Critical Role Campaign 3

Themes:

  • Abandonment: Characters explore negative feelings of having been left by or separated from loved ones. Sometimes they are reunited and confront the person about their resentment.
  • Adult humor: Jokes are often raunchy or deal with bodily functions. There is a lot of swearing.
  • Ageism: Many jokes about dying from old age and what age effects.
  • Alcohol: Characters frequently drink, and many scenes take place in bars. Sometimes alcoholism is depicted or discussed.
  • Assassination attempt: A character's backstory involves being present for an assassination attempt on their leader and losing people in the attack.
  • Black goo: A black goo substance is part of a character's monstrous transformation and frequently described.
  • Blood and gore: Frequent scenes of injury or combat, often to the death.
  • Body Horror (Form of Dread): A spell is used that transforms the character into something horrifying of their choice and is described when used.
  • Body horror (transformation): Character backstories involve unwanted body transformations that occurred after traumatic events.
  • Class divide: The story highlights the way opportunities for people change based on their money and connections.
  • Complicated family relationships: Many characters have complicated relationships with their families, including abuse and neglect.
  • Conspiracies: Many in-world conspiracy theories are discussed. Some turn out to be true conspiracies affecting the characters.
  • Corruption: Certain powers cause a distressing progressive effect as the character levels up.
  • Creepy Whispers: When using mental communication spells, Laudna's words are echoed by the cast collectively overlaying their voices to make ghostly whispers.
  • Death, dying, and grief: Many character backstories deal with death, and characters lose people close to them during the story. Characters often discuss their grief and how they're processing it.
  • Debates about personhood: A character questions when a conscious being qualifies as a person and the nature of agency and consciousness.
  • Dislocations, breaks, and decay: A character's body is partly decaying and frequently breaks down for comedic effect. This includes weak joints that frequently dislocate and are quickly reset and broken bones that quickly heal.
  • Exotic pet: A character has a dangerous supernatural exotic pet with some intelligence.
  • Experimental medicine: A character's backstory involves having experimental medicine used on them.
  • Exploitation (debt): Substantial debt is used as leverage against a person, forcing them to repay it in labor.
  • Fear of crowds: A character expresses distress at being in crowded spaces.
  • Flesh Tongue: Running joke that FCG has a fleshy tongue.
  • Food: Frequent scenes set at restaurants or during mealtimes. Often players snack at the table.
  • Guns: In Campaign 3, gun usage has become common knowledge and characters outside of whitestone now use and reference them more than before.
  • Heights: Frequent scenes where characters are on tall land formations, in cable cars, flying, or otherwise far above the ground.
  • Horror monsters: Many different kinds of horror creatures appear. Including corrupted creatures, creatures that mutate, ghosts, giant insects, carnivorous plants, things that aren't animals, undead, werewolves, and more.
  • Inconsistent time: Time in different planes working differently causing gaps in experienced time for characters.
  • Institutional childcare: A character's backstory involves growing up in an orphanage.
  • Kleptomania/petty theft: A character steals very frequently for the thrill of it, sometimes endangering the group.
  • Law Enforcement: All cities have been shown to have armed guards with law enforcement powers.
  • Loss of control/compulsion: Occasionally characters experience moments where they lash out without conscious direction. Repeated conversations happen acknowledging the possible triggers and mitigating tools to help each other manage it.
  • Lying: Characters frequently lie.
  • Mental magic: Characters can shape the thoughts of others and control their behavior.
  • Mind reading: Psychic powers are used to read and speak into other people's minds. Sometimes this is secretive or unwanted.
  • Misogyny: Repeated jokes that use sexism and alpha male beliefs to highlight that they are harmful and incorrect ideologies.
  • Missing time: For various reasons, characters lose long stretches of time in their lives and are separated from their past because of it.
  • Monstrous transformation: Characters transform into monstrous forms. Sometimes this is in their control and sometimes it's not. The transformations are often described in graphic and unsettling ways.
  • Near death experience: Characters experience close calls with death. Their experiences and visions are described.
  • Queer death/spouse death: A character's backstory involves their queer spouse dying.
  • Reoccurring nightmares: A character experiences a recurring dream that is frequently distressing and expresses doubt about what is real.
  • Self-harm: A character's class abilities are activated through drawing their own blood.
  • Self-sacrifice: Characters frequently put themselves in serious danger to protect other characters. Some characters have game mechanics that encourage this.
  • Social isolation and persecution: Characters share experiences of being ostracized, socially isolated, or forced to leave towns due to the circumstances of their upbringing and innate traits.
  • Survivor's guilt: Characters express negative feelings about making it through traumatic experiences when other people they cared about did not.
  • Taxidermy: A character has a puppet made of remains from multiple animals are stitched together that they frequently play with and perform for others.
  • Therapy: Poorly done therapy and positivity are used by a character to resolve conflicts and hard feelings. Sometimes this is unasked for. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy vibes but not practices.
  • Toxic positivity: A character uses relentless positivity to respond to all situations. This is discussed with them.
  • Toxic work environment: A character's backstory includes a workplace where owners disregarded the feelings and expertise of workers to the point of violence.
  • Trauma: Characters frequently explore the trauma they've endured, how it's affected them in the past, and how it's affecting them currently.
  • Traumatic Injury: repeated discussions about the event and the long-term physical effects.
  • Undead: A character's backstory includes details of dying and being revived in an incomplete way through necromancy.

Visual appearances:

  • Flashing lights: Effects on projections screens, post-production effects, and in many ads.

Critical Role Logo

Time: 0:16

Visual appearances:

  • Flashing lights and fire: The logo has a fire effect flaring up on a dark background.

