The cast of Critical Role has brought plenty of laughter and joy throughout their many Dungeons & Dragons campaigns, one-shots, and miniseries adventures. We’ve had shopping episodes going wrong, pretending to film a pornographic movie to get out of a fight, and one instance where Travis Willingham rolled three natural 1s in a row.
However, for all the hilarity and hijinks, Critical Role has also broken plenty of hearts. For all the love and friendship, there’s also been plenty of death and grief. One death in particular didn’t just traumatize Critters for life; it fundamentally changed the campaign’s tone and arc — so much so that even eight years later, it’s still powerful enough to reduce fans to tears.
Ed. note: This article contains spoilers for Critical Role Campaigns 1 and 2, and for Prime Video’s The Legend of Vox Machina and The Mighty Nein.
While Campaign 2 and its animated counterpart, The Mighty Nein, differ significantly, one thing has remained the same across both source materials: Mollymauk Tealeaf’s (Taliesin Jaffe) status as a beloved character. A tiefling blood hunter, Molly is a thrill-seeker through and through, and his pursuit of pleasure often puts him at odds with the Nein’s more high-strung members, such as Beauregard (Marisha Ray). However, his tendency toward extravagant lies and jokes has helped him form friendships with characters like Jester (Laura Bailey) and Nott (Sam Riegel).
How did Mollymauk die in Campaign 2?
However, as much as Molly was loved, his time in Campaign 2 with the party was cut short after fewer than 30 episodes. In episode 26, “Found & Lost,” the Mighty Nein wake after a night’s rest to discover that three of their party members, Yasha (Ashley Johnson), Fjord (Travis Willingham), and Jester, are missing. Shortly afterward, the rest of the party encounter Keg (Ashly Burch), who says the three missing members were likely kidnapped by the Iron Shepherds, a group of slavers. Keg says not to fret — she’s on her way to the Iron Shepherds’ base to kill them. The rest of the Mighty Nein decide to join her.
Eventually, the Nein and Keg find a group of Iron Shepherds on the road and plan an ambush to surprise the slavers. At first, it looks as though the ambush has gone well, but the party soon realizes the group’s leader, Lorenzo, is a capable fighter flanked by magic users. Couple that with some truly terrible rolls, and it’s not long before the Nein are seriously hurt, especially Molly. Desperate to finish Lorenzo off, Molly uses his Blood Maledict ability, which weakens an enemy at the cost of his own life force. Unfortunately, the damage reduces his hit points to zero. This gives Lorenzo an opportunity to attack Molly, delivering an automatic crit on the first hit — which makes the tiefling fail two death saving throws — and killing him instantly with Lorenzo’s second.
Because of the abundance of healing items and resurrection spells in D&D, death was often treated as an afterthought rather than an impactful mechanic in Critical Role’s first campaign. Notable exceptions included Vax’ildan, but his “passing on” at the hands of the Matron of Ravens came right at the end of the first campaign and involved divine intervention. Molly’s death, by contrast, happened early in the campaign, when the Nein were still fairly low-leveled and the party’s cleric, Jester, was captured and couldn’t cast revivify or heal Molly.
What was so shocking about Molly’s death was that it occurred during a time when Critical Role was still doing live streams, rather than pre-recording the games. This meant Molly’s death happened live, allowing Critters and the cast to experience the emotions and circumstances at the same time, giving authenticity not only to Taliesin Jaffe’s despair at the loss of his character but also to the heartbreak of Dungeon Master Matthew Mercer and Jaffe’s fellow castmates at seeing their friend walk away from the table.
Campaign 3 and Campaign 4 both had moments when characters died, but because those episodes were pre-recorded, Critical Role could advertise and even warn Critters ahead of time (as the company did in the newsletter before Teor’s death in Campaign 4) that the upcoming episode would be particularly stressful, taking the edge off. “Found & Lost” had no such thing, and it started off as a relatively calm episode—only to go to hell by the second part and take Critters by surprise.
Furthermore, Molly’s death wasn’t just a shake-up in how Critical Role handled death metatextually, but it was narratively significant, too. Although the group had only known Molly for a short time, every member of the party was affected by his death. Beau, who didn’t like Molly all that much, decided to adopt his philosophy of “leave every town better than they find it,” whereas Caleb — who had previously been wondering whether to leave the Nein behind for good — decided that he couldn’t abandon his new friends after such a tragic loss. Even Jester, the heart of the Nein, was shaken by Molly’s death, suffering from guilt about not being there to save him.
What made Molly’s demise so shocking was that it was the campaign’s first permanent player-character death, and it perfectly highlighted how uncompromising and merciless Dungeons & Dragons can be. This wasn’t a TV show where a character’s death often has meaning and is written to fit the series’ themes — Molly’s death came from bad luck and poor decisions. It had serious narrative consequences — for one thing, the arrival of Kingsley Tealeaf and Lucien later in the campaign — but it was also a meaningless, abrupt end for a hero Critters thought they had more time with.
Molly’s death remains unmatched, and as Critical Role continues to grow, it’s unlikely we’ll see another event that fully captures the shock of real-time play and the cast’s horror. But perhaps that’s for the best, as we’re still mourning our beloved blood hunter tiefling after eight years.
Critical Role Campaign 2: The Mighty Nein is available to stream on Beacon and YouTube.