Brennan Lee Mulligan explains how he structured the Critical Role miniseries EXU: Calamity like a disaster movie. Calamity delved into the events that led to the apocalyptic event in Exandria, The Calamity, which takes place centuries before the events of Critical Role’s first campaign. The four-episode miniseries follows a group of characters who inadvertently play a major role in the cataclysmic event and highlights their failed attempts to stop the inevitable tragedy.
During an interview with Screen Rant promoting Dimension 20’s new season, The Ravening War, Mulligan explained the difference between the two miniseries structures. He revealed that Calamity is based on disaster movies, citing Rogue One and Independence Day. Mulligan then explained how The Ravening War, which includes major time jumps, is structured as a “grand, very Roman, horrifying march of time.” Check out Mulligan’s full quote and interview below:
Brennan Lee Mulligan: This was my little player document for Calamity that I gave to the players for character creation. This it the precursor to the 20-page lore doc we talked about on camera, but if you look at it, a lot of the little images are all feature films. It’s Jurassic Park, Rogue One Independence Day. Calamity’s structure is a disaster movie and I love that The Ravening War’s structure is a kind of grand very Roman horrifying march of time that like moves throughout.
How Structure Sets EXU: Calamity Apart From Other Critical Role Stories
Critical Role primarily tells long-form stories, with the first two campaigns spanning over 100 episodes each. The first installment of Exandria Unlimited ended on multiple cliffhangers, with three characters continuing their stories in Campaign 3. Even the one-shots set in Exandria primarily expand the stories of characters introduced during one of Critical Role’s main campaigns.
EXU: Calamity stands out because it was a march towards the inevitable world-ending Calamity, one of the most important events in Exandria’s history. The ending of this adventure was known before it even began, which makes Mulligan’s decision to structure it as a disaster movie brilliant. Similar to Rogue One, the characters, and story of Calamity had a predetermined fate.
Calamity leans into this, but what makes it so exciting, even knowing the outcome, is the revelation of how the Calamity came to be. These characters played unexpectedly significant roles in the devastating events, and their futile attempts to subvert the coming cataclysm are even more poignant knowing they will fail. Critical Role is a series that allows the characters to evolve over long periods of time, but Calamity saw them realize the consequences of their actions and fail to fix them, thus ending the world as they knew it.
