Critical Role Wiki

This wiki contains spoilers for the entirety of Critical Role and The Legend of Vox Machina. Proceed at your own risk!

READ MORE

Critical Role Wiki
Critical Role Wiki
Critical Role Wiki
5,561
pages
in: Non-Exandrian worlds, Places in the Aramán cosmos

Aramán

Sign in to edit

Aramán is the name of the world in which the events of the fourth campaign of Critical Role take place.[2]

Geographic characteristics[]

Continents and regions[]

Pasitar
The continent where the Shapers chose and divided their people.[3]
The land where the orcs started their rebellion against divinity.[4] The Obridimian Empire used to be in the eastern part.[5]
The Kingdom of Timmony is to the north of Kahad. It became an Independent nation after the War of Axe and Vine. It used to be part of Argosia.[6]
Argosia is to the north of Kahad, and presumably shares a border with Timmony.
The Wastes
The land where Sylandri, the Shaper of the Elves, died.[7]

History[]

In the world of Aramán, the seven creator gods, called the Shapers, were not divided into two factions (like the Prime Deities and Betrayer Gods of Exandria).[8] Having arrived on a world inhabited by fey, demons, and others, they are said to have battled with ancient giants for dominance and emerged victorious. The gods called from their origin world or sang into being the celestials, to act as their heralds, servants, and warriors.[9] Any ideology that said you could find divinity outside of the Gods such as Druidism was suppressed.[10]

Seventy years before the events of Campaign Four begin, the Shapers were slain. They had put their own interests and loyalties to each other ahead of the welfare of mortals, and many mortals responded by banding together and starting a terrible revolutionary war against the gods and those who stayed loyal to the gods. Ultimately, the gods were defeated.[11][8] This war was later referenced as the Shapers' War.[12]

The death of the gods had significant consequences. Magic ceased to function as it had before, and became wild and unpredictable. Any teleportation farther than Misty Step (30 feet) became risky. And the gods no longer sent the souls of the dead to various afterlives.[13][14] Many areas have been scarred by the war and the places where the gods fell have been warped dramatically, such as the fossilization of the woodlands where Sylandri fell. Most celestial entities have gone feral and were either imprisoned or killed to remove the death sentence they were to a region.[15]

The numbering of years in the Aramánian calendar begins with the death of the Shapers in the Shapers' War. Several subsequent events occurred in the interval before the campaign begins:

The full timeline is at Timeline of Aramán.

Seventy years after the death of the gods, people have by and large moved on, but as people seek power and truth from other sources, other forces have rushed in to fill the vacuum left by the gods' absence. There are plenty of warlocks. Druidism has seen a huge resurgence; reincarnation has become more important in light of the lack of afterlives. Clerics and other divine classes, no longer able to connect to a personalized deity, attempt to form direct connections to divine domains, but it doesn't work the same: there are none of the god's petty grievances, but also no personalized embrace, and one might not find as much comfort in a depersonalized concept in trying times. With no clean answers, there is strife and conflict regarding who can be trusted.[8]

“
Hero to many. Enemy to some. When Thjazi Fang is marked for execution, various figures from across his remarkable life unite to uncover the truth behind his grim fate. In a land still suffering from the fallout of dead gods and living in the shadow of a tumultuous rebellion, these disparate people will come together across the fractured world of Aramán and connect in ways they never imagined.
As hope and victory fade, a question hangs over Aramán: without the Gods, what great deeds now fall to us? And who, or what, shall grab their crown for themselves?
”
– 
"What Is Campaign Four?"[2]
[!h]

Four apparent factions also appear on a whiteboard in the preview video: the Sundered Houses, Penteveral, the Torn Banner, and Dol-Makjar.[24] At the time the campaign begins, Thjazi believes the Sundered Houses are stronger than ever and that the Revolutionary Council is "a shadow of its former glory."[19]

Calendar[]

Main article: Calendar of Aramán

The known days of the week are Luniere, Chassaire, Victoire, Marchendiere, Solaire, and Forgiere.[25]

Cosmology[]

Main article: Cosmology of Aramán

Aramán exists as one of several planes of existence in its cosmos, which include:

Map gallery[]

Fan-made maps[]

Fan art of '"`UNIQ--nowiki-0000002A-QINU`"'a speculative map of Kahad and Timmony, by '"`UNIQ--nowiki-0000002B-QINU`"'

Fan art of a speculative map of Kahad and Timmony, by West Haberlein.[art 1]

Behind the scenes[]

