Taliesin Jaffe (2024)

This page is about the actor. For the character from a one-shot campaign, see Taliesin Jaffe (character).

Taliesin Jaffe is a voice actor, voice director, and a member of the main cast of Critical Role. He plays Ashton Greymoore in Campaign Three.

In previous campaigns, Taliesin played Percival de Rolo, Mollymauk Tealeaf and Caduceus Clay. He was also the Game Master for several special episodes and the Lightkeeper for Candela Obscura.

Critical Role Productions[]

Pre-Stream[]

In the first session that the original group played together, Taliesin played a dragonborn paladin.^[1] Because he was one of the more experienced players at the time, his purpose for that first game was to try to ensure that everyone else stayed alive.^[2] When the players decided to continue playing past the first session, Taliesin created a new character and chose the gunslinger Pathfinder class, because it was interesting to him and he felt it could fill a role that did not exist within the group. Percy was based on the short story that Taliesin had written with inspiration from the movie Plunkett and MacLeane.^[3]

When converting the campaign from Pathfinder to 5^th edition Dungeons & Dragons in preparation for beginning the Critical Role livestreaming webseries, Matthew Mercer had to create a custom martial archetype for the fighter class, since Percy was a gunslinger. Matt and Taliesin spent a full day to convert the character's class and all of his stats and abilities.

Main Campaigns[]

Taliesin is known for rolling frequent critical successes, which earned him the title of "Anti-Wheaton" by other members of the cast. Perhaps his most impressive roll was a 02 on a percentile die during "Long May He Reign" (2x140), which allowed the resurrection of his former character Mollymauk. The resurrection had previously failed when Matt rolled a natural 1, but Taliesin's successful Divine Intervention countered it.

During Percy's resurrection ritual in "Passed Through Fire" (1x69), Taliesin was watching from another room. After the ritual succeeded, Matt revealed that Taliesin was the one who ultimately decided if Percy would want to come back, depending on the actions of Vox Machina and their players during the ritual.^[4] Taliesin stated later that if the group's offerings during the ritual had been religion-based, Percy probably would have declined to return from death.^[5]

Taliesin came up with the idea of his Campaign 2 character Mollymauk as a backup for Percy in the first campaign. When Mollymauk died, he had to come up with his next character, Caduceus, within one week.

With the exception of Caduceus, every character played by Taliesin in a main campaign uses a homebrew subclass created by Matt Mercer.

Player characters[]

See also: Player characters played by Taliesin Jaffe

Main Campaigns[]

• Percival de Rolo, human fighter (Gunslinger) (Campaign 1: The Legend of Vox Machina)
• Mollymauk Tealeaf, tiefling Blood hunter (Order of the Ghostslayer) (Campaign 2: The Mighty Nein)
• Caduceus Clay, firbolg cleric (Grave Domain) (Campaign 2: The Mighty Nein)
• Ashton Greymoore, earth genasi barbarian (Path of Fundamental Chaos) (Campaign 3: Bells Hells)

One-shots and miniseries[]

• Mezek, goblin monk ("To the Poop! Goblins: A Critical Role Pathfinder One-Shot" (Sx09))
• Taliesin Jaffe (character), human warlock ("Liam's Quest!" (Sx12) and "Liam's Quest: Full Circle" (Sx16))
• Waffle, bear ("Trinket's Honey Heist" (Sx27))
• Bundle, dwarf priest ("Kobolds, Catacombs and Dragons (Oh My!)" (Sx29))
• Andy, human fighter ("Critical Role and the Club of Misfits" (Sx38))
• Arthur Fizzlebottom, Christmas elf rogue ("The Night Before Critmas" (Sx41))
• The Owlbear, human barbarian/rogue ("The Adventures of the Darrington Brigade" (Sx49))
• Jamie Wrenly, human witch ("Cinderbrush: A Monsterhearts Story" (Sx51))
• Krill, the marauder ("Doom Eternal One-Shot" (Sx52))
• Mallory Klaxton, dunmer sorcerer (The Elder Scrolls Online: Blackwood)
• Dr. Ramsey Wiser, computer scientist ("The Nautilus Ark: A Johnson Corp Odyssey" (Sx60))
• Kingsley Tealeaf ("The Mighty Nein Reunited Part 1" (Sx73) and "The Mighty Nein Reunited Part 2" (Sx74))
• The Lightkeeper (Candela Obscura)
• Bobby Socks, fifteen-year-old halfling druid, son of Kent Plucker ("Choose Their Adventure...Again!" (Sx81))
• Leo Amicus, journalist ("Candela Obscura: Seeking Serenity" (CO4x01))
• Sir Dante Terrapin ("Critical Role plays Daggerheart" (Sx83))

