Curious Beginnings/Transcript

Pre-Show
MATT: Hello, everyone.

(laughter)

MATT: And welcome to tonight’s episode of Critical Role, where a bunch of us nerdy-ass voice actors sit around and play the first game of our new campaign of Dungeons and Dragons.

(cheering)

MATT: Super excited to be back. I’ve missed this a lot. Missed this– oh, you guys will be fine. So yes. Glad you guys can join us, apparently in some crazy numbers. So welcome new viewers. Hope you enjoy your stay. So, without further ado, let’s get this going so we can get through our announcements. Since it is our first episode of the year, of the campaign, I want to make sure that we get our announcements out of the way. We’ve got some cool stuff to talk about. First and foremost, we have two sponsors tonight. Our first sponsor– and we’re going into, for a time, a cool partnership with the folks at DnD Beyond, actually. They’ve been really awesome, and we’ve been talking, and anybody who hasn’t seen it, it’s an online digital tool where you can create your own D&D character, they have options to purchase any of the current D&D books out there, and then carry over any of the character options and racial options over into it, so you can basically use it as a tool. We’ll be using it to help us out in the game as we go, ‘cause it’s actually got some pretty cool stuff. So excited about that. It is D-N-D Beyond, by the way, if you haven’t seen, not the ampersand. It’s D-N-D.

LAURA: As in nnnn.

MATT: Nnnn. But yeah, so they’re going to be a long-term partner for the show, so working with us through the start of this campaign. We’re super excited. But yeah. So we’re excited. You can currently activate– it should be now– some Critical Role content on there. They should have available the Blood Hunter class that I created a couple of years ago, kind of refining. Should be available for you guys to find on the DnD Beyond, which I’m excited about, and there’s a one-time discount of $10 off any digital book in the dndbeyond.com marketplace if you use the codeword ‘beginnings’ in there right now. So yeah, get a chance to check it out.

TRAVIS: (vomiting noises) Would you like some?

MATT: So yeah. I’m super excited to have that, guys. So you apply that code at checkout to make that happen, in case you’re confused and trying to get it to work. There’s a bunch of stuff to explore on there, and a bunch of cool ways to incorporate the existing breadth of D&D lore and options in there, and now you have some of our stuff in there as well, and hopefully more Critical Role content and Tal'Dorei content and Exandria content down the road to also be available on there as we go. Super excited about that. I’d like to thank you guys at DnD Beyond for being awesome. We also have our second sponsor. Sam, if you want to take it away.

SAM: I’m our second sponsor.

(laughter)

LAURA: Thanks, Sam!

SAM: No. Welcome, new viewers. Every week– or many weeks, I am charged with writing the ad for the sponsor of that week. I did this one way back in mid-December, so it’ll feel a little stale.

(laughter)

SAM: Sorry. I didn’t have time to write a new one. Apologies to our sponsor. But our second sponsor tonight is Backblaze. They offer unlimited cloud backup for Macs and PCs. You can restore from the web or via hard drive. They’ll even overnight FedEx a drive to you, and because it’s Christmas season, I wrote this. ‘Twas the night before Critmas when I clicked on my mouse, but the drive wasn’t whirring; it had said 'Adi-ouse’. When up from the cloud there arose such a sight, I knew in a flash that my shit was all right. As I spat out my plate of cold chicken kiev, down my chimney came a weird little elf named Lev. I said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, how’d you get in my place?” Lev gave me a wink and punched me in the face. And suddenly he fired up a pipe and started to restore my computer from a backup he carted. My documents, like slash fiction from My Little Pony. My photos, like me naked, covered in bologna. He mumbled that you can get backed up at once for a merry little fee of $5 a month-s. You even get 15 days free if you scroll over to backblaze.com/criticalrole. And just like that, my computer was on. Lev greased up his body, and bam, he was gone. But I heard him exclaim, “Peace out, yo, whassup! Happy Backblaze to all, don’t forget to back up!”

(cheering)

SAM: I’ll write another one for Easter, I promise.

(laughter)

MATT: Thank you, Sam. So thank you, Backblaze. Happy to have you for our sponsor tonight as well. Also, as a heads-up, we’ve had our friends at Wyrmwood for a while have been awesomely providing Wyrmwood dice boxes and dice trays and dice towers to give away to people in the community. They have new boxes for all the players in the new campaign. And they have been working on something for a while for us to kick off the new campaign. They made us a new table. If we can go to a camera view of this table they made for the campaign.

(cheering)

MATT: It’s made out of English brown oak, the center Critical Role inlay is made of ash burl, is the background, and then rosewood for the d20 outline, wenge for the Critical Role words themselves, and silver stringing around the border. It was built by hand in their Massachusetts office and workshop, and it was hand-rubbed oil on a wax finish. Over a hundred hours were put into this table. They did an incredible job, and we’re super honored to have that here, and thank you guys for showing such an awesome appreciation for what we do.

SAM: It smells really nice.

LAURA: We have cubbies!

MARISHA: It smells like wood in the studio, like fresh wood.

SAM: And, when we get canceled, this is going to be a great dining room table.

MATT: This is true! Thank you guys, Wyrmwood. If you aren’t familiar with any of their stuff, go to wyrmwoodgaming.com, that’s W-Y-R-M-wood Gaming dot com. They do awesome work. It’s really super high-quality, it’s great. So thank you guys. All right, so. Let’s see. Updates we can get through. Laura, do you have an update for merch stuff in the new year?

LAURA: (yells) Okay. Yes, I do. It’s a new campaign, new us, new merch. I don’t know which camera I’m looking at.

SAM: That one.

LAURA: So we released our teaser on socials, and everybody was like, “I want that as a poster!” So we listened to you, and we made it a poster!

(cheering)

SAM: It’s a real poster?

LAURA: It’s a real poster!

SAM: Oh, wow!

LAURA: Look at this lameness that you could have on your wall! So yeah. It’s in the store right now, you guys, and we printed a small amount, so those ones will be shipped faster, and then after that it’ll just be pre-order, but I think it’s all listed as pre-order, so just so you know.

SAM: Can you photoshop out my crotch region?

LAURA: No.

TALIESIN: That would be a lot of photoshop, man.

MATT: None of us have that much talent in post, Sam.

LAURA: But let’s just talk about this Matthew Mercer.

MATT: Let’s not talk about what I– when I put that outfit on, I did not consider quite the permeation in my life it would become. So there’s that.

LAURA: So we can be with you always. Matt can stare at you while you sleep.

LIAM: That’s actually how Purvon dressed.

MATT: God damn it.

TALIESIN: Hey, first throwback! Well done.

LAURA: Oh yeah. We’ve got to be careful, guys, bcause we have a lot of people that haven’t watched the last campaign, or haven’t finished the last campaign, so no spoilers for last campaign.

SAM: I don’t really remember it.

TRAVIS: Well, we all died, so.

MATT: That’s true, yeah. Okay, next announcements: the Critical Role podcast we have currently up to date. All of Vox Machina’s story, the whole first campaign, is now on the podcast. You can find it where the finest podcasts are downloaded. And do we have an update as far as the release schedule for this podcast?

MARISHA: Yes, we do. They will be releasing one week after we are live. We’ll be one week behind.

SAM: On a Thursday?

MARISHA: They will be releasing on Thursdays the week after.

LAURA: Oh, so you can listen to it in the morning and watch it live at night. If you have a lot of free time. Or a really long drive, maybe.

SAM: An extra eight hours to spend every Thursday.

MATT: To be fair, you guys would have about as much free time on a Thursday as I would. Cool, so look forward to that. Comic book, issue four of Critical Role: Vox Machina Origins, Liam, when does that come out?

LIAM: It is coming out on the 24th of this month.

TRAVIS: Oh, make it sooner!

LIAM: I’ve read it. It’s so good, it’s real good, it’s so good. You guys, Vox Machina’s story ended at this table, but it is going to live on and on and on– at least for three more issues.

MATT: Thank you very much.

TRAVIS: Check it out everywhere.

LIAM: Yeah, on Zune, on PalmPilot. Darkhorse app, Comixology, Limewire, finally.

MARISHA: Napster.

LAURA: I’m going to throw up.

MATT: That’s okay, guys, we’ve got a couple more things left. Thank you for hanging in there. As far as con appearances go, I actually fly tomorrow to Miami, Florida for Paradise City Comic Con. I’ll be there tomorrow until Sunday. If you guys are in the area, come say hi at the convention. It should be fun. I have panels and signings and stuff. Hopefully see you there. Also, I’ll be at Lexington Comic and Toy Con in Lexington, Kentucky, March 9-11, Otafest in Calgary, May 18-20, and A-Kon in Texas, June 7-10.

ASHLEY: Jeez Louise, Matt.

LAURA: We have Emerald City Comic Con, me and Travis.

TRAVIS: First weekend of March.

MATT: Badass. Cool. All right, so. Paring it down, finishing it up here. Thank you for your patience. With the new campaign, I want to renew our appreciation for and make sure that we push to you guys that we, from the very beginning, have been supporting a really amazing charity called 826, 826LA being our local chapter. They have 826 groups all over the United States that they do after-school creative writing, and a lot of great creative classes for children who are either underprivileged or don’t have opportunities to go to these types of classes. They do wonderful, wonderful work, and we’ve been supporting them from the very beginning, and we’re just doubling down on that for this new campaign. You guys as a community have been fantastic in supporting them, and all the charities that we’ve supported from the very beginning. Critmas every year has been a very prime example of that, so I just wanted to continue to push that forward, share the love, and a big thank-you to 826 for being such an amazing source of creative drive for so many young kids who normally wouldn’t have that opportunity. So you guys are amazing, and show them your appreciation if you can.

(cheering)

MATT: Final shout-outs. One, thank you to Ian Phillips of Iron Tusk Painting, who has painted the miniatures for this campaign.

(cheering)

MATT: He actually painted me and Marisha’s cake toppers for our wedding, and whenever you manage to see them in the campaign, you can know that it’s his handiwork. Soon enough.

ASHLEY: Also, fun fact about Ian Phillips: I grew up with him. He was one of my brother’s best friends when we first moved out here to LA, and so when that name was floating around, I was like, wait a minute. And then we reconnected back on Instagram. It’s such a crazy story. You know, Critical Role brings it all back around.

(laughter)

MATT: I love it. So you can follow him, @PaintingTusk on Twitter.

LIAM: I’ve had him paint 20 to 30– I’m kind of addicted– 20 to 30 miniatures. They’re amazing. He’s amazing at what he does.

MATT: And final thank-yous to Warner Bros and Monolith Entertainment for letting us incorporate the Shadow of War soundtrack into our Critical Role soundtrack here on the air, so those will be coming into the new campaign. And, super excited, CD Projekt Red has been nice enough to allow us use of the Witcher series soundtrack to also incorporate into the campaign, which, honestly, when we started playing at home, the Witcher soundtrack was most of my music, and I couldn’t use it when we started streaming, and so it’s been a cool full-circle to be able to bring it back in. Plus it brings a unique flavor that works with the new campaign setting, so. With that, I believe our announcements are done. Thank you for bearing with us.

LAURA: Wait, we’re going to give– oh, that’s–

MARISHA: Afterwards.

SAM: There’s one more announcement.

MARISHA: Our announcement is our brand-new opening title sequence. Which I think we’re ready for.

MATT: So, as we bring it down, guys, let’s go ahead and prepare to dive in to the new year and the new campaign for this episode of Critical Role.

(yelling)