Critical Role has introduced the world of Aráman and many characters that populate it through the Overtures of Campaign 4. Now the cast has been split into three tables, and the trio of stories will begin to play out. Through these overtures, Dungeon Master Brennan Lee Mulligan, along with the players, introduced backstory and established dynamics between these characters.

The impressive cast of fourteen includes Whitney Moore, a new player at the Critical Role table. Moore plays Tyranny, a demon with ties to Wicander “Wick” Halovar, played by Sam Riegel. Tyranny and Wick are surprising additions to the Soldiers Table. Moore has brought a fresh perspective to the table, not just as a player, but with a complicated character who balances chaos, sensitivity, and a surprising amount of care for her unlikely companion.

In an exclusive interview with Temple of Geek, Moore shared insight into creating Tyranny. She teased how Tyranny fits in among her sisters and revealed that Tyranny fits a specific archetype. Moore also touched on the dynamic between Tyranny and Wick as well as the duality of Tyranny as a character.

Whitney Moore Reveals What She Misses From The Overtures

Temple of Geek: One of the things I find very cool about D&D characters in the actual play space is a lot of times there’s a core idea. Be it a thematic through line, or a philosophical question, or something that is really the thing that made the initial idea for the character. What was yours that you were looking to explore long-term, not just, “Okay, this is a funny bit, and I’ll continue”?

Whitney Moore:

“Okay, that’s a really good question. And I’m gonna have to keep some of it close to my chest. I don’t want to reveal too much. But I knew with Tyranny, there are some aspects of myself that I really have been working on in the last year or really reflecting on and a lot of where my personal pain lies. A lot of things that I yearn about and things that I fixate on. I wanted basically just a vessel to dump all of that into. And so, Tyranny is representative of, its shadow work, honestly.”

Temple of Geek: Therapy through D&D, a time-honored tradition. I really have loved the Overtures. I think it’s such a cool way for us to see all of this before we get into three different interconnecting campaigns. What was your favorite part of getting to play out a prologue or Session 0 on camera, instead of just privately, where everyone can see it?

Whitney Moore:

“Dude, honestly, the thing that I’m gonna miss the most is having everybody there and us all trying so hard not to laugh and scream offstage. When we got the first roll, the first nat 20, everyone was like, “Oh, sh-t, we have to be quiet.” That’s the thing that I’m gonna miss the most: just having everyone there and hanging out and watching it together. But also just seeing the way that none of us knew who was going to get tagged in. The way that Brennan was spinning all these plates and being like, “You in, you out, you in.” It was so much fun and so chaotic. I understand why we can’t do that all the time, but I want to do that all the time.”

“Tyranny Does Represent An Archetype”

Temple of Geek: What was your favorite part of playing a demon in a world without Gods? Because I thought that was a very interesting dynamic, especially when Tyranny is talking about the relationship that her family has with Wick’s family.

Whitney Moore

“First of all, I very much was like, “Brennan, I want to be a demon.” And he was like, “Hell yeah, okay, we’ll figure it out.” So I gave Brennan so much work to be like, You figure it out. How does this work? What is it like to be a demon in Aráman? I gave that up to him. And of course, it’s Brennan. So he is just having a ball with it. But I think it’s a really interesting time, right? Because the Gods are dead, the undead have no place to go, and souls have no place to go.

I think it’s funny approaching it as Tyranny, because she doesn’t have a dog in the fight; she kind of doesn’t care. She’s like, I always want to be hanging out with my friends and going on adventures. But it is really interesting, because I think that impacts the way the world around her sees her. As someone who really wants to be out in the world and be involved in humanity and all of its trappings. There’s a hard time accessing that because you’re already marked with something.”

Temple of Geek: I completely agree. Do you think Tyranny was always a misfit among her sisters? Or was it truly just that Wick had that much of an impact in that short of time?

Whitney Moore:

“Yeah, that’s a really good question. That has a lot to do with the sort of approach that Brennan and I have had to demons in this world, [which] is that they represent a certain archetype or archetypal energy. As a big, big Carl Jung fan, I’m all about that. Tyranny does represent an archetype. It has not been revealed yet. She does not know what it is yet. And it is, I will say, different from her sisters. Though she’s only been on this plane for a little bit, the archetype itself has existed long before anybody in Aráman.”

“I Love A Doomed Narrative”

Temple of Geek: One of my favorite parts about Tyranny is the duality of this character. Because you have a character that on the surface can seem very scary, but she’s very sensitive. She’s very chaotic, but she’s very caring. I think one of my favorite moments is the fact that Wick does want to help her and thinks he can save her. And her saying, “I can’t be saved. That’s not a thing.” When really, it’s like, can’t you, though? What was your favorite part of infusing the character with that duality, and also how do you want to play it out through the rest of the campaign?

Whitney Moore:

“Well, I love a doomed narrative. I love this sort of push-pull of the nature versus nurture of it all. Are we the sum of our parts? Is it truly up to us to just go and build ourselves by hand? Or is there stuff that’s locked in that we can’t change? And I love exploring that as a concept. I really don’t know what the answer is with Tyranny. That’s what’s so exciting about all of this; it could go any direction. I think Tyranny has some more stuff that hasn’t been revealed yet. She’s going to need to make some real decisions about how she wants to interact with the world. And I think she’s up against some time constraints.”

Temple of Geek: You’re playing a character that knows a lot of backstory about another character, which is such a cool layer to have there. What was the process of creating that with Brennan? Did Sam know all of it? Did you know things even Sam didn’t know? What was that process?

Whitney Moore

“I knew that I wanted to have Sam and me to have a sort of dynamic going in. I told him some things about my character. He told me some things about his character. And then Sam made a whole-ass religion. He handed me this binder of penance and rules and prose and rhymes. And I was like, “You’re insane.” The funniest part was with the reveal in Episode Two. I want to say 10 or 20 minutes before the show, I was like, “Hey, Brennan, do I know?” And he was like, “Do you think you know?” And I was like, “Yeah.” And he was like, “Great, go tell Sam.”

I was like, “Sam, I knew the whole time.” It was so immediate because I was like, Oh, I need to decide how much of this information I am privy to. That became a fun thing because Brennan was like, “Well, I actually really prefer if there’s exposition that’s needed that the players do it instead of me having to just like monologue at them.” And so, I got to have the fun moment where I got to tell Sam his backstory, which is so silly. That moment was crazy.”

Whitney Moore Talks About Tyranny’s Relationship With Wick

Temple of Geek: The way you played it was so great, because you can just see the sadness and the resignation of, “Wow, you’re about to learn everything you think is a lie. This sucks.“

Whitney Moore:

“It was a really nice opportunity for me to give some pathos to Tyranny too, because she’s so chaotic in the first episode. But she really does care about Wick, kind of in spite of herself. It sucks to see somebody’s entire world get crushed in front of you, and you have to be the arbiter of that.”

Temple of Geek: Yeah, especially because in Episode 3, he still isn’t really there yet. He is not totally clocked in. I’m like, “Dude, everything’s a lie. This is your one ally.” He still is not there. So, it’s very interesting. What do you think was the catalyst to Tyranny caring about Wick? Because it doesn’t seem like that was the initial plan. It was more, “I’m here to manipulate you for your family because you’re the face.” How did that change?

Whitney Moore

“I think that genuinely, Tyranny is sensitive. I think that there are things in her backstory that will make this make more sense in context when we get there. But I think there’s something really endearing about spending a lot of time with someone who really believes and really hopes and really has a solid idea of who they are, even if who they are is based off of untruths. I think that he really wants Tyranny to be good and to be saved.

Tyranny has a different relationship than her sisters do with Wick’s siblings, because they’re all in on what’s happening. There’s sort of like, “Oh, we’re in cahoots to do this, to do these deeds.” Whereas with Wick and Tyranny, he really believes that he can have an effect on her. And you know what? He kind of does, and there’s something that’s just so sweet about it. I think that Tyranny got a very different experience on the plane of Aramán than she was expecting to and certainly is now.

“Critical Role Campaign 4” returns November 6. The first four episodes are available now on Beacon. The first four episodes are available now on Critical Role’s YouTube.