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The talent of any TTRPG game master lies in how well they can adapt to their players, and Critical Role's Matt Mercer has that talent in spades. For all the incredible stories that the actual play has produced - stories like the one being adapted into Prime's The Mighty Nein series, for example - you might be tempted to think Mercer has every story beat and piece of worldbuilding laid out, but in fact, that isn't always the case. Take, for example, Mercer's recent return to the world of Age of Umbra.

In case you don't know, Age of Umbra and its sequel, Age of Umbra: Sallowlands, are set in a world devised for Critical Role's own TTRPG, Daggerheart. Mercer was not only the GM for the two Age of Umbra miniseries currently on Beacon, but was a lead designer in the Age of Umbra campaign setting, which makes it all the more impressive that Mercer could think on his feet when one of his players wanted to do something differently than he had planned.

To be fair, though, that player was the kind of person that's easy to accommodate: that is, Our Flag Means Death's own Vico Ortiz.

Mercer explained switching up his plans in a recent edition of Critical Role's fan Q&A series, Fireside Chat, when a Critter wrote in asking about how he wanted to connect Ortiz's mini, Sallowlands, with the first Age of Umbra miniseries.

"I actually didn't mean to connect them at all," said The Legend of Vox Machina star. "I wanted to let them live on their own. The only connection came through Vico's character, when they wrote up the story for Caguama."

Mercer explained that Ortiz "watched all the first season and wanted to create kind of a subtle through line," for their turtle-like character Caguama, officially a member of the Galapa race and Seraph class within the perameters of Daggerheart lore. And though Mercer wanted to "show that the world could live on its own and be these pockets of story that aren't contingent on the overarching history," Ortiz's connection with the previous series ultimately made for a better story.

"A lot of lessons I learned," Mercer concluded, "Was getting more comfortable with the weird, unique stories I want to play. I've gotten better with the system and playing with the environments and player choice and letting letting everyone sing in that space and letting the world be as dark as and intense as it wants to be at points, but then also letting it be light-hearted and silly."

With two animated series on Prime Video, Campaign 4 in full swing, and so much more Exandrian lore to come, Critical Role is showing no signs of slowing down. That's why the adventuring party at Popverse are here to bring you everything we can from those nerdy-ass voice actors & Bo., including:

• Critical Role release schedule
• Critical Role's Campaign 4 characters ranked
• How to watch Critical Role in order
• Ways for you to relive the Critical Role panel from ECCC '26
• Taliesin Jaffe on playing Mollymauk Tealeaf for Campaign 2 vs. playing him for Prime Video
• Matt Mercer's homebrew warrior class (created originally for Vin Diesel)

...and much, much more. Roll initiative, player. Magic awaits.