Critical Role campaign four

The fourth campaign of the Dungeons & Dragons web series Critical Role premiered on October 2, 2025. Brennan Lee Mulligan is taking over Dungeon Master duties from Matthew Mercer,^[1] while Mercer switches to a player-role.^[2][3] With the cast expanding to thirteen players, Mulligan will run the campaign in a West Marches format across three initial player groups – the Soldiers, the Seekers, and the Schemers – after a four-episode overture with the full cast.^[4][5][6] Rather than the Exandria setting used in the previous three campaigns, the campaign is set in the new world of Aramán where the characters' intertwined stories explore a fractured world shaped by the death of gods and the aftermath of rebellion.^[1][7]

Critical Role campaign four
Starring	Brennan Lee Mulligan Laura Bailey Luis Carazo Robbie Daymond Aabria Iyengar Taliesin Jaffe Ashley Johnson Matthew Mercer Whitney Moore Liam O'Brien Marisha Ray Sam Riegel Alexander Ward Travis Willingham
No. of episodes	3
Release
Original network	Beacon Twitch YouTube
Original release	October 2, 2025 (2025-10-02) – present
Season chronology
List of episodes

Cast

See also: List of Critical Role cast members

Main

• Brennan Lee Mulligan as the Dungeon Master^[1]
• Laura Bailey as Thimble, a four-inch-tall pixie rogue, from the land of Faerie. Thimble was the closest companion of rebel leader Thjazi Fang.^[8]
• Luis Carazo as Azune Nayar, a human paladin/sorcerer. Azune is an Arcane Marshal in the Revolutionary Guard of Dol-Makjar. During the Falconer's Rebellion, he fought alongside Kattigan Vale, Thjazi Fang, and Teor Pridesire.^[8]
• Robbie Daymond as Kattigan Vale, a human ranger with a wolf companion named Wulfric. He previously fought alongside Thjazi Fang, Teor Pridesire, and Azune Nayar in the Falconer's Rebellion.^[8]
• Aabria Iyengar as Thaisha Lloy, an orc druid who follows the Old Path of rituals and magic separate from the gods. She is from House Lloy, a smithing house of importance in Dol-Makjar, and shares children with Halandil Fang.^[8]
• Taliesin Jaffe as Bolaire Lathalia, a warlock and curator of a museum of arcane artifacts. His race is uncertain as he wears a grey mask that moves as if it were a living face.^[8]
• Ashley Johnson as Vaelus, an elven paladin from the Mournvale and one of the Sisters of Sylandri, followers of the dead god of life and elves. She wants to reclaim an artifact known as the Stone of Nightsong, which was stolen by Thjazi Fang.^[8]
• Matthew Mercer as Sir Julien Davinos, a human fighter/rogue from House Davinos, a vassal to the noble Sundered House of Royce. He is childhood friends with Thjazi Fang's widow, Lady Aranessa Royce, but hates Thjazi and was the one who captured him.^[9]
• Whitney Moore as Tyranny, a demon warlock who recently arrived on the mortal plane. She is an Aspirant in the Candescent Crest, serving under priest Wicander Halovar and also acts as his bodyguard.^[8]
• Liam O'Brien as Halandil "Hal" Fang, an orc bard who resides in Dol-Makjar and was granted the neighborhood's theater by the city's ruling council. He is the brother of Thjazi Fang and has multiple children, some of whom are with Thaisha Lloy.^[8]
• Marisha Ray as Murray Mag'Nesson, a dwarven wizard who is a bursar at the Pentaverel, an arcane college. She was friends with Thjazi Fang.^[8]
• Sam Riegel as Wicander "Wick" Halovar,^[10] a human cleric from the noble Sundered House of Halovar and a Light Priest of the Candescent Creed, a new religion espoused by his house.^[8]
• Alexander Ward as Occtis Tachonis, a young human wizard from the noble Sundered House of Tachonis who practices necromancy. He has an animal companion named Pincushion, an undead fox made of parts from multiple foxes.^[8]
• Travis Willingham as Teor Pridesire, a lionfolk paladin who fought alongside Kattigan Vale, Thjazi Fang, and Azune Nayar during the Falconer's Rebellion.^[8]

