Critical Role Kickstarter Hits Final Stretch Goal of $8.8 Million with Nearly Two Weeks Left in Campaign

The fine folks over at Critcal Role are all voice actors, with a number of credits in famous cartoons and games (in WoW, for example, the cast includes Illidan Stormrage, Jaina Proudmoore, Turalyon, Rexxar, and Darion Mograine) launched a Kickstarter campaign a few weeks ago with the goal of creating an animated special featuring the characters from their first D&D campaign as featured on the Critical Role streaming show.

The goal smashed records, reaching full funding for their initial goal in less than an hour and reaching about five times that in the first day.

The special has transformed into a 10-episode series, first telling an original story as the initial special and then animating the Briarwood arc - a fan-favorite stretch of campaign one that really saw the show come into its own.

Hitting this final stretch goal means that this entire season of the animated show will be completed, and there are also a number of fun things for the stream. Critical Role has historically done a number of one-shots (games that exist outside of the primary campaign, often with new characters and sometimes using different game systems, usually with one of the players trying their hand at DMing/GMing.) We will have a couple of these, including one featuring popular guest-characters from the first campaign as well as one DM'd by Ashley Johnson - Critical Role's oft-absent (because of her main-cast role on the New York-based TV show Blindspot) cast member.

It seems to be very exciting for these people who have spent their careers voicing other peoples' creations to be able to now see characters they created and developed take animated form. And for those of us who have spent more time with these characters than even those we've seen in long-running television shows (at least in terms of hours,) it will be quite fun to watch their exploits polished in quality animation.

And hey, I believe this is the most well-funded creative project in Kickstart history, which is a nice feather in the cap for those of us who love D&D and its potential for storytelling.