This is how Zerxus Ilerez ended up in ‘The Legend of Vox Machina’ Season 3

Season 3, episode 4 of The Legend of Vox Machina is a significant Essential Position crossover occasion. Not solely does the present proceed adapting Essential Position’s first live-streamed marketing campaign, it additionally incorporates a key character from Exandria Limitless: Calamity, a four-part mini-campaign set centuries earlier than The Legend of Vox Machina and run by Brennan Lee Mulligan.

The character in query is the paladin Zerxus Ilerez (voiced by Luis Carazo, who additionally performed Zerxus in Calamity). He’s the present proprietor of the Plate of the Dawnmartyr, one of many Vestiges of Divergence that Vox Machina want to be able to defeat the dragon Thordak (voiced by the late Lance Reddick). Their quest brings them to Zerxus’ residence within the Hells of Despath, the place he and cleric Pike Trickfoot (voiced by Ashley Johnson) play a high-stakes card sport for the Plate. The sequence tweaks components from the unique marketing campaign, which noticed bard Scanlan (voiced by Sam Riegel) gamble for the Plate with a hearth big within the Elemental Aircraft of Fireplace.

“From a story perspective, we had an opportunity to combine two story beats from our campaign,” Travis Willingham, who voices Grog Strongjaw, informed Mashable. (Willingham can also be an govt producer on The Legend of Vox Machina and CEO of Essential Position.) The collection may take Vox Machina’s stint within the Fireplace Aircraft, which does not have the most important story hook by this level within the present’s timeline, and merge it with the concept Ank’Harel ruler J’mon Sa Ord (voiced by Mara Junot) would have hidden the Plate within the Hells to maintain it as removed from Thordak as potential.

“And right after we had finished EXU: Calamity, with Zerxus’ fate being sent to the Hells, it just popped up that maybe 800 years later, he’s still down there, and that would be a nice thing to weave into the story,” Willingham continued. “Particularly some of the lore that was revealed in EXU: Calamity, and how the Calamity kicked off, and why that might be important to larger antagonists in the story that we might try to utilize in a larger way if we get future seasons.”

Zerxus’ look is not any transient Easter egg. As a substitute, he performs a meaty function within the episode, with the present paralleling his difficult relationship to his deity — in Calamity, that is Asmodeus, Lord of the 9 Hells, though he goes unnamed right here — with Pike’s personal doubts in her religion within the Everlight. Of their encounter, he additionally provides Vox Machina a fast rundown of the occasions of Calamity, accompanied by a stained glass-style animated interlude paying homage to the marketing campaign’s introduction sequence. Showing within the interlude are Zerxus’ companions, the opposite participant characters from Calamity.

“I think there’s a hidden desire on our part to incorporate everyone from Calamity at some point,” Willingham mentioned. And with extra animated Essential Position tasks in growth with Amazon Studios, together with a Mighty Nein collection coming subsequent yr, a full Calamity adaptation of some variety will not be too far-fetched.

“It’s ripe for a movie, a mini-series, something — we’re just trying to figure out the best delivery method for it and how it would fit into everything,” Willingham mentioned.

There is a hidden want on our half to include everybody from “Calamity” sooner or later.

For now, although, it seems like we have not seen the final of Zerxus Ilerez in The Legend of Vox Machina. When Pike and her companions escape with the Plate of the Dawnmartyr, he utters a really foreboding assertion: “We are his blood. The time for his ascension draws near.”

The phrases echo these spoken by Delilah Briarwood (voiced by Gray Griffin) and different cultists of the Whispered One — also called Vecna within the authentic marketing campaign — all the best way again in Season 1. Might this imply that The Legend of Vox Machina is positioning Zerxus because the Whispered One’s champion? And in that case, would that imply the collection is mashing the Whispered One and Asmodeus collectively? Or did Zerxus select to serve one other deity within the hopes of making an attempt to redeem him, as he hoped to do for Asmodeus in Calamity?

“A Redemption Paladin is still gonna redemption,” Marisha Ray, voice of Keyleth, informed Mashable. (Ray can also be an govt producer on the present, in addition to Inventive Director of Essential Position.) “I think it’s very fitting, because there are several entities in the world of Exandria that could fit that ticket of maybe being redeemed.”

“We’re hoping we will see some conspiracy theories [about that line],” added Willingham.

On prime of prompting fan theories, Zerxus’ addition to The Legend of Vox Machina is additional proof of why the present is among the most fascinating works of adaptation on TV as we speak. Zerxus did not exist as a personality when Essential Position’s first marketing campaign got here out — audiences did not even get to satisfy him till months after Season 1 of The Legend of Vox Machina premiered. But as Essential Position continues to develop via its numerous campaigns, it is creating extra supply materials for its animated variations to attract from in actual time.

“One of my favorite things about working on the animated show is that after the Vox Machina campaign ended, we continued to expand and enrich the world and create history. We created future stories, but we also expanded what the past was,” Liam O’Brien, voice of Vax’ildan and govt producer, informed Mashable.

“That’s really the best thing about adaptations. You can go through and sprinkle in some of the good stuff that wasn’t there before,” added Ray.

She continued: “I think we’re really lucky in the sense that we’re developing Mighty Nein in real time with The Legend of Vox Machina, as well as still continuing to shoot Campaign 3 and other ancillary stuff. So we have this 5,000-foot view of everything — except for all the stuff that is to be determined at the end of Campaign 3 — but we can take the Jenga blocks of the story and move them around to fit nicely.”

In order The Legend of Vox Machina continues its run, be looking out for extra substantial hyperlinks to Essential Position’s different campaigns. Zerxus could be the first Calamity crossover, however from the sounds of it, he most likely will not be the final.

The Legend of Vox Machina Season 3 premieres Oct. 3 on Prime Video, with three new episodes each Thursday.