Liam O'Brien

This page is about the 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
Photograph of Liam O'Brien for Variety, by Robyn Von Swank.
General Information
Full name	Liam Christopher O'Brien
Pronouns	he/him
Born	May 28, 1976 (age 48) Weehawken, New Jersey
Nationality	American
Profession	Voice actor ADR writer Voice director
Critical Role works	All Work No Play Critical Role Campaign 1: Vox Machina Campaign 2: The Mighty Nein Campaign 3: Bells Hells Between the Sheets Critical Role: Vox Machina - Kith & Kin Critical Role: Vox Machina - Kith & Kin (audiobook) "Kith & Kin Fireside Chat Q&A" (Sx63) "The Legend of Zelda One-Shot: Lookout, Here We Come!" (Sx76) "The Mighty Nein Reunion: Echoes of the Solstice" (Sx79) "Persona 5 Tactica One-Shot" (Sx80) EverythingIsContent Exandria Unlimited Handbooker Helper MAME Drop Mini Primetime Pub Draw Travis Willingham's Yee-Haw Game Ranch Candela Obscura: Circle of Tide & Bone Candela Obscura: Circle of the Crimson Mirror The Legend of Vox Machina Critical Role: Vox Machina - Stories Untold (Foreword)
Internet Presence
Instagram	voiceofobrien
Twitter	@VoiceOfOBrien

“

What's sexier than wizards NOTHING

”

– 

Liam O'Brien on Twitter

[edit]

Liam O'Brien is a voice actor, voice director, and a member of the main cast of Critical Role. He plays Orym in Campaign Three.

In previous campaigns, he played Vax'ildan and Caleb Widogast. He has also been the Dungeon Master for several special episodes.

Critical Role Productions

Fan art of Liam's characters, by Aviv Or.

Pre-stream

Before Critical Role began, Liam and his close friend Sam created a podcast called allworknoplay, with the intention to get more fun into their busy schedules. For Liam's birthday they planned to play Dungeons & Dragons with some friends and shared their experience on the podcast. Towards the end of All Work No Play's second episode, the two of them talked about getting ready for the upcoming "one-time" D&D game. Liam asked Matthew Mercer to run the game, because Matthew kept telling him about the D&D game he was running and often invited Liam to join. Liam enjoyed the game so much that he messaged the other players shortly after, asking if they would like to start a continuing game. They have been playing ever since.

Liam and Laura Bailey decided to play twins in Campaign One because they share their birthday, May 28th. Before the game, the two of them spent about two hours at a diner creating their character backgrounds.

Before they started streaming, Liam recorded snippets of their gameplay. One can be heard in the second episode of All Work No Play and another one is available on his yotube channel.

Main campaigns

While playing as Vax'ildan in Campaign One, Liam came up with a backup character, a "halfling druid/monk from the Air Ashari, sent by Keyleth’s father, to be of aid to her in her grief". This initial character idea eventually morphed into Orym, his player character in Exandria Unlimited and Campaign Three.

Liam took part in the D&D Beyond Presidential Campaign, a recurring sponsorship segment created by Sam Riegel.

Player characters

See also: Player characters played by Liam O'Brien

Main Campaigns

• Vax'ildan, half-elf rogue (Assassin)/paladin (Oath of Vengeance)/druid (Campaign One: Vox Machina)
• Caleb Widogast, human wizard (School of Transmutation) (Campaign Two: The Mighty Nein)
• Orym, a halfling fighter (Battle Master) (Campaign Three: Bells Hells)

Vax'ildan

Caleb Widogast

Orym

One-shots and miniseries

• 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 warrior ("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))
• Mordred, the Gaunt, crusader ("Diablo One Shot" (Sx54))
• Orym, halfling fighter (Exandria Unlimited)
• Forrest Coreman, chief of engineering ("The Nautilus Ark: A Johnson Corp Odyssey" (Sx60))
• Lucas Dankworth (NerfWormGrim01011) ("Generation Nord" (Sx72))
• Yolo, Zora soldier ("The Legend of Zelda One-Shot: Lookout, Here We Come!" (Sx76))
• Cosmo Grimm, occultist (Candela Obscura)
• Xarlo Grandall ("Critical Role plays Daggerheart" (Sx83), "The Menagerie Returns!" (Sx84), "Ménagerie a Trois" (Sx85))
• Walden Orlock (Moonward)

Jayne Merriweather

Vampire Liam O'Brien

Cookie

Ringo

Ally

Lieve'tel Toluse

Tomeytine

Derrig

Buddy

Orym

Forrest

Cosmo Grimm

Xarlo Grandall

He also made a cameo as a villager NPC from Josgren's Hollow in "The Voiceless Village" (RTx04).