Following the fourth episode, the cast will be divided into three separate player groups: Soldiers, Seekers, and Schemers. The Soldiers group will consist of Teor, Thimble, Tyranny, Wicander, and Kattigan.^[11]

Production and format

Casting

Brennan Lee Mulligan, the series' new Dungeon Master

Matthew Mercer, Dungeon Master of campaigns 1‒3

The casting of Brennan Lee Mulligan as the Game Master for campaign four was announced during the August 2, 2025 live show in Indiana and a press release from the studio, Critical Role Productions. Matthew Mercer was the Dungeon Master for the first three campaigns;^[12][13][14] however, for the fourth campaign, Mercer will appear in a player-role.^[2][3][15] Rolling Stone stated that "the inclusion of Mulligan is huge, but not entirely surprising" given Mulligan's background as "a well-established Game Master" who created the "titanic success" Dimension 20 along with previous comments made by Mercer on eventually shifting "into a 'Professor X' role as a mentor to the next generation of storytellers rather than remaining the face of the brand in perpetuity".^[12]

Game system

Critical Role is an actual play which uses a tabletop role-playing game system.^[16][17] Cheryl Teh of Business Insider noted that the initial announcement of the fourth campaign did not reveal which game system the campaign will use and further highlighted that Critical Role's tabletop game imprint Darrington Press had just released their own tabletop role-playing game, Daggerheart.^[16] Then in a August 21, 2025 press release, Critical Role released the cast and campaign structure for the fourth campaign which included the announcement that the campaign would be using the 2024 revision to the 5th Edition ruleset of Dungeons & Dragons.^[6] The campaign will also feature homebrew design contributions by Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins.^[4]

After the opening four sessions of the campaign, Mulligan will split the players into three initial groups: the Soldiers, the Seekers, and the Schemers.^[6][4][18] The campaign will then continue in a West Marches-style structure, where the actions of one group of players can impact on the shared narrative—potentially having implications for the other groups.^[4][5] In the third episode, it was revealed that Travis Willingham, Laura Bailey, Whitney Moore, Sam Riegel, and Robbie Daymond are part of the Soldiers group.^[11]

Broadcast

The fourth campaign premiered on October 2, 2025.^[1] It will then air weekly each Thursday at 7 p.m. PT. It will be broadcast on Critical Role's Twitch and YouTube channels as well as on the studio's streaming service Beacon.^[19][20] The public VOD will be available the Monday after each episode "and podcast episodes will drop in two parts: the first one the week after the premiere, and the second on the following Tuesday".^[1] Additionally, an immediate aftershow with the table cast – Critical Role Cooldown – airs exclusively on Beacon after the release of each episode.^[21][22]

Setting

The fourth campaign steps away from Mercer's Exandria – the world setting used in the first three campaigns and the Exandria Unlimited anthology web series.^[1] In August 2025, the name of the new world was teased through an augmented reality game (ARG).^[23] Aramán was then confirmed as the name of the new setting on August 21.^[4] Mulligan, the new setting's creator, described it as a "love letter to Exandria".^[24] Following the release of the campaign's first episode, Mulligan explained that rather than doing a monologue establishing the lore of Aramán, he took inspiration from the start of The Wire (2002), one of his favorite television shows. Mulligan commented that on "the first watch-through of [The Wire], you're watching the first four episodes and you're like, 'Huh?! What?! What?!' And then you're like, 'This is fucking awesome".^[22]

Seventy years before the start of the campaign, the people of Aramán killed the world's gods.^[25] Mulligan noted that this revolution occurred due to the orcs rising "up against their oppressor", the god of war and suffering, which led to a wider war between the gods and mortals.^[24] He explained that the gods of Aramán decide to aid their fellow god against the orcs, prompting dwarves, elves, and humans to question why they should "save the god of war and suffering".^[24] Mulligan framed the conflict as "a story of class solidarity", in which the gods "would rather protect one of their own than save their followers".^[24] While the war ended with the gods defeated, Mulligan highlighted that while this leaves mortals "at the helm of their own destiny", they are still faced with challenges even without the divine.^[24] At the campaign's outset, the land of Aramán is still dealing with the long-term consequences of the war with the gods and the Falconer's Rebellion, a secondary conflict between the noble houses and the wider population that happened twelve years previously.^[25][7][26] It begins in the city of Dol-Makjar and initially focuses on the execution of Thjazi Fang, a hero of the Falconer's Rebellion, whose death brings together the player characters in a quest to unravel the conspiracy behind his execution.^[7][26][27]

