Laura Bailey Names Her Favorite Critical Role Romance, Which Reshaped Campaign 3

Critical Role’s romances, and the rise of Imodna

Critical Role has featured plenty of romances across its Dungeons & Dragons campaigns and one-shots. Campaign 1 gave fans the angst-ridden but sweet love between haughty noble Percival Del Rolo and strong-willed ranger Vex’ahlia. Campaign 2 offered the will-they-won’t-they dynamic between warlock Fjord Stone and the bubbly tiefling cleric Jester.

Co-founder and cast member Laura Bailey sits at the center of both romances, and it’s easy to see why. She doesn’t shy away from challenging character dynamics, whether her character is tricking a hag with a magical cupcake or slicing and dicing her greatest enemy. In Campaign 3, though, Bailey kickstarted a romance unlike any before it.

The Rise of Imodna

In her recent Founders Favorite interview on Critical Role’s streaming service, Beacon, Bailey looked back on some of her favorite moments in the show’s history. One stood out: the rise of Imodna, the romance between Imogen Temult (Bailey) and Laudna (Marisha Ray).

In Campaign 3, Bailey played Imogen, a human sorcerer. Imogen grew up as a country girl, and her psychic and telepathic powers made her a social outcast. She found peace only after meeting Laudna, an undead sorceress and warlock. Laudna’s patron is the foreboding, despicable necromancer Delilah Briarwood, known to Critters from Campaign 1 and the animated series The Legend of Vox Machina.

Throughout Campaign 3, the two found a new family in the party Bells Hells. From the start, Imogen and Laudna clearly felt strongly for each other. It certainly seemed romantic. Who can forget Imogen’s jealousy arc in Bassuras? Still, some Critters weren’t convinced the relationship was anything beyond sisterly.

In episode 65, “Path of Vengeance,” Bailey settled the question. Imogen’s love for Laudna was far from platonic, and she said so with a single question: “Can I kiss you?”

The moment clearly meant a lot to Bailey. As she explains in Founders Favorites, she didn’t see the kiss coming. Considering how shell-shocked the rest of the cast was, she may not have been the only one.

“I wasn’t planning it, and I was nervous as hell, and I don’t know why I chose that moment!”

Bailey continues in the interview: “All of a sudden Imogen didn’t know what she [Laudna] was thinking, and she had to ask.”

The kiss came shortly after the pair reunited. A cataclysmic event had forced the party to split, teleporting them to two different locations in Exandria. Each feared for the other’s safety, and massive reveals about Exandria and its gods added to the tension. Their desperation to see each other again was palpable the moment they laid eyes on one another.

While they were apart, Imogen found a new magical item that kept her from hearing anyone’s thoughts, Laudna’s included. After having Laudna in her head for so long, Imogen had no idea how Laudna felt. So she took the plunge and confessed her feelings.

Though unplanned, the romance became a key focal point of Campaign 3’s overall narrative. Imogen struggled with hearing everyone else’s thoughts, but Laudna’s thoughts only brought her peace wherever she went. The world had cruelly rejected Laudna for her appearance and her grotesque abilities as a Hollowed One. Imogen saw her only as beautiful and wonderful. Both were outcasts, and they found safety with each other.

Imogen and Laudna’s romance continues to grow strong

Once the romance was established halfway through Campaign 3, Critters had plenty of time to watch its highs and lows. One of the biggest hurdles was Delilah Briarwood. Her control over Laudna meant the two never really had any privacy, and Delilah always risked taking over Laudna’s body for her own.

That risk was eventually flipped on its head. In episode 103, “Cages,” Bells Hells and Essek Thelyss trapped Delilah’s soul in an anchor embedded inside Laudna. Delilah wasn’t gone for good, but she was no longer a problem. Imogen and Laudna could keep planning a future together, and they achieved it by the end of Campaign 3.

Bells Hells would go on to have several more adventures. Not much else is known about Imogen and Laudna beyond two details: they settled down in a quiet cottage, and they secretly got married sometime after Critters last saw them in Campaign 3. Bailey’s romances have always had a wedding one-shot, so an Imodna wedding one-shot seems likely at some point in Critical Role’s future.

Until then, like Bailey, fans can keep reminiscing about one of Critical Role’s greatest, and most bananas, romances of all time.

Critical Role Campaign 3: Bells Hells is available to stream on Beacon and YouTube.

Source: Polygon