this was so fun and meaningful for her. She shared why they hold a special place in her heart even compared to Vox Machina and Bells Hells.

Dani Carr:

“The Mighty Nein were the first of the three big campaigns where they really felt like mine. Vox Machina, I started watching as a fan. Then came into working with CR about halfway through the run, right at the end of the Chroma Conclave arc. But I wasn’t really taking notes. I was mostly just watching and remembering everything that was happening. But then with the Mighty Nein, that was when we started doing Critical Recap.

That was when I started really taking notes and trying to make sure that I was really paying attention to everything that happened. Obviously, I loved Vox Machina as a fan, I really loved the Mighty Nein as me following their journey. It was no longer just entertainment. It was no longer just, oh, I really like watching this as just a thing that is fun for me to do. It became work number one. But it also became a sense of duty. I knew that I was trying to be able to keep people like me, who I had once been, watching it for fun and watching it in their free time, up to date. It was a duty that I took seriously.

I really just paid so much and such close attention to them. I tried to make sure that I was catching the details, catching the interactions between all the characters. It was so important to me to make sure that the intricacies of who they were and their relationships was getting through to the audience when they couldn’t catch up or when they had fallen behind and were like, well, let me just read this.

Let me just listen to this so that I can still know what’s going on. The Mighty Nein was the first time that I started working on something like that, and so they became even more dear to me because of that. It was important for me going back and looking at these arcs again to recapture that feeling of, no, but these are my adventurers.”

The Mighty Nein Deserve To Have Their Story Recorded

Campaign Two seems to be when the Lore Keeper aspects of Carr’s job truly came into focus. This became important in the Critical Recaps including the animated version. Part of her goal in “Chronicles of Exandria Mighty Nein Part Two” was to capture that feeling, but through Iva Deshin. The Mighty Nein have largely been forgotten to history as opposed to how Vox Machina were celebrated. Iva stands out as one of the few people who wants a record of their heroic exploits. Carr worked to not only highlight some of the bigger moments in this stretch of the Mighty Nein’s adventures, but make them hit fans in the heart.

Dani Carr:

“Their story is important to me, and I know that it’s going to be important to other people. Through my passion and through my love, I want to make other people feel that passion and that love and to care about them as much as I do. Being able to go back and look at these big points in time whenever Yasha is taken from them and things like that. There’s moments where even Iva has self-doubt and, just by knowing what happened to them, feels that sense of depression and sadness and weight. It affects her in the same way that the media we watch and the things that we allow to affect us. Affect us in time too.

If you’re reading a book and it’s really sad, you will be sad. If you’re watching a movie and it’s really exciting, you’ll get the adrenaline pumping. In the same way, if a friend of yours is going through it, you will empathize with them. I really wanted to get across that she was feeling it because again, of that emotional journey that she was going on with them, even though she was separated and trying to still keep her own spirits up again to allow this story to be told. Because she knew they were doing the work that no one was seeing. It was important to her to make sure that at least in some way someone might know.”

The Mighty Nein are a motley crew that grow to love one another. Their desire to help people and protect each other is a key motivator. While Vox Machina felt they needed to step up in part because they had been dubbed, “heroes of the realm,” Mighty Nein had no such expectations. Their adventures were often dictated by how they could help one of their own. Their heroics grew from this into stopping unknown evils devastating Exandria.

“We Still Don’t Know Really Anything About What The Chained Oblivion Is”

Campaign Three was a deep exploration of the Gods of Exandria. The focus was primarily on the Prime Deities, but they all came into play by the end. While the Gods played a part in the other two campaigns they weren’t the main focus in the same way. The Mighty Nein faced followers of two of the mysterious Betrayer Gods. Carr broke down how it felt to look back at these aspects of the Mighty Nein’s adventures with the knowledge she gained from Campaign Three.

Dani Carr:

“It was really interesting, especially because of the Chained Oblivion. With the Chained Oblivion being who Obann realized they were accidentally serving. The Chained Oblivion is such a different entity from the prime deities or the betrayer gods. It was really fun for me to explore how Iva ends up kind of developing a bit of a relationship with the Wild Mother. Seeing the Arbor Exemplar was such a beautiful big deal to her, and it was this incredible experience that she had to see this tree in the middle of this barren wasteland.

But in terms of the Chained Oblivion, especially with what we know now, it was interesting to see how Obann had done so much manipulating of his own, but then was manipulated in turn by an entity that we still know nothing about. We’ve learned, in Campaign Three, so much about the Pantheon, but we still don’t know really anything about what the Chained Oblivion is. We just know that it is not one of these gods, and that makes it almost more terrifying. Looking back and it’s like, oh, oh, that’s very scary. That’s very upsetting. So, if anything, I felt a general sense of fear of what almost could have happened.”

The Chained Oblivion is technically classified as a Betrayer God. It is completely different from the other members of the pantheon. Its origins remain a mystery and it doesn’t function in the same way as any of the other Gods. The Mighty Nein faced off against many enigmatic terrors, including the Somnovem of Aeor. However, the Chain Oblivion is a special kind of scary. They never really faced off against it only a misguided follower who had been tricked. Its true abilities were never shown. Based on what Carr said had the Chained Oblivion truly come into play that could have been the end for these heroes.

Seeing how the Mighty Nein’s adventures are interpreted by Iva Deshin is fun, heartbreaking, and at times silly. Travis Willingham has teased that the animated series won’t follow the campaign exactly. This was further proved by the animatic shown at Comic Con which seemed to be a moment from session 0, off screen. How their story is adapted could bring elements of the larger Exandria into play and perhaps show more of their adversaries like the Chained Oblivion.

“Chronicles Of Exandria Mighty Nein Part Two” is available now for purchase.