Episodes

See also: List of Critical Role episodes

2025

List of episodes in 2025

Episode	Title	Run time	Original release date [28]	Notes
1	"The Fall of Thjazi Fang"	04:27:48	October 2, 2025 (2025-10-02)	Overture episode with full cast[6]
The former companions of rebel leader and war hero Thjazi Fang gather in the city of Dol-Makjar to mourn his death when he is executed for sedition. They try to understand why their plans to free him failed at the last minute. Those returning to the city are disturbed to find that politics between the noble houses have reshaped the city into something unrecognizable. When they discover that Thjazi's closest companion, the pixie Thimble, was attacked and the Stone of Nightsong – a relic that enables elvenkind to bypass the realms of the dead and enter their afterlife directly – was stolen from Thjazi's safe house, they realize that Thjazi's execution was part of a wider conspiracy. They suspect the involvement of the Crow Keepers thieves guild. The funeral is interrupted by Vaelus, a follower of one of the dead gods of Aramán. She accuses Thjazi of being a thief and demands that the Stone of Nightsong is returned to her.
2	"Broken Wing"	04:33:19	October 9, 2025 (2025-10-09)	Overture episode with full cast[6]
Hal and Vaelus come to a truce as the investigation into Thjazi's death begins. Bolarie and Murray study a box acquired for Thjazi by Thaisha and learn that it is the coffin of a psychopomp of celestial origin. In the wake of the gods' deaths, all celestials went feral and had to be killed for the safety of mortals. Teor approaches House Halovar searching for information under the guise of seeking employment, but its matriarch Yanessa discerns his ulterior motives. Azune learns that the Sundered Houses have taken control over the Revolutionary Guard and the Penteveral, the arcane college. Julien is warned that House Tachonis is searching for Occtis because of his role in Thjazi's failed rescue and is instructed to bring him to House Royce before Tachonis find him. Thimble, Kattigan, and Occtis go to a tavern operated by the Crow Keepers to search for Casimir, a former Torn Banner mercenary, current member of the Crow Keepers, and missing participant in the rescue plan. Wick learns that House Halovar has been harvesting the blood of a celestial they have imprisoned to empower the Candescent Creed.
3	"The Snipping of Shears"	TBA	October 16, 2025 (2025-10-16)	Overture episode with full cast[6]
4	TBA	TBA	October 23, 2025 (2025-10-23)	Overture episode with full cast[6]

Critical reception

Pre-release

On the announcement of the new campaign with a new game master, Kenneth Shepard of Kotaku highlighted that "Mulligan was broadly welcomed with open arms, but many Critical Role fans noted they were sad to see Mercer step down from the GM role, even if he will be a part of the campaign as a player".^[29] Dais Johnston of Inverse noted that after a decade and with additional "projects in development", it was understandable that the Critical Role cast might "want to shake things up" or reduce their involvement, though doing so altered a "formula" that had repeatedly proven successful.^[30] Aimee Hart of Polygon highlighted Mercer's previous "passing the torch" comments and noted that "stepping back to let new people into the limelight always comes with its fair share of risks, particularly for a company like Critical Role, whose fame, while it cannot be pinpointed to a single thing, was certainly helped by the electric chemistry these friends have with one another".^[31] She noted that the original cast has "remained a focal selling point for viewers", even when the show has included guests, due to their non-manufactured "relatability".^[31] However, Hart also felt it was "becoming clear" that Critical Role was more of a business than a "web series between friends" at this point and that "Critical Role has long outgrown its indie-like roots, especially with its fingers in pies like Amazon and AdHoc Studios. The only difference is that as time goes on, it's become impossible to ignore that Critical Role will, one day, outgrow its creators too".^[31]

