The Legend of Vox Machina is based on a Dungeons & Dragons campaign played live by the troupe of voice actors, now adapted as an animated series. The original D&D campaign was...well, like a D&D campaign, with the actors improvising their way through a lot of fetch quests and monster encounters. For the animated adaptation, the team was able to think in a more structured way and drill down on the character relationships. That will continue in the upcoming third season, which will have surprises for even those familiar with the original campaign.
“We get to show these intimate conversations we didn’t get to show throughout the game, because you didn’t want to take away from, you know, oh, we’re going and fighting this big thing,” star Laura Bailey (Vex'ahlia) told TV Insider. “But now we actually get to take those moments and say what we wanted to say...It’s so beautiful to see, you know, relationships growing in the show and growing in different ways. Because we’re seeing all different aspects of these characters coming together and then being forced apart at the same time. It’s really impressive to be able to show the scope of the worlds that we’re showing and still be able to get these intimate moments, these episodes."
Part of the appeal of The Legend of Vox Machina was that it captured the feeling of palling around with your buddies role-playing through a fantasy adventure, so I hope the third season doesn't completely lose that feeling. But a TV show is not a D&D campaign, and I don't begrudge the cast for wanting to refine the experience.
“Especially in later episodes of Vox Machina from the campaign, a lot of it was fetch quests and getting the vestiges and getting these things to fight the Chroma Conclave," said Marisha Ray, who plays the druid Keyleth. "There was a decent amount of precaution put into this season to make sure that it just didn’t come across as very repetitive and redundant. With getting powerful items and new abilities and leveling ourselves up, it’s kind of not too dissimilar to what I imagine a Dungeon Master has to deal with all the time as your characters get beefier, which is making sure that there are still very real stakes for the characters. So as Keyleth gets more and more powerful and hones her abilities, you still want to make sure that it is grounded and that there still feels like adequate challenges and stakes when it’s coming to this kind of scripted format.”
Liam O'Brien, who plays Vex'ahlia's brother Vax’ildan (they go by Vex and Vax, obviously), promises that the third season will further develop the relationship between Vax and Keyleth, because a show without a will-they-won't-they romance subplot is a show without sunshine. But they may not always be happy developments; O'Brien teases that there are some heartbreaking water ahead:
"I think people are going to be happy with the scale and the depth of this season coming up and I think people are going to like how much we’re about to hurt them. I mean that. And they might go, ‘Oh, no, how could you? How could you?’ But they’re gonna like it."
The Legend of Vox Machina season 3 will debut on Prime Video on October 3. Episodes will come out in groups of three. With 12 episodes to go around, it'll be a month before the season ends.
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