Games Played as Dungeon Master[]

• "Critical Role One-Shot: Thursday by Night" (Sx24)
• "Critical Role One-Shot: Thursday by Night – Part 2" (Sx25)
• "Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Crystal Palace" (Sx46)

Other Works[]

→ See also: Taliesin's IMDb profile
Taliesin began his career as a child actor at the age of six, and quit the industry around twelve years old. As an adult, he took up voice acting, voice directing and screenwriting in the anime dubbing industry. He has since worked on several projects for video games and western animation.

Taliesin is credited with creating the concept of Candela Obscura together with Chris Lockey, as well as participating in additional game design for it.^[7]

Personal Life[]

Several of Taliesin's family members worked in the film industry. His mother, Nina Axelrod, is an actress; his father Robert Jaffe is a producer; and his grandfather, George Axelrod, was an award-winning screenwriter, director and producer.

Taliesin's first role playing experience was the Generic Universal RolePlaying System (GURPS) in high school when he was thirteen years old. He also hosted a Rifts game, a World of Darkness game, Paranoia, and HoL: Human Occupied Landfill. He gave HoL core rulebooks to now-dungeon master Matthew Mercer for his birthday.

Before Mercer's Pathfinder-based Exandria campaign (which evolved into 5th edition-based Critical Role), fellow voice actor and player Marisha Ray and he were in another pen-and-paper RPG game together. This group was comprised of Luis Carazo, Chloe Dykstra, Sean Manzano and Brian. Matthew Mercer and Zack Hanks co-DMed this group for two and a half years, under Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition rules, from 2010/2011 to 2013/2014^[presumed].^[8][9][10] Taliesin's character name was a wizard named "Aldous" and he was "kind of a mad monk character".^[8][11]

Trivia[]

• His second name, Axelrod, is the surname of his mother, the American actress Nina Axelrod, daughter of the screenwriter, producer, playwright and film director George Axelrod. His first name is Welsh and means "radiant brow", although according to Taliesin it can also be translated as "shiny forehead".^[12]
• Taliesin is bisexual,^[13] similar to his character Mollymauk.
• Taliesin has an essential tremor. ^[14]
• Taliesin officiated Matthew Mercer and Marisha Ray's wedding.^[15]
• Taliesin's chosen drink for his Between the Sheets interview was a blonde manhattan.
• Every Halloween, the cast of Critical Role dresses up in costume for one episode. Taliesin has dressed up as Quentin Quire (2015), Clarota (2016), Ezio Auditore (2017), Sherlock Holmes (2018), Barry Allen (2019), Archivist Zeenoth (2020), Liam O'Brien (2021), Mr. Sinister (2022), and Sam Gamgee (2023).
• A popular joke among friends and fans alike is that Taliesin doesn't look his age, and is in fact some sort of immortal entity who is hundreds of years old, like an ancient deity, a vampire, or some form of eldritch being in disguise. He himself likes to play along when this is mentioned, and he's known to be the member of the cast most associated with gothic and eerie themes.
• On Talks Machina, the host Brian Wayne Foster liked to "#ThankMyGuests" with names that were either mispronounced or wordplay that sounded close to their names. Here are the names for Taliesin Jaffe:

External links[]

• Critical Role's Taliesin Jaffe: Faster, Percycat! Kill! Kill! (September 24, 2015)
• Critical Role's Taliesin Jaffe: Where you've heard him before (March 2, 2016)
• Between The Sheets: Taliesin Jaffe (September 19, 2018)
• IMDb profile

References[]

Art: