- This page is about the real-world actor. For the character from the "Liam's Quest" one-shots, see Liam O'Brien (character). For the character from the "Thursday by Night" one-shots, see Liam O'Brien (vampire).
Liam O'Brien (@VoiceOfOBrien) is a voice actor and voice director who plays the character Caleb Widogast in Critical Role. He played the character Vax'ildan in the first campaign. He has also been the Dungeon Master for several special episodes.
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The Roots of Critical Role[edit | edit source]
Liam was indirectly responsible for starting the Pathfinder game that would later become Critical Role. He was the director for Matthew Mercer in Resident Evil 6, a video game. Matthew kept telling Liam about how he was running a D&D game and kept inviting Liam to join. Eventually, Liam asked Matt to run a game for his birthday, and he invited some friends for a game of 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons which later changed to Pathfinder Matt as the DM. Liam enjoyed the game so much that he messaged everybody, asking if they would like to start a continuing game. They have been playing ever since.
Toward the end of the second episode of the podcast allworknoplay, Liam and Sam Riegel talked about getting ready for the upcoming "one-time" D&D game.
Liam and Laura Bailey decided to play the twins Vax'ildan and Vex'ahlia (respectively) in the game because they share their birthday (May 28th). When creating their character backgrounds, both he and Laura spent three hours at a diner creating their story.[citation needed]
Liam has stated that D&D has helped him get through a rough patch in his life after he developed a problem with one of his ears. It became very disorienting, but he has found that running has helped, as well as spending time with his family and friends.[2]
Before the Critical Role stream, Liam recorded snippets of their Pathfinder gameplay. He still records some behind-the-scenes footage of Critical Role.[3]
When asked who he'd pick if he could switch to any player character in the game, Liam said Scanlan.[4]
Liam's Player Characters[edit | edit source]
Main Storyline[edit | edit source]
- Vax'ildan, half-elf rogue/paladin/druid (The Campaign of Vox Machina)
- Caleb Widogast, human wizard (Campaign 2: The Mighty Nein)
One-Shots and Special Episodes[edit | edit source]
- Kurt, human barbarian ("Critical Trolls for Extra Life" (Sx02))
- Reverend Forrest Alton, human ("Deadlands One-Shot" (Sx11))
- Jayne Merriweather, human cleric ("Bar Room Blitz" (Sx21))
- Liam O'Brien (vampire), vampire ("Thursday by Night: Part 1" (Sx24) and "Part 2" (Sx25))
- Cookie, a bear ("Trinket's Honey Heist" (Sx27))
- Quazirat Tolluz, draenei ("Kobolds, Catacombs and Dragons (Oh My!)" (Sx29))
- Ringo, raccoon ("Crash Pandas: Too Trashed, Too Curious" (Sx37))
- Ally, human druid ("Critical Role and the Club of Misfits" (Sx38))
- Lieve'tel Toluse, elf cleric ("The Search for Grog" (Sx42), "The Search For Bob" (Sx45))
- Tomeytine, honesty earth pony ("Tails of Equestria One-Shot" (Sx44))
- Septimus Goodfellow, celebrity spiritualist ("Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Crystal Palace" (Sx46))
- Derrig, half elf fighter "Dalen's Closet" (Sx47))
- Buddy, ogre fighter ("The Adventures of the Darrington Brigade" (Sx49))
Episodes DMed by Liam[edit | edit source]
- "Critical Role EXTRA – Liam's Quest!" (Sx12)
- "Critical Role Extra – The Return of Liam!" (Sx15)
- "Liam's Quest: Full Circle" (Sx16)
- "Liam's One Shot: 'Song of the Lorelei'" (Sx36)
- "The Night Before Critmas" (Sx41)
Trivia[edit | edit source]
- More of Liam O'Brien's player characters have died than any other cast member on Critical Role.
- Six of the characters Liam has played across One-Shots and the main storyline have died. Five of them were beyond resurrection or within a game without resurrection rules at their final death.
- On Talks Machina, the host Brian Wayne Foster likes to "#ThankMyGuests" with names that are either mispronounced or wordplay that sounds close to their names. Here are the names for Liam O'Brien so far:
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- Critical Role is Liam's first "pure" game of Dungeons & Dragons. Before this, he was a Dungeon Master in his sophomore year of high school as well as a player, which, as he states, "is totally cheating."[5] He also ran a Rift game as well as a Cyberpunk game. After Critical Role became such a large part of Liam's life, he began running several D&D games for his children.[citation needed]
- During one of Sam Riegel's iconic sponsor bits, he ran for President of D&D Beyond, with Liam as his rival. As of Uthodurn (August 2nd, 2019) Liam O'Brien was elected as the 69th President of D&D Beyond. However, in a twist ending, he later chose to partner with campaign rival Sam Riegel, becoming the first ever bi-presidents of D&D Beyond.
- They then quickly became the only known presidents of D&D Beyond whose presidency lasted shorter than a 24 hour period, as they were both fired the next day.
- Liam's chosen drink on his Between the Sheets interview was mulled wine .
- Liam currently holds the second place for attendance out of the main cast members for the main campaigns, just two episode appearances behind Marisha Ray. However, if one-shots are counted, he takes first place.
- Liam's involvement in chosing fan art for the slideshows and official art books has earned him the title of "Art Dad" from the community.
- Every Halloween, the cast of Critical Role dresses up in costume for one episode. Liam has dressed up as the Dread Pirate Roberts (2015), Tyriok Gadsworth (2016), the Sole Survivor from Fallout 4(2017), Kylo Ren (2018), Gaara (2018) and Astrid (2020).
External Links[edit | edit source]
- Critical Role's Liam O'Brien talks his love of Dungeons & Dragons (September 10, 2015)
- Critical Role's Liam O'Brien: Where you've heard him before (January 27, 2016)
- Liam's Reddit AMA (September 6, 2016)
- Between the Sheets: Liam O'Brien (October 10, 2018)
- IMDb profile
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ Casey, Dan. GAME OF THRONES' John Bradley Plays D&D with Nerdist and Critical Role on Nerdist.com Published August 3, 2017. Retrieved January 19, 2020.
- ↑ See "K'Varn Revealed" (1x10) at 4:06:25. (Q&A session)
- ↑ Liam posts behind-the-scenes footage of Critical Role on his Vine account.
- ↑ See "Attack on the Duergar Warcamp" (1x04) at 3:56:32.
- ↑ See "Attack on the Duergar Warcamp" (1x04) at 3:13:25.
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