Campaign 3 Intro 1:

Time: 1:44

Visual appearances:

  • Colonialism: Costumes based on late 19th century to early 20th century British explorer stories.
    Flashing Lights: Lanterns carried in dark scenes throughout, camera flash at 1:11, and fire effects at the end.
  • Fire: Fire effect on ending logo.

Sound effects:

  • Repetition and whispers: Opening starts with ghostly whispers repeating the same words over and over before the lyrics start.

Campaign 3 Intro 2:

Time: 1:47

Epilepsy and light sensitivity

  • Rapidly alternating colors: High contrast bright colors, often on bright white, that rapidly shift with frequent jump cuts.
  • Flashing motion effects: Low frame animation without blur frames. Motion blur at the beginning Jumping stills with bright white lines on a dark background appear to flash as they change.
  • Jumpy rotoscoped shots: Short cuts for rotoscoped animation with a lot of movement can appear jumpy and disorienting. May affect motion sensitivity.

Episodes:

Campaign 3, E60: “Faith or Famine”

June 1, 2023
Emily Axford, Utkarsh Ambudkar, and Aimee Carrero stand side by side against a neutral red and pale green watercolor splash backdrop in this thumbnail for Critical Role Campaign 3, Episode 60.

Recurring Themes:
– Religion: The role of religion and temples in Exandria is discussed including missionaries, religious military, and religious abuse.
– Law enforcement: Armored religious guards are a major feature in the town the episode takes place in.

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Campaign 3, E61: “Crisis of Faith”

June 8, 2023
Liam O'Brien, Emily Axford, Marisha Ray, Taliesin Jaffe, Utkarsh Ambudkar, and Aimee Carrero stand side by side against a green and red splattered watercolor background in this thumbnail for Critical Role Campaign 3, Episode 61 - "Crisis of Faith."

Recurring Themes:
– Religion: The role of religion and temples in Exandria is discussed including missionaries, religious military, and religious abuse.
-Law enforcement: Armored religious guards are a major feature in the town the episode takes place in.
-Bodily fluids. Descriptions and role play reactions bring up bodily fluids multiple times.

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Campaign 3, E62: “A Long Walk of Reflection”

June 15, 2023
Emily Axford looks at a cautious looking Liam O'Brien against a watercolor backdrop of blue and green brushtrokes in this thumbnail for Critical Role Campaign 3, Episode 62 - "A Long Walk of Reflection."

Recurring Themes:
– Hunting, fishing: Characters repeatedly discuss how they acquire food while camping.
– Desecrated bodies: Remains of humanoids and animals are moved, looted, and used like neutral objects.

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Campaign 3, E63: “A Haunted Past”

June 22, 2023
Marisha Ray, Emily Axford, and Utkarsh Ambudkar pose looking startled against a flecked watercolor backdrop.

Recurring Themes:
-Trauma: Characters reminded of past trauma and put in new circumstances that reinforces traumatic memories.

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Campaign 3, E64: “Reunited”

July 6, 2023
Ashley Johnson, Taliesin Jaffe, Laura Bailey, Travis Willingham, Matthew Mercer, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, and Liam O'Brien pose against a watercolor splash background in this thumbnail for Critical Role Campaign 3, Episode 64 - "Reunited."

Recurring Themes:
– Military presence: Throughout the episode characters see soldiers from multiple world militaries stationed in a city.
– Religion: Repeated discussions about the roles, both good and bad, that religious institutions play in the world.

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Campaign 3, E65: “A Path of Vengeance”

July 13, 2023
Laura Bailey and Marisha Ray pose against a lavender watercolor backdrop in this thumbnail for Critical Role Campaign 3, Episode 65 "A Path of Vengeance."

Recurring Themes:
– Religion: Discussing gods along with their presence and impact of them and their followers in the world.
– Smoking: Sam’s gas can shows FCG smoking.

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Campaign 3, E66: “Aid of the Tempest”

July 20, 2023
Matthew Mercer gently cradles Liam O'Brien against a neutral watercolor backdrop in this thumbnail for Critical Role Episode 66.

Recurring Themes:
– Environmental destruction: Characters spend the second half of the episode in a forest in a state of permanent destruction, with some areas that are smokey and the smell of ash.
– Horror: Setting and enemies are horror genre including corrupted landscape, undead, and monstrous transformations.

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Campaign 3, 67: “Bloody Flowers”

August 3, 2023
Ashley Johnson poses against a neutral blue watercolor backdrop in a green dress in this thumbnail for Critical Role, Campaign 3, Episode 67.

Recurring Themes:
-Environmental destruction: Episode takes place in a forest kept in an unending state of destruction because of demonic magic. Includes descriptions of dead trees, ash, and depleted dirt. The area is also the site of an old haunted battlefield.
-Demons: Many demons and demonic creatures throughout the episode with various levels of description.

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Campaign 3, E68: “For The Tempest”

August 10, 2023
Taliesin Jaffe stands in front of a red and black watercolor splash backdrop in this thumbnail for Critical Role Campaign 3, Episode 68.

Recurring Themes:
– None

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Campaign 3, E69: “Nice”

August 17, 2023
Ashley Johnson, Talieisn Jaffe, Laura Bailey, Travis Willingham, Matthew Mercer, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, and Liam O'Brien pose nicely against a neutral blue-green watercolor splash backdrop in this thumbnail for Critical Role Campaign 3, Episode 69 - "Nice".

Recurring Themes:
– Manipulation: Cursed sword tries to convince a character that powerful allies can’t be trusted.
– Trauma: Characters speak with people from their backstories and talk about past traumatic events.

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