The Stowaway

is the forty-fifth episode of the second campaign of Critical Role. The Mighty Nein find a stowaway on the Squall-Eater, who carries a mysterious item that holds dangerous consequences for the curious...

Pre-Show
We should just have a sound cue for Travis at this point. It's expected at this point: it's Critical Role's *bwa-bwa-bwa-bwaaaaa*.

Announcements

 * First and foremost, we have two fantastic sponsors tonight:
 * Our fantastic friends from D&D Beyond return! D&D Beyond has been with Critical Role all campaign and all year-long.  To thank D&D Beyond for such a wonderful 2018, Sam is giving them a gift: an ad that will hopefully live forever.  He is calling it his "Christmas GIF"...that's right: "GIF", not "gift". (Sam tries to make a "G" and a "F" with his hand, but it's just two Cs.) Sam doesn't know how to make a GIF, but Critters do.  So the crew will bring out a green screen, and the cast will do some acting and reactions in front of it, and you can add your own backgrounds to make memorable GIFs!  That way, when you are online searching through the Twitters, the Reddits, the "Immagurrs" (Imugrs...Sam's an old man), and the Giphys, you might see one of these bad boys and give some love to D&D Beyond.  Sam starts by doing his version of the "guy who blinks like, 'That's weird'".  Taliesin does an applause GIF.  Sam directs Laura to do a fail GIF where she rolls a dice but the result sucked, but Laura realizes what he's trying to get her to do, and it turns into a "I'm-so-angry-I-gonna-punch-you" GIF.  Matt does a "this" GIF.  And last but not least, Sam tries to do a success GIF, but then Travis suggests "dramatic prairie dog" instead.
 * Speaking of fantastic partners through this campaign, we have our returning friends from The Rook & The Raven! They have been with Critical Role before, and they are creators of handcrafted, high-quality, disc-bound notebooks for your campaign notes and character notes.  Marisha has the "Mischief & Misadventure" book.  For the month of December, The Rook & The Raven is donating 100% of their profits to schools, teachers, and community centers for them to grow gaming clubs and RPG classes through their "adventure club gaming kits".  They're putting everything together to make sure that these schools and facilities have the necessary materials to help facilitate these clubs and get these kids to build the same strong bonds that Matt did in his school's D&D club.  Give the gift of gaming now by supporting their work (and thus, supporting these kids) at therookandtheraven.com/criticalrole.  Travis thinks that's so cool.  Matt thinks it's badass!  Matt loves seeing messages online from gaming clubs that there are TOO MANY kids playing: YAY!  It's such a surreal reality: Matt loves it!
 * Critical Role has a fantastic art show coming up soon. You all got a chance to see "The Chronicles of Exandria: Vol. II": the final volume of the art for Vox Machina's campaign.  Now Critical Role gets to announce that they are having their very first art gallery to celebrate the fantastic art community that has come out of Critical Role.  Each piece was created by community artists and curated by the cast.  Tickets for the opening reception will available Monday, December 17, 2018.  Tickets are completely free and are just for the reception on Friday, January 18, 2019: you don't need tickets for the rest of the weekend, as the gallery will be open through Sunday, January 20, 2019.  It's going to be at Gallery Nucleus in Alhambra, CA, and you can find all the information for that at critrole.com.
 * Also announced for that same weekend, on Saturday, January 19, 2019, Critical Role is returning to the first campaign with a Vox Machina one-shot. It's going to be "The Search for Grog".  No spoilers, but towards the very, very, very end of the campaign, something happened: one of our players pulled the thing from a Deck of Thingy Things (Travis moans, "I'M SORRY!") and briefly derailed the entire thing.  They had just glossed over it, but they are actually going to play through that adventure as a one-shot with all returning members of Vox Machina but two, because Grog is being sought after and another character will not be present.  VIP tickets go on sale this Saturday, December 15, 2018, and General Admission goes on sale Sunday, December 16, 2018.  VIP attendees get a special swag bag (including a Vox Machina print signed by the whole cast), as well as a special Q&A before the show, moderated by Brian Wayne Foster.
 * Be sure to join us next week for our very special holiday one-shot that is being DMed by our fantastic Liam O'Brien. Liam is so excited: he's had this idea in his head for TWO YEARS!  He was going to do this last December, but they ended up doing the Level 20 Battle Royale instead.  But now it's HERE, and he's mostly ready!  Matt was not expecting that much exuberance out of Liam.  Matt is pumped now just from that: that was adorable!  It's gonna be so much fun, and it's going to be called "The Night Before Critmas"!  It will air on Friday, December 21, 2018 at 7:00 pm PST at twitch.tv/criticalrole.
 * Last but not least, Critical Role will be having its very special end-of-the-year "State of the Role" tomorrow on Friday, December 14, 2018. It will give more insight to Critical Role's holiday programming schedule and reveal a few fun things that Critical Role has coming in 2019.
 * Whatever Laura said before they came back from the intro, Matt says it was "adorable".

Previously on Critical Role
''The Mighty Nein, after spending an exorbitant amount of time at sea at the behest of captain Avantika, on the ship the Squall Eater, got pulled into piracy under the banner of the Revelrie, brought to the pirate city and island of Darktow amongst the Dragshallow Reefs. There you uncovered information, proof, that she had plans to overthrow the Plank King and rule the seas, along with her fanatical obsession with Uk'otoa. You managed to dodge through the night, grab the necessary journal, uncover the information through the cipher, and through a scuffle survive this fiery battle on the docks from the ship. And through some tactical use of spells and quick members of your party you got it in the hands of the Plank King.''

''Judgement was brought between the two of you at the dock, and he chose Avantika to go. Upon... having her make her leave, violently, gave you guys your reward, which was sparing your lives and telling you to get the fuck out of Darktow and never come back. You were gifted the kinda hobbled, burned form of the Squall Eater and let to make your way out towards the ocean, where you attempted to search into the backstory of Fjord relationship with his patron, in search of one of these, and what seems to be the third and final sphere. You made your way down into the wreckage of his ship, the Tide's Breath, and discovered it was one of many in what was called the Diver's Grave: a ship graveyard here in the center of the Lucidian Ocean. ''

''In trying to find out where this orb went you were drawn into the underwater lair of Dashilla the Dreadful. You encountered spirits of long dead sailors bound there by her magic. You discovered the essence of how she's able to maintain this graveyard and draw ships down below. And while she managed to flee before being killed you grabbed what you were looking for, fled to the surface, and with your ship escaped the growing storm before any more danger was brought to you. And that's where we left off. ''

''So, Mighty Nein, as you've all gathered your things you can hear the distant crack of thunder as the storm gets smaller and smaller behind you on the horizon. What do you want to do?''

The Mighty Nein

 * Beauregard
 * Caduceus Clay
 * Fjord
 * Frumpkin
 * Jester Lavorre
 * Nott
 * Yasha Nydoorin
 * Caleb Widogast

New

 * Twiggy
 * Unnamed young blue dragon

Returning

 * Marius LePual
 * Orly Skiffback
 * The Traveler

Mentioned

 * Avantika
 * Calianna
 * Catagan
 * Halas
 * Kiri