Shepard also highlighted the additional surprise of a new setting for the campaign – "while diehards are mourning a fantasy setting they've been invested in for a decade along with Mercer's shift out of the GM's chair, this likely will make Campaign IV a better entry point for newcomers, as they won't have to catch up on years of lore to jump in and watch".^[29] Johnston similarly remarked that the campaign four changes "could be the shot in the arm the franchise needs to attract new fans daunted by the sheer quantity of episodes to catch up with, or it could mean failing to recapture the magic that happened on Twitch in 2015".^[30] Following the cast announcement, Jack Filsinger of TheGamer noted that Critical Role's Campaign 3 "already loosely dipped its toe into the idea of running concurrent tables after the Apogee Solstice arc was introduced, to much success".^[32] Filsinger praised the choice of a West Marches-style structure, commenting that it "not only meets the utilitarian needs of a franchise this big" but also "matches styles of fantasy storytelling that audiences are most used to".^[32] Francesco Cacciatore of Polygon highlighted how players typically discover a setting in a West Marches-style game, commenting that both the Critical Role players and their audience should uncover the setting of Aramàn together as the world itself will "grow and take shape" due to player "discoveries and their choices will create that kind of magical storytelling that Critical Role fans crave".^[5] He noted that with a West Marches-style, the "actions and discoveries" of the three groups "should have an impact on the other tables, creating the feeling of a world that is changing in real time".^[5]

Reception

Following the release of the first episode, Harvey Randall of PC Gamer praised the structure of introducing the large ensemble cast and explained that the "first episode operates like any good prestige fantasy drama, or the first chapter of a really good book. It flits between groups and perspectives, with a campaign opener I'm tempted to steal wholesale".^[33] Rotem Rusak of Nerdist highlighted the use of Thjazi Fang's funeral and how it draws the characters to "one another by their connection to the now-dead man" along with questions on "what went wrong in their plans" to save Thjazi – "this is what the audience is wondering too, leading everyone very naturally down the same path and into the heart of the story".^[34] Mollie Russell of Wargamer also praised the opening hook of Thjazi's funeral, noting that it is "filled with grief, love, and tension" and "every player at the table has a hand in making Thjazi Fang feel real".^[35] She also highlighted that it sets up "political, magical, and even divine" threats, commenting "when our own world feels unfamiliar, even unsafe, the story that Critical Role is setting up feels painfully poignant".^[35] Randall called the fourth campaign "a 'planets aligned' moment", noting it is "chaotic, messy, and has convinced me we're about to see something very special".^[33] Rusak commented that while the first episode is the "hardest nut of all to crack" as the premise must come together quickly, she felt "pulled into the story, riveted by its nuanced characters, eager to know what the world is hiding, teased by certain names and settings dropped but not explained, and overall on the edge of our seats at the conclusion".^[34] Russell opined that the first episode "re-establishes" a known fact that "Critical Role is a powerhouse of storytelling" and in particular, drew attention to the execution of Thjazi which "reminds us just how quickly a freedom fighter can be rebranded as a criminal – how those in power can reshape a narrative to suit their needs".^[35]

Jack Coleman of TheGamer highlighted fan "reception has been incredibly positive" and that while "the energy around the show had begun to stagnate during campaign three", the cast expansion with new members "has revitalised the show's formula. The fresh social dynamics and roleplaying styles on display have given existing fans something new and exciting to latch onto".^[36] Randall stated that he was "looking forward to when this massive group splits into three" since he felt the "pace can't be held", but added that he was already "smitten. Not only by Brennan flipping gracefully between perspectives and scenes, but by the A-game every player's bringing to the table already".^[33] Rusak commended Mulligan's work as the Dungeon Master as Mulligan "knows exactly when to lean in, guiding the story with more presence and gravitas, and unveiling important plot moments, and when to lean out, allowing his player characters to build the world around them and become more realized presences".^[34] She noted how Mulligan "subtly" informed and guided "his Player Characters throughout the first episode, reminding them of important details and feeding them critical story information without breaking the flow of the narrative".^[34] Rusak also praised the "fantastic" characters by the original Critical Role cast and called the new cast members "a welcome infusion of life to the world of Critical Role".^[34]