In materials released on Critical Role channels on August 21, 2025, Brennan Lee Mulligan said that his ideas of Aramán were formed "in conversation with Exandria", where the Calamity helped explain much about how that world came to be what it was; in Aramán, a different choice was made regarding divinity. Thinking a lot about J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, where Brennan saw orcs as Sauron's greatest victims, and asking himself what would happen if the orcs, noticing the damage Sauron was doing, figured out a way to throw off their Sauron figure, he had a vision of a proud, heroic orcish revolution. Similarly, considering Lord of the Rings and similar fantasy stories, Brennan thought about how artifacts like swords could last for thousands of years, and ran with the idea that the gods kept things in stasis, and how that interacted with mortal people's deep need for change, even at the cost of chaos.[26] Brennan confirmed that it was always his intention to have Aramán be a reflection of whatever happened to Exandria after Campaign Three regarding the fate of the main pantheon.[27] He also revealed that he had several ideas without a place for them in the other settings he was GMing, and Aramán became the world to use them.[28]

External links[]

Trivia[]

  • In August 2025, Critical Role released an ARG teaser. Fans using the Beacon Discord solved enough clues to access a hidden Critical Role page found via the puzzle.[29][30] The page had an audio clip, by Brennan Lee Mulligan, which first revealed the name of the world and some of its lore.[31]
  • Brennan confirmed that, due to the many historical events Aramán has experienced in less than a century, there are some NPCs that will be war veterans even more powerful than the player characters.[32]

References[]

  1. ↑ See "On the Scent" (4x07) at 0:41:52.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 What Is Campaign Four? at critrole.com.
  3. ↑ Beacon logo (tiny) CR Cooldown C4 E001 at 16:55 (subscription required) (Transcript).
  4. ↑ See "Critical Role Cooldown | Campaign 4, Episode 1" at 0:17:14.  See also "The Fall of Thjazi Fang" (4x01) at 0:01:06, establishing Dol-Makjar as being located in Kahad.
  5. ↑ See "The Fall of Thjazi Fang" (4x01) at 01:01:01.
  6. ↑ See "On the Scent" (4x07) at 1:43:46.
  7. ↑ See "Broken Wing" (4x02) at 2:44:50.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 See "Fireside Chat LIVE With Matthew Mercer & Brennan Lee Mulligan" (August 21, 2025).
  9. ↑ See "Broken Wing" (4x02) at 2:47:39.
  10. ↑ See "Broken Wing" (4x02) at 2:35:18.
  11. ↑ See Brennan's synopsis of Aramán's history in "What is Campaign Four?" at 11:45. See also the narration at 6:02.
  12. ↑ See "The Fall of Thjazi Fang" (4x01) at 0:01:30.
  13. ↑ See Brennan's synopsis of Aramán's history in "What is Campaign Four?" at 12:11.
  14. ↑ Beacon logo (tiny) CR Cooldown C4 E001 at 0:20:13 (subscription required) (Transcript).
  15. ↑ See "Broken Wing" (4x02) at 2:44:39.  See also at 2:48:38.
  16. ↑ See "On the Scent" (4x07) at 1:44:02.
  17. ↑ Beacon logo (tiny) CR Cooldown | C4 E007 at 13:47 (subscription required) (Transcript).
  18. ↑ See "Broken Wing" (4x02) at 1:39:30.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 See "Critical Role Campaign Four | Official Trailer at 0:20.
  20. ↑ See "What Is Campaign Four?" at 8:46.
  21. ↑ See "The Fall of Thjazi Fang" (4x01) at 3:43:10.
  22. ↑ See 'Critical Recap: Critical Role C4E01 “The Fall of Thjazi Fang”' (October 8, 2025) on critrole.com.
  23. ↑ See "On the Scent" (4x07) at 1:44:11.
  24. ↑ See "What Is Campaign Four?" at 7:11.
  25. ↑ See "Branching Paths" (4x05) at 2:06:41.
  26. ↑ See "Fireside Chat LIVE With Matthew Mercer & Brennan Lee Mulligan" at 30:22.
  27. ↑ See "The Cast of Critical Role Discusses Campaign 4" at 0:13:04.
  28. ↑ See "Brennan Lee Mulligan Talks DELETING Characters In Campaign 4 & Araman Lore!" at 04:16.
  29. ↑ "[CR Media] Beacon Discord cracked it (C4 spoilers?)". Reddit (r/criticalrole). August 18, 2025. Retrieved August 19, 2025.
  30. ↑ "Beacon ARG". Google Docs. Archived from the original on August 19, 2025. Retrieved August 19, 2025.
  31. ↑ Use password ARAMAN (with all caps) at Critical Role Logo Project: Unseal on CritRole.com .
  32. ↑ Beacon logo (tiny) CR Cooldown C4 E008 at 7:49 (subscription required) (Transcript).

Art:

  1. ↑ Fan art of a speculative map of Kahad and Timmony, by West Haberlein (source). Created with Wonderdraft. Used with permission.
Community content is available under CC-BY-SA unless otherwise noted.