“Critical Role” has created some truly iconic villains across multiple campaigns. “The Legend of Vox Machina” has brought in some of the most iconic antagonists of the franchise with the Briarwoods, the Chroma Conclave, and now the Whispered One. The Whispered One has proven to be a cunning, conniving megalomaniac.

Initially introduced in the first season, the dangers of the Whispered One weren’t even on Vox Machina’s radar. However, in the wake of the Chroma Conclave’s destruction, the Whispered One’s followers have proven to be insidious. Infecting those without hope or help. The Whispered One proved to be perhaps the most powerful enemy Vox Machina has faced yet with a plan precisely executed to split them apart, turn them against one another, and destroy the titular heroes.

In an exclusive interview with Temple of Geek, Arthur Loftis and Sung Jin Ahn share insight into the Whispered One. They explain the approach to designing the Whispered One and his lieutenants. They also reflected on introducing this antagonist in the first season as they finally explore who he is.

The Whispered One “Is Probably The Most Labored Over Character”

Temple of Geek: I was curious about what the thought process was with the artists and with Phil when creating the final look for the Whispered One after the big ceremony and everything when we finally see him as the big bad in those final moments of the finale.

Arthur Loftis:

I think from a character design perspective, this is probably the most labored over character. In fact, looking back at it, the main cast, Phil, they just sprung out of his brain. There really wasn’t that much back and forth. And now we’re coming to the end of seven years of making the show. How do we really top ourselves and make the biggest, baddest villain we can? So it passed through several artists’ hands before Phil finally brought it to finish, just looking for as many ideas and big silhouettes. Arthur Tang, one of our main designers, also helped throw ideas at the wall and see what stuck. And there are plenty of things that we were trying to nod at while other things that we for reasons had to avoid. And I think we did a great job coming up with something that really feels unique, but also it was very clearly this kind of litch villain. All the flavor of that is still retained.

Sung Jin Ahn:

I think the fun part we always knew was coming was, okay, there’s definitely all this litch necrotic tones and themes coming along. And I think even in the early, when we’re first trying to conceptualize Whisper One, Travis would describe King on the throne, have a powerful presence and all that, which I get, it totally makes sense. But then it’s like in my mind, I was like, this character is going to be very withered and pruny for the hashtag undead stuff. So I think that’s why we went really ham with Whispered One shoulder silhouette, the crown molding on his head because his actual limb and torso, it’s all skeletal, zombie-ish, all that undead kind of tone. So there’s a lot of thinness and all that stuff. But luckily for our artist’s brains, we love that juxtaposition where we can play a contrast and get creative with that in the design.

Temple of Geek: I love the design, especially compared to us seeing him throughout the season. He just looks like the most basic person ever.

Sung Jin Ahn:

Yeah. I think we had just a fun joke internally because his character name was Gideon, his disguise and stuff, but we used to call him Midian just because he’s supposed to be this, probably just be the most normal guy, right?

Arthur Loftis:

Very vanilla, just a guy living next door kind of vibe.

Sung Jin Ahn:

Although I think we still made him a little too handsome. We just can’t help ourselves.

Arthur Loftis:

He’s pretty shredded too when his shirt comes up.

The Legend of Vox Machina Developed “A Language For Necrotic Magic”

Temple of Geek: I love that we were kind of introduced to the magic of the Whispered One all the way back in season one. What have you guys learned since then that really helped you to flesh it out and develop it even more with season four and season five?

Arthur Loftis:

We’ve kind of developed, I guess, a language for Necrotic Magic. We’ve seen Delilah using Necrotic Spells since season one. She kind of uses something to hike her hair incredibly. So in the first episode, which kind of motivates Pike to her broken angle, she goes back and sees the Everlight. And we’ve kind of been using a lot of the same shape language since then, but I would say that it’s evolved and become more detailed as everything in this show has over time. Maybe the true character arc of the show is that everything is more detailed. If you see season one background paint and season one effects design compared to where we are now, it’s ludicrous how much everything we put into the show now. I think we’re reaching for that kind of anime level of insane realism with a lot of stuff.

Sung Jin Ahn :

Yeah. I mean, I’ll be honest, back in when we saw a glimpse of the Whispered One in season one, I was not playing that far ahead. I was just trying to get that episode done because it was like a crazy fight between Vox Machina and Delilah and Silas and just Zigarot epicness. But I think as Arthur was saying, just the natural course of working with such talented artists and this passion always being there and us always wanted to try to push the bar. The language just naturally and organically refined itself leading up to season four.

Temple of Geek: And then I loved the Whispered One lieutenants and how you guys were able to bring that aspect in because it’s not really something we explored in the original campaign. What was the creation process? Because we get these almost broken mirror aspects from what we see in Vox Machina.

Sung Jin Ahn:

I mean, the creation process was kind of interesting where our lead character designed Phil Brasa, he really loved just a whole new … Whenever it’s like, “Hey, we got to design and create all new baddies and try to create a whole new design language for this. ” He really had fun, almost too much fun because they ended up looking too cool and we had to … That was a constant thing, actually the first iterations were actually too cool. It almost looked almost like final badass. And at that point we’re so early in this new season four, we had to keep the track, keep in mind the overall trajectory and buildup and all that. So we had to actually make them feel a little bit more … I guess that’s the best description is the first earlier design where they were like, “Oh, these are finals badass cool design work.” But we had to just make them, like you said, lieutenants, just more smaller pack leaders and that the designs don’t really take up too much of the visual space in the story.

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