Sam Riegel


 * This page is about the actor.  For the character from the "Liam's Quest" special episodes, see Sam Riegel (character).

Sam Riegel (@SamReigel) is a voice actor who plays Scanlan Shorthalt, a gnome bard, as well as Taryon Darrington, a human artificer. Outside of Critical Role canon, he has played a fictional version of himself in and Obby "the Rat" in.

Before Critical Role began, Sam and his best friend Liam O'Brien created a podcast called allworknoplay, with the purpose of trying to get more fun into their busy schedules. Towards the end of episode 2 of the podcast, the two of them talked about getting ready for the upcoming "one-time" D&D game. Sam asked Liam what was the "worst character" to play as, and Liam suggested a gnome. Sam talked about being a bard in the podcast, which would suit him due to his background in music both from college and his help in writing show ideas for The Voice.

Sam recorded a few short clips of the pre-stream Critical Role game from when they were running Pathfinder. These clips can be found on his vine page, here.

As Scanlan the bard, he is known for improvising songs on the fly. Examples include: "I think you're really handsome and nice! You're going to have inspiration dice!" He often pulls songs from pop culture and modifies their lyrics, as in, "Here's a little song I wrote! It's filled with inspiration, note for note. Don't fuck up. Or I'll kill you."

Sam became the first player in the Critical Role canon to introduce a second player character when Scanlan Shorthalt left Vox Machina, to be replaced by Taryon Darrington in. He would later reprise his role as Scanlan in, leaving Tary behind in.