A quick reference post for people who want to watch Critical Role oneshots where someone other than Matt DM/GMs (links to all videos below):
To watch Liam as GM:
“Liam’s Quest Part 1″: During a normal day of voice acting work, Laura, Travis, Sam, and Taliesin are suddenly caught up in a time-warping, Eldritch horror story
“Liam’s Quest Part 2″: Now joined by Matt, Marisha, and Ashley, the meta versions of our players must find a way to stop the time-shifts that send them to horrific landscapes full of monsters.
“The Screw Job”: An Exandria-set oneshot, in which a group of thieves try to rob a sorcerer in pre-Chroma Conclave Emon.
“The Song of the Lorelei”: An Exandria-set oneshot, in which a group of werewolf siblings in Wildemount investigate a tragic mystery in their home castle.
“The Night Before Critmas”: A group of elves from the north pole have to rush to save Christmas and Santa (perhaps familiar if you’ve seen a certain movie).
To watch Marisha as GM:
“Honey Heist”: Trinket runs into some interesting bears who have a plan to steal the best honey from a festival in Westruun. (Exandria-set, but debatably canon.)
“Honey Heist 2: Electric Beargaloo”: Trinket teams up with his old heist pals to go after a notorious criminal (also Exandria-set, but even more debatably canon than the last one)
“Honey Heist 3: Tova’s Honeys”: Tova the werebear assembles a team of crack bear investigators to uncover a sinister plot (also Exandria set, but pretty clearly not canon for a few obvious reasons)
To watch Taliesin as GM:
“Thursday by Night Part 1″: The CR gang wakes up in the Geek and Sundry studios to find they’ve been turned into vampires. Now if only they could figure out what’s going on and how to get home.
“Thursday by Night Part 2″: Already down a few members, the remaining undead Critical Role players try to navigate the dark underworld of Los Angeles.
“Call of Cthulhu: Shadows of the Crystal Palace”: In the 1890s, a group of hired investigators infiltrate a museum exhibit at the Crystal Palace in search of an important ancient artifact.
To watch Travis as GM:
“Grog’s Oneshot”: Grog introduces Vex, Vax, Percy, and Scanlan to a great new game - Bunions and Flagons!
To watch Laura as GM:
“Critical Role and the Club of Misfits”: A group of students get into trouble while serving detention at Smogwarts. Any similarity to existing IP whether beloved magic books or 80s movies is purely coincidental.
To watch Sam as GM:
“Bar Room Blitz”: An Exandria-set oneshot, in which a group of strangers discover something far more sinister at work after a bar fight breaks out in the Ass Sailor tavern.
“Sam’s Romantic Cruise”: Fairy tale characters embark on a romantic cruise. Chaos ensues
“Crash Pandas”: A group of raccoons try to win a street race. Chaos ensues.
We all eagerly await the foretold Ashley Johnson oneshot.
can we talk about matt last night during That Whole Thing. the way he plays delilah is downright scary. in both the literal sense of her being an evil witch but also the way he keeps track of everything so flawlessly. it’s so so clear that he’s been having delilah bide her time, patiently waiting for the perfect moment to get her hands on that rock. maybe she was building power, maybe she needed imogen to hand it over willingly, but the way matt describes the feeling at the back of laudna’s neck in the way he knows will get laudna/marisha to act on it is amazing. the manipulation from delilah. making it seem like laudna’s own worries for her friend. increasing as she’s taking too long to ask for the rock but not pushing too hard to spook her away. in one moment, she gets herself all this power, isolates her host from the group, shatters laudna’s sense of autonomy, establishes a terrifying power over laudna, and lives to fight another day.
obsessing over the body movements laura/imogen is doing after laudna says “just be careful of the moments where you can no longer separate yourself from it”, whilst imogen is saying she doesn’t think it’s doing anything, up until laudna says the “do you think it might be providing more harm than good” line. that is a woman obsessed
no no listen her body language during that whole part??? the silent I’m lying so much right now, not to you but to myself??? fucking incredible, and also an absolute master class
marisha: yeah keyleth is gonna be pretty determined to bring vax back
travis: but think, you’re free now! you’re free to go explore all that random guy ass that you’ve been looking at because you’ve been held back by your relationship!
marisha: oh yeah totally, all the prime choices out there. victor?
It’s somehow always the players and never Matt who ratchet the emotional tension up to 9 (thousand) towards the end of the campaign. Like I feel as emotionally drained after the last 3 episodes as I did going into the endgame of campaign 1 knowing about Vax’s pact with the Raven Queen. And they don’t even know what they’re supposed to do yet.
[ID: A photo of Sam on the set of EXU: Calamity. He’s wearing a leopard-print long-sleeves bodysuit, and has glitter painted into his eyebrows. /end ID]
[ID: A photo of Aimee on the set of Exandria Unlimited. She’s also wearing a leopard-print outfit, and her makeup is beautiful with orange and yellow graphic eyeshadow and a bright lip color. Sam’s attempt to match her look is obvious, but pales in comparison. /end ID]
[ID: A photo of Sam and Aabria on the set of EXU: Calamity. Aabria is in the process of painting Sam’s eyebrows with glitter. /end ID]
@.ramsiegel: Tonight’s #EXUCalamity lewk is an homage to OG #EXU cast member and lifelong friend @.aimeecarrero - and thanks to @.quiddie for the finishing touches
This campaign was so utterly different than the first campaign. Not better or worse, just different. A different kind of story, a different kind of hero. A different kind of ending.
I like that the Nein ended with a new beginning. They’ll always be family but they all began as broken individuals. They healed, they grew, and they gained the confidence to strike out on their own, with some friends alongside and a family always there when needed. Finding adventure and fixing wrongs. Or for some, finding a life of peace after a life of battle.
Through out that entire, very long episode, I wondered if I was going to cry. I typically don’t cry at happy endings, and the CR1 finale set an incredibly high bar as I still cannot watch 115 without sobbing. Though I did not want the loss that the CR1 finale brought, I wondered if anything would hit that emotional chord within me, that would start the waterworks.
One by one, all had their new beginnings - no tears. Even as they individually teared up, I did not. And again I thought, maybe this just wasn’t going to make me cry. And that would be fine - happiness was a hard fought battle and a beautiful thing to see. A beautiful message in the end, that our trauma does not define us and we can heal and find our own purpose and happiness.
But then it ended. This family of friends turned to each other and realized that this particular journey was over. And they all started to cry as Travis repeated his words from the end of CR1 “Let’s do it again.”
That is what made me cry, at the end of it all - not to CR1 levels but some tears finally broke through. The closing of a chapter between a group of people who love each other so palpably. The campaign was so wonderful, the ending was beautiful and hopeful, but what got me into this show, what made me stay, and what is the one thing that made me cry tonight was this beautiful found family. And I am very grateful that they share their table with us.
Elf Host: “Hello everyone, and welcome to tonight’s episode of Casting Rolls, where a bunch of us fantasy creatures sit around and play nerdy-ass voice actors”
Various fantasy creatures in unison (but the orc is the loudest): “WE PLAY NERDY-ASS ACTOOOOORS!”
Addition because I’m way too into this concept now:
Beau and Essek roleplaying as married is definitely something that started as Beau fucking with Essek and Essek refusing to back down.
There is a whole bit about Caduceus playing a human who’s secretly an eldritch god and this was mostly started as a way to poke fun at Fjord and his whole ukatoa journey but Caduceus gets too good at just quietly adding in little details until they all start wondering if Caduceus himself is secretly an eldritch being
