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A new baddie is coming to The Legend of Vox Machina, but if you've been playing Dungeons & Dragons for any length of time, it's a character you might already know of. At the Critical Role panel at New York Comic Con 2025, the OG CR cast was in attendance to tease the show's upcoming 4th season, and during the panel, they might've revealed that legendary D&D villain Vecna was coming to series.

Well, sort of.

Some context here: in attendance at the Critical Role/Prime Video panel at this year's NYCC were Sam Riegel, Liam O'Brien, Marisha Ray, Laura Bailey, Taliesin Jaffe , Matthew Mercer, Ashley Johnson, and Travis Willingham, the founders of Critical Role and cast behind the titular Vox Machina. Feeling unusually generous with information, the cast spent part of the time talking about what to expect from the show's 4th season, and at one point, the story's own Scanlan Shorthalt (AKA Riegel), dropped a tantalizing hint at its upcoming antagonist.

"I'm super excited," said Riegel, "That we get to tease some new villains. Or old villains. In fact, is it time to reveal The Whispered One?"

Unfortunately, and much to the disappointment of the crowd, the answer to that question turned out to be, 'no.' Though Riegel continued to confirm that a character called The Whispered One would appear in the next season of the hit fantasy series, there was nothing revealed about the character save for his name. Luckily for those lore-obsessed Critters out there, a name was all they needed.

If that doesn't describe you; here's all you need to know about Vox Machina's upcoming big bad. The Whispered One is an ancient, evil, powerful king of the dead in the cosmos of Exandria, who the titular heroes faced down in the first campaign Critical Role ever assembled. Through awful magic of the dead, the character evolved from sorcerer to lich to archlich to god, and if you're somehow unfamiliar with CR but very familiar with D&D, you're probably thinking, 'Hey, that sounds a whole lot like the villain Vecna.'

And for all intents and purposes, you're right - the characters are basically the same. 

The thing is, though, that Wizards of the Coast own the license to the name, "Vecna," meaning that Critical Role couldn't use the word to refer to their mystically zombified antagonist. So, whenever the character is mentioned in the hallowed halls of Exandria, the name given to him is, instead, "The Whispered One," who Riegel was happy to tease at this year's NYCC. 

How the Stranger Things people were able to get the name for their own D&D-inspired archfiend is anybody's guess, although it probably rhymes with "Shnetflix Shmoney."

The Legend of Vox Machina season 4 is scheduled to release on Prime Video some time in 2026.

From the lands of Exandria to your very own smartscreens, Popverse has everything you need to know about the TTRPG phenomenon that is Critical Role. Here you'll find:

• Popverse's Critical Role watch order
• An interview with GM Brennan Lee Mulligan
• The cast's appearance at C2E2 '25

...and more. Roll initiative, player. Adventure awaits.