Many fans of Joe Manganiello know about his love for Dungeons & Dragons. But they may not know that Manganiello has the rare honor of having a character go from home game creation to a part of established D&D lore.
Wizards of the Coast is no stranger to collaborations with outside creatives to create D&D content. Those collaborations range from adventure campaigns like Dungeons & Dragons vs. Rick and Morty to full out source books like Explorer's Guide to Wildemount, which provided official material for players wanting to create a campaign in the world established by season 2 of Critical Role. Wizards of the Coast has also sponsored streams of D&D campaigns featuring celebrities such as Deborah Ann Woll and Chris Hardwicke.
In 2017, Joe Manganiello began publicly playing a D&D character known as Arkhan the Cruel. According to an interview with Inverse, Arkhan, a red dragonborn Oathbreaker Paladin, began as a character in a private home game. When Manganiello began playing in online streams such as Wizard of the Coast's Force Grey and Critical Role, he decided to continue using the character. Arkhan perhaps was most popularized by his time on Critical Role, as the character was part of the climactic final boss fight that ended the show's first campaign.
Which Dungeons & Dragons Campaign Arkhan Appears In
A few years after Manganiello played Arkhan on Critical Role, it was revealed that Wizards of the Coast had worked with him to make Arkhan an official part of canon in the adventure module, Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus. The campaign, which serves a prequel to the upcoming video game Baldur's Gate 3, featured Arkhan as a major NPC. Players could work with or against Arkhan in their quest to find a missing city. What's more, Arkhan's time in Critical Role was also somewhat made canon by the fact that his character in the adventure contains a custom artifact he stole at the end of his appearance on the show. Joe Manganiello also created two other NPC characters that appear in the adventure: a lawful evil Tortle cleric named Krull and a minotaur named Torogar Steelfist.
The fact that Arkhan is a major character in Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus raises the question of whether Arkhan will appear in Baldur's Gate 3 itself. While there has been no confirmation of the character in the video game, it is established that players of Baldur's Gate 3 will begin the game in Avernus and spend a considerable amount of time there. For now, players looking to spend time with Joe Manganiello's Dungeons & Dragons creations will need to check out his appearance in Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus.
Source: Inverse