Critical Role has introduced countless characters over the course of a decade of storytelling. With three main campaigns and numerous smaller one-shots and mini campaigns, they have endless stories to pull from. “The Legend of Vox Machina” and “The Mighty Nein” adapt the first two campaigns. However, characters from the third have already been introduced into animation.

The most intriguing was brought in during the fourth season of “The Legend of Vox Machina.” Laudna is one of the main protagonists of Bells Hells, the adventuring party of campaign 3. She is intrinsically linked with Vox Machina. While she was officially introduced in season four, her origins actually tie back to the first season, which was shown to Vex.

In an exclusive interview with Temple of Geek, Sung Jin Ahn and Arthur Loftis discussed her introduction. Ahn shared insight into the writer’s room conversations surrounding her introduction. Loftis shared why Laudna as a character means so much to him.

How Did Laudna’s Potential Future Influence Her Legend of Vox Machina Introduction?

Temple of Geek: I loved the introduction of Laudna. I fully lost my mind when that happened. When you were planning her introduction, including how to show her magic, what was the process? Were you guys able to look at it just through the lens of Vox Machina? Or was it something where you guys had to be mindful of potentially having her be a character in another spinoff down the line if that happens?

Sung Jin Ahn:

I would say there was a loose thing of keeping mindful of potential future, whatever spinoffs and stuff, but obviously that was just more of hopeful, dreamy thoughts. They were just trying to mainly retroactively be faithful to her character and how all the lore lines up. As I was in the writer’s room listening to them discuss it, I was in the corner going, who’s Laudna? Luckily including Arthur and people in the writer’s room and obviously Sam [Riegel] and Travis [Willingham] everyone is more knowledgeable in that lore than I was.

Arthur Loftis:

I think one of the coolest things about Laudna just conceptually, taking her character out of it, is that she is a creation based on this conversation between the show and the campaign. It’s really cool seeing how we have all these characters that we are adapting from the original campaign. We make a whole series of TV based on that and then they see that and are like, “We can take someone you made from the show and put them back in the campaign later.” And now we’re seeing it come full circle again where that character’s actually a character in the show again. It’s pretty ridiculous and really cool to just see how much of that kind of cycles back and forth between the two.

Laudna is a deeply tragic character with ties to Vox Machina’s time in Whitestone and the Briarwoods. Marisha Ray, inspired by a traumatic moment in Vox Machina’s history that was fully fleshed out in “The Legend of Vox Machina” crafted the character. Laudna is one of the citizens of Whitestone killed by the Briarwoods and hung on the Sun Tree to send a message. She has been tied to Vox Machina through trauma and tragedy which was briefly explored when Vex found her.

In an exclusive interview Marisha Ray reflected on introducing Laudna in “The Legend of Vox Machina. She explained how the animated shows allow the team to retroactively weave Exandrian lore into the story earlier than it was initially introduced. This has been shown not just with Laudna, but Zerxus and other elements of the Calamity as well.

Marisha Ray Reflects On Introducing Laudna & Other Exandria Lore

Marisha Ray:

Matt kind of touched on this earlier in what he was saying, where it’s like, in campaign one, we were just scratching the surface. Even with what we did with campaign two, and especially campaign three, we were pulling from previous campaigns more. It’s kind of like retroactive canon being built. So obviously, even in the first season, we saw the bodies being hung from the tree in Whitestone. But man, even when we were doing season one of “The Legend of Vox Machina,” we hadn’t started campaign three yet, right?

The same thing happened with Zerxus as well. Where, as we were exploring and continuing to build on Exandria at the table, we’re able to take those elements and put them into the animated series and breathe the fresh light into it. So, it’s very fun. I loved it.

Temple of Geek: I lost my mind. Completely lost my mind when that popped up.

Travis Willingham:

That’s what we’re hoping for!

All four seasons of “The Legend of Vox Machina” are available on Prime Video now.