The traveler is my co-pilot reference

As the true nature of the Traveler gets revealed in more recent Critical Role episodes, many are interested in the backstory between our favorite little blue tiefling and her patron. Here is Jester Lavorre and the Traveler's interesting relationship, explained.

Warning for spoilers up to Campaign 2 Episode 94 of Critical Role.

The Traveler first came to Jester when she was a child. Being the only child in her mother's place of work and living, the Lavish Chateau in Nicodranus, left Jester with no one her age to play with. An entity, calling himself the Traveler, appeared before Jester in the form of a child. Instead of a playmate, however, Jester saw him as a god and revered him as one.

The Traveler has always appeared to Jester cloaked, even as a child. Critical Role's official animated intro illustrates their early friendship through Jester's doodles of them together on her wall and bed, with a barely visible hand booping Jester's nose.

via Critical Role's Animated Intro

We learn later that the Traveler was an adult the whole time, and wasn't a god. Instead, he is an Archfey named Artagan, who originally made an appearance in campaign 1 of Critical Role. The Traveler mentions in episode 94 of campaign 2 that Jester's complete devotion to him when she was a child was what made him feel like he could help others in creating more and more chaos. Furthermore, Jester's devotion to the Traveler, mixed with Artagan's powers as an Archfey, gave Jester the ability to become a Trickster cleric.

Jester's very unique method of spreading the word about the Traveler was typically by defacing other gods' shrines or statues and passing out hand-drawn pamphlets, but that mixed with Artagan's search for those in need was enough to spark an interest of around 200 people that then looked to the Traveler for guidance, hope, power, or chaos. The Traveler appreciated this, but he soon realized how much responsibility and time was required to lead this amount of people and he doesn't want to deal with it anymore.

No matter the large amount of followers, the Traveler always counts Jester as his first follower and his favorite of them all. He trusts her to come up with a plan to diffuse the responsibility by transforming the followers of the Traveler into a community where they can all rely on each other instead of him, thus clearing his time and releasing his responsibility. It's also good for Jester, who misses the Traveler and doesn't get to see him often, because he will have more time to spend with her.

The fact that the Traveler trusts Jester to find a solution to this problem is proof enough that he trusts her and her ability to outwit them all, which she proved with her ingenious strategy to trick a hag to break Nott's curse with a cupcake.

Recently, different players on the show have been theorizing that perhaps Jester has more power than she realizes, especially because the Traveler isn't actually a god, which is what is usually required when clerics are granted with powers. Regardless of what the truth is, no one can doubt that Jester and the Traveler make a pretty powerful pair.

Critical Role is on temporary leave due to COVID-19, but you can catch up on episodes of campaign 2 or view their other shows on their YouTube channel.

Source: Critical Role, CritRoleStats

NEXT: Critical Role: How To Quickly Catch Up On Campaign 2