Critical Role’s second campaign, The Mighty Nein, will soon hit Prime Video as an animated series. This series will include eight episodes, with the first three premiere on Thursday, 11/19. I had the opportunity to speak with showrunner Tasha Huo (Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft) about adapting the campaign into an animated series, finding the main storyline for season one, working with the cast, and more!
On Finding the Main Storyline For Season One
The story of The Mighty Nein is quite vast, from how they met to the journey they go on. Huo took on the monumental task of finding the right storyline to kick off the series. As we saw in the trailer, the Luxon Beacon will be the primary focus.
Tasha Huo: The thinking behind it was really in thinking about, of course, we have a closed-end story, right? We know how Mighty Nein, which is a great gift to have. In backtracking to figure out what the audience needs to know to get to that point? What is the entry point in terms of villains, in terms of intrigue and obstacles, this really felt like the best place to start because it’s what opens up the Mighty Nein to the rest of the world, you know, as characters. So, that was kind of the thinking behind starting there.
Travis Willingham and Sam Riegel Writes An Episode In Season One
The cast of The Mighty Nein brought these characters to life through the campaign, but were also involved with writing for the animated series as well as being executive producers.
Tasha Huo: Interestingly, I was shocked by the fact that Sam actually came to LA to be a writer, which I did not know. So he is a fantastic writer. Travis is also a fantastic writer. They write an episode in season 1. As you see in Vox Machina, Liam and Marishia get an episode. So it’s great. It’s great because they clearly know character very well. That’s why they’ve created such amazing and in-depth characters.
Huo also dished on getting to collab with the cast to further dive into their characters’ growth, motivation, and decisions.
Huo: So I am a nerd for character. So it was just it was kind of a fan nerd dream come true to just sit in a room and say like, “All right, Liam, let’s talk about Caleb. Why did he do the things that he did? What is his thinking here?” And that was kind of those initial conversations was all about diving into “Why did you make that choice? What did you wish you could see in the show?” And just starting to build from that character point. But it’s cool. I mean, you get to ask the characters from your show questions about why they did the things they did, which is insane. Like that would never happen. You can’t, that doesn’t exist anywhere.
Why the Audience Will Fall In Love With the Characters
There is no doubt many will be tuning in for The Mighty Nein. The first episode was secretly released on YouTube for a limited of time, and quickly amassed over 1 million views! Huo touches on why the audience (new or old) will fall in love with these characters and their stories.
Tasha Huo: We fell in love so hard with the characters that these players created. And I just want new people to fall in love with them the same way I have, and you have, and so many of us have. They’re just the characters are so unique. They’re so beautiful. Their stories are so real and human and tragic and beautiful, and all those things. And I just want people to fall in love with them the way that I did.