Games played as Dungeon Master

• "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)
• "The Elder Scrolls Online: Blackwood - Part III: The Golden Goose" (Sx62)
• "Persona 5 Tactica One-Shot" (Sx80)
• Candela Obscura: The Circle of the Crimson Mirror ("Seeking Serenity", "The Gilded Graveyard", "Into the Abyss")

Publications

Liam wrote the Foreword for Critical Role: Vox Machina - Stories Untold. He acted as one of the Art Directors for The Chronicles of Exandria Volume One: The Tale of Vox Machina and was an art curator on The Chronicles of Exandria - The Mighty Nein.

Other works

Liam O'Brien on the set of CelebriD&D, cropped from a larger image.

→ See also: Liam's IMDb profile
Liam began his career in theater before moving on to voice acting in the early 2000s. He also branched out to voice directing, and has worked on several productions, like The Last of Us and Resident Evil 6. A lot of his work revolves around japanese anime dubbing, be it as a voice actor, voice director, or automated dialog replacement writer. One of his most well-known speaking roles is the character Gaara from Naruto.

Personal life

Liam is married to fellow voice actress Amy Kincaid. They have two children together, and owned a dog, Sprigg, who was named after the guest character of the same name.

Liam has stated that D&D has helped him get through a rough patch in his life after he developed hyperacusis.

Trivia

Photograph of Liam O'Brien, by Heirlume Photography.

Fan art of Shakespearean Liam, by OriginalEmmArt.

• He shares his middle name, Christopher, with Matt Mercer.
• Liam is 5'11" tall.
• Liam ties Travis for most player characters at 18. He additionally played a non-DM non-player character Cinna Brightbow.
  • His most played class is Fighter, with four characters.
• 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 campaigns have died. Five of them were beyond resurrection or within a game without resurrection rules at their final death.
• Liam is the only member of the cast who has played two characters of the same family: Derrig and his son-in-law, Orym.
• 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." 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]}
• It is tradition for Liam to choose Sam Riegel's character's race and class at the beginning of each campaign, but his involvement ends there, so he doesn't have influence in potential multiclassing, transformations, or even second characters during the campaign.
• When asked who he'd pick if he could switch to any player character in Campaign One, Liam chose Scanlan Shorthalt.
• Liam has been praised more than once for being part (as his characters) of some of the most popular ships of Critical Role. However, when asked about how he perceived fan reactions about couple involving his characters, he explained he tried to focus only on the table and his own way of playing the character, to avoid getting influenced by external opinions that would alter his approach to a relationship in a campaign.
• After they played together as Orym and Opal, Liam and Aimee Carrero developed a private joke between themselves: since at one point the warlock pretended the Ashari fighter was her child Nancy, now both actors keep up the gig when speaking on social media, with Aimee acting like a mother and Liam responding accordingly.
• He GMs a Ravenloft campaign for his daughter and her friends, and has explained how their adventure started being adapted to be very family friendly (comparing it to The Nightmare Before Christmas), and as the players themselves grew up the tone became more serious and mature.
• Liam's chosen drink on his Between the Sheets interview was mulled wine.
• Liam currently holds 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 choosing 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 (2019), Astrid Becke (2020), Ashley Johnson (2021), Cyclops (2022), and Frodo (2023).
• When asked which one of his Critical Role characters is his favorite, Liam said he was tempted to say Caleb Widogast because of the diversity of things he could do with magic and he loved it. However, Vax'ildan was really his heart, not only because he felt like an alter ego of Liam's, but also because everything started with the Vox Machina characters.
• 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:

Liam O’Braun Prince Liam Oberon Liehelm O'Brain Liam Oberonse Leave Him O’Dryen Bleed Him and Fry Him Feed Him Old Lion

Mausoleum Robe Tie-In Clean Him, No Pryin' DM O’Dyin’ Plead Him No Tryin’ Lead Man Old Byron Zipper Low Flyin’ Ream Him Fo' Dyin'

Fleein' All Dyin' Healin' by Fryin' Fryin' Up Simon Please Bathe I'm Dying Frumpkin Be Flyin' Library Tie In

Save Nott She Dyin' Smut Quest Thrivin' Lead Means No Scryin' Cube Ate Yo' Kitten That Story I'm Cryin' Need the Bowl for Fryin’

• In December 2012, Liam recorded audiobooks as the narrator for the Lost Legends books, a Dragonlance book series, with Sam as his Voice Director. This happened a little bit around their first home-game, making Liam's month "D&D 100% of the time".

External links

• 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

Art: