Talks Machina 94: The Stowaway

is the ninety-fourth episode of Talks Machina. Matthew Mercer and Sam Riegel discuss with host Brian Wayne Foster.

GIF of the Week
Winner: @CriticalSchluck; "The Search For Fjord."

Prize: Critical Role retro t-shirt.

Fan Art of the Week
Winner: Noah Warner (@TehSasquatch) "Nott your average goblin."

Prize: Wenge dice vault with tiger maple inlay from Wyrmwood Gaming.

Part 3

 * Critmas: The Blind Weaver by Elaine Ryan (@ElaineRyanArt); Not Wild Things On VHS; a painting of Sully by @Stongholdart; and a painting of Vox Machina by @Takayuuki_art.

Quotations

 * Sam: "I was forced to be here."
 * Sam: "It's a holiday themed one, so it's probably going to have a lot of death."
 * Dani: "This is your vlog, Brian."
 * Brian: "Will, Will, and Felicia was my favorite NBC sitcom."
 * Matt: "We wanted to have Deborah as a guest a long time ago."
 * Sam: "Does this show play during Critical Role, at the same time?"
 * Matt: "I'd been toying with that narrative device for a while. Like, I'd been planning at some point in the game to bring it in. I wanted it to just be a fun—it's essentially a pocket dungeon with a bunch of lore attached to it, with a lot more to explore. And I wanted to kind of find a way to bring it into the story when it felt 'proper.' ...When November rolled around and we finally had the time for it, I said, 'OK, based on how you're available, we're gonna be on a boat in the middle of the ocean. And, uh—hoh. I think I have it.' And so that's when I brought that device in. I fleshed it out and then worked with her for the story about the auction house."
 * Matt: "It's essentially a bottle episode."
 * Matt: "The ball was placed in the hands of an Arcane Trickster who liked to take things...under the unfortunate DM assumption that she would take it at the end of the episode."
 * Sam: "I don't think Nott resents Fjord, certainly not for touching the window. Nott touches everything. For setting a time limit on the library, I think Nott would have preferred to stay longer, but it was also a dangerous place full of monsters that kept fighting us."
 * Brian: "You're a mimic magnet, man."
 * Sam: "It's all water, as we know."
 * Brian: "Max can I have one of these?" Max (offscreen): "No!"
 * Sam: "Sometimes the world just comes crashing back down to reality again."
 * Sam: "Nott as a character doesn't like the spotlight on her very much."
 * Matt: "'I saw Matt's eye twitch, that means she's correct!'"
 * Matt: "I wasn't sure how invested she was going to be in The Traveler."
 * Sam: "If Caleb were there, that would have been harder because—if Nott were put in a position where she has to sacrifice herself to protect Jester or sacrifice herself to protect Caleb, I think uh Jester would be dead."
 * Sam: "We made our alliance very early on in the survivor game. And we're sticking to it!"
 * Sam: "We can't think about next campaign now!"
 * Sam: "Jester's a functional person."
 * Matt: "Not happy at all. We may get to explore some of that this Thursday...consider that her friends just vanished, all they found left was this weird mechanical ball that I'm sure Yasha messed with for a certain period of time and then went 'I don't fucking know.' She spent six days thinking that her friends were never going to come back. But she's been through a lot of loss. She's wandered the wastes alone—this isn't something where she breaks down in a corner and is inconsolable. She just kind of hardens to it and continues to move on and then hopes for the best."
 * Sam: "Mrs. Mr. Ashley Johnson."
 * Sam: "Remind me on January 8th to call in sick."