Critical Role is a Dungeons & Dragons podcast best known for its epic combat setpieces and comedic atmosphere. Like most D&D tables, its cast prefer to keep things light-hearted and entertaining most of the time. However, Critical Role's stories and characters have plenty of opportunities for tragedy.
Critical Role's storytelling includes elements like violence, death, war, trauma, and more. Sometimes, the high spirits of adventure life give way to the horrors lurking underneath. Characters' pasts come back to haunt them. Some moments stand out as particularly tragic, lingering in Critical Role fans' memories long after they're done.
This list contains spoilers for all three Critical Role campaigns and Exandria Unlimited: Calamity. In addition, the video clips may contain strong language.
10 Scanlan Leaves Vox Machina
Campaign 1, Episode 85, 'A Bard's Lament'
Scanlan Shorthalt is one of Critical Role's most infamous comic relief characters. Almost every one of his scenes involves bawdy humor, unpredictable events, or genuine wit to keep the audience laughing. As Critical Role's first campaign progresses, Scanlan's comedy takes on a more deceptive and desperate edge.
The Critical Role episode 'A Bard's Lament' has Scanlan snap after one death too many and several pranks from Vox Machina. He accuses the group of not caring about him and leaves the party for over a dozen episodes. "What's my mother's name?" has become one of the series' best-known lines after these events.
9 Obann Dominates Yasha
Campaign 2, Episode 69, 'The King's Cage'
Critical Role's first two campaigns feature lengthy absences from Ashley Johnson due to her television career. DM Matthew Mercer alternates between having others control Johnson's character Yasha Nydoorin or writing her out of the story. Her departure in the Critical Role episode 'The King's Cage' hurts more than most.
The Cambion Obann dominates Yasha as he dies, forcing her to side with him and turn against the Mighty Nein. Ashley's next absence has Yasha serve as an unwilling antagonist for Critical Role's next story arc. It's a tragic moment, particularly when Fjord's Thunder Step leaves Yasha behind due to her unwillingness to leave.
8 Asmodeus Corrupts Zerxus
Exandria Unlimited: Calamity, Episode 4, 'Fire and Ruin'
Exandria Unlimited: Calamity is a tragedy on a grand scale. A handful of individuals' corruption leads to devastating the world over and a new epoch in world history. These failings reach their most tragic in Zerxus' interaction with Asmodeus, the Lord of the Hells. Zerxus has spent months sympathizing with Asmodeus and attempting to convince him to atone for his sins.
With Asmodeus free at last, however, he reveals that his interactions with Zerxus throughout Exandria: Unlimited have been a lie. He has been preying on Zerxus' belief that anyone can be saved to bring his plan to fruition. He then kills Zerxus repeatedly before leaving him only one way to return to Exandria: becoming Asmodeus' champion and damning himself forever.
7 Veth Reveals Her Backstory
Campaign 2, Episode 49, 'A Game of Names'
Veth Brenatto spends the first part of Critical Role's second campaign with a different body and name from the one she was born with. She is a halfling. However, events before the campaign see her reincarnated into a goblin who calls herself Nott the Brave. The audience learn elements of this backstory in early episodes, but the episode "A Game of Names" reveals the full story in heartbreaking detail.
Nott reveals her awful death by drowning after a heroic attempt to save her family from goblins. Worse, she's then reincarnated in the form of her killers. The story reaches its peak when Veth explains the reason for her first alias in Critical Role. Her goblin form represents everything she fears about herself, that she's not good, not pretty, and simply not anything to be proud of.
6 Percy Breaks Down To Vex
Campaign 1, Episode 115, 'The Chapter Closes'
Percy de Rolo is one of Critical Role's darkest characters. For the most part, his arc concerns his treatment of others and his resistance to temptation. It's not until the final episode of Critical Role's first campaign that Percy truly admits how much he himself is suffering. After Vax's death, he relates the issues behind his behavior to Vex.
Percy tells Vex that his trauma before Critical Role's first campaign has caused him to treat everything like the consequences don't matter, leading to events like Anna Ripley's escape and Grog's time with Craven Edge. Most poignantly, he remembers when he wanted to be a harmless, helpful clockmaker, long before he spent years using his talents to hurt people.
5 Otohan Attacks Bells Hells
Campaign 3, Episode 33, 'Blood and Dust'
Most Critical Role combats are entertaining swashbuckling affairs. Even the most dangerous have an epic air of excitement about them. Otohan's first fight against Bell's Hells in Critical Role's third campaign lacks this. It's almost cruel. Otohan has Bells Hells scattered and outclassed, leaving her able to close with them one by one and slay them.
Crueler still is Otohan's strategy. She spends the fight taunting Imogen Temult, urging her to give in to Ruidus' power. Otohan isn't trying to kill Bells Hells, she's using them to torture Imogen into doing what she wants. Imogen eventually does so, setting the plot of Critical Role's third campaign in motion in the most bitter way possible.
4 Cerrit Sends His Family Away
Exandria Unlimited: Calamity, Episode 4, 'Fire and Ruin'
Much of Exandria Unlimited: Calamity is a grand tragedy far beyond the scale of ordinary life. One moment in the finale, however, hits home in a way that feels much more relatable and mundane. Cerrit evacuates his family during the disaster, trying to both urge them to leave and not reveal the true extent of the threat.
The result is one of Critical Role's most emotional conversations, not least because Travis Willingham is a devoted father himself. After that, the scene continues in the same way. Cerrit looks around his home and realizes that he's sacrificed his family life for his work and barely knows who his children are.
3 Mollymauk Tealeaf's Death
Campaign 2, Episode 26, 'Found and Lost'
Critical Role's player characters often die several times throughout their adventures. By Dungeons & Dragons rules, most of these end in resurrections. Mollymauk Tealeaf's death hurts all the more because it's far too early in the game for this. Mollymauk charges the oni Lorenzo and falls in the attempt. Lorenzo guts him on the floor as a message to the Mighty Nein.
Mollymauk suffers Critical Role's first permanent character death that doesn't happen at the very end of a campaign. It has a profound effect on the Mighty Nein and Critical Role's second campaign as a whole. Even after much effort over a hundred episodes later, the Mighty Nein still can't resurrect Mollymauk. He stays dead forever, even as the new personality Kingsley Tealeaf joins the party.
2 Vax'ildan's Death
Campaign 1, Episode 115, 'The Chapter Closes'
The final episode of Critical Role's first campaign is a victorious affair entirely free of combat. Vox Machina have defeated Vecna and ensured Vasselheim's safety. However, it's not a joyous occasion. Vax'ildan is only kept alive to help the party as part of a pact with the Raven Queen. With Vecna defeated, she returns to claim him as her champion.
At Vox Machina's moment of triumph, they're helpless to stop one of their own being taken from them. The Raven Queen makes some attempt to soften the blow, but she won't be swayed. Vax effectively dies as he joins the Raven Queen in her domain, giving Critical Role's first campaign an undeniably bittersweet ending.
1 Caleb Widogast's Backstory
Campaign 2, Episode 18, 'Whispers of War'
Tragic backstories are part and parcel of most D&D campaigns. Caleb Widogast's backstory in Critical Role's second campaign puts them most to shame. In the episode "Whispers of War," Caleb relates his past to Beauregard and Veth, revealing his work as an arcane assassin for Trent Ikithon. Among his many targets were his parents.
The story causes many aspects of Caleb's character throughout Critical Role's campaign to snap into place. It overshadows almost everything before and after it from that point, becoming a central part of Caleb's storyline. It's clear from the player's faces that the story is horrifying them almost as much as their characters.