Dockside Diplomacy

 is the thirty-fifth episode of the second campaign of Critical Role. The Mighty Nein find success in their task for the Ruby, but chaos ensues as they continue their search for Marius LePual...

Announcements

 * We give a big shout-out and thanks to our two sponsors for tonight's episode:
 * Starting with our friends at D&D Beyond: As "Sam" (Producer Max) said last week, "Waterdeep: Dragon Heist" is available now on D&D Beyond and "Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage" is available for pre-order and will release November 2, 2018! Because D&D Beyond is such a generous sponsor of this show, Sam shares some of what Critical Role does with some of that sponsorship money.  The Critical Role team turned that money into this amazing studio and equipment.  So Sam created a video to demonstrate all the after-effects and editing suites that the studio has.  A chroma-keyed Sam provides cues to insert VFX for explosions, a beholder, Matthew Mercer, Nugget, and a Star Trek "beam up"...with no special effects.  The crew didn't edit Sam's video at all.  The final video is just lame, and kind of insulting to Producer Max who was responsible for that video's editing.  Matt is terrified that one of these days Sam's escalating D&D Beyond ads will be the death of them all.  Sam declares that for his last-ever D&D Beyond ad, he will bring a loaded gun.
 * Matt wanted to bookend with their second sponsor...their returning friends at The Rook & The Raven: They do these really awesome, high-quality disc-bound gaming notebooks for your campaign. The fronts have laser-etched designs of awesome maps from our fantastic friend Deven Rue (who did our fantastic Dwendalian Empire map that just came back in-stock, apparently).  Matt holds up their Mischief & Misadventure book, where you can put in all your campaign notes and your character info: it's pretty badass.  Their Kickstarter ends tonight at 12:00 am midnight PDT, so if you haven't gotten in on it, now's you last chance to do so!  This is your last chance to get the deluxe editions of the Mischief & Misadventure and Far Traveler's notebooks at the Kickstarter-exclusive pricing.  You can go ahead and find all the info you need at therookandtheraven.com/criticalrole.
 * New York Comic Con: On sale now, Critical Role has tickets for its first-ever live show in New York City! In two weeks, they'll be at the United Palace Theater in Washington Heights on Thursday, October 4, 2018.  Tickets are still available now at Ticketmaster.  You can check out all the details to do so at critrole.com.
 * Between The Sheets: Thank you so much for tuning in for this week's episode of Between The Sheets: our new show hosted by the fantastic Brian W. Foster. Taliesin Jaffe was our first guinea pig for that.  Matt says it was a really in-depth, awesome interview.  Taliesin got really blitzed on that show: starting with grain alcohol was a good call of his part.  Liam wonders why they started with their closer, though?  Marisha talks about the release schedule: Between The Sheets is every Monday at 7:00 pm Pacific on Critical Role's Twitch.  Then of course, you can immediately catch the VOD if you subscribe to Critical Role's Twitch (did we mention it's CRITICAL ROLE'S TWITCH?!?!).  Otherwise, it releases on Wednesdays on Critical Role's YouTube channel at 10:00 am Pacific.  Also, to celebrate the premiere of Between The Sheets, Brian will be doing a Reddit AMA tomorrow September 21, 2018 at 2 pm PDT.
 * Pablove Foundation: We've raising a lot of money for Sam's great charity (Sam corrects Matt that it's the charity he's very fond of). Pablove Foundation battles childhood cancer.  Tonight, Sam is talking about a one-shot he'll be doing tomorrow night (Friday, September 21, 2018 at 7:00 pm PDT) on the Critical Role Twitch channel.  Sam will be the Game Master of a Crash Pandas one-shot with basically everyone at the table except for Taliesin.  He has things to do, people.  Laura wonders why she's still wearing her purse, and she takes it off.  They will also be giving away prizes to lucky people in chat who have made a donation and tagged #CriticalRole in the donation field.
 * merch update from Laura: Travis tells Laura she still has her purse on. She actually does look down to check.  She tells Travis to stop it.  Critical Role has some things back in stock, y'all!  We got those pretty blue Wildemount dice back in-stock!  We have a limited amount of the Mighty Nein pins back in-stock: check that out right now, they're awesome!  We have the Dwendalian Empire maps back in-stock!  Also, Laura has heard that the T-shirts are being restocked very shortly, so check out the store this weekend (sometime between Friday, September 21, 2018 and Monday, September 24, 2018).  Sam immediately starts spamming the Refresh button.
 * Sam remarks that someone will add those sweet special effects at some point. Matt feels like now they have to re-release that video with the effects put in.  Travis is confident that ArseQueef will take care of that.

Previously on Critical Role
"Last we left off: The Mighty Nein had found their way outside of the Dwendalian Empire and to their first city along the coast of the Menagerie Coast: Nicodranas. Where Fjord had passed through previously on his various adventures through the waters nearby, and Jester's upbringing was entirely within.  You had met actually with Jester's mother: Marian, the Ruby of the Sea.  As well as begin to seek information about an individual that seemingly was connected with your time up in Shady Creek Run and the sphere that Fjord had absorbed.

"You discovered that there was an individual that had grown jealous and strangely aggressive regarding the companionship of Jester's mother, and as such, began to seek information about them in a way to put an end to this behavior. In doing so, you went to a tavern.  Met a captain that had possibly room for a few of you to travel with, about a week from now.  You met a tortle (for many of you, the first time you had encountered a tortle), who had some interesting things to say and seemingly a lead on the individual you were looking for.  You also found information about what's called the Sluiceweave: a series of waterways beneath the city, where seemingly this Algar - this individual that was creating tension with the Ruby of the Sea - works and oversees.

"So you made your way to the outskirts of the docks, search through the water for an entrance, and managed to muscle your way through the grates below (nearly drowning the pets that you had recently purchased). You encountered a few small water elementals, and eventually came upon one of the nexus areas of this waterway - where it seemed there was an elemental entity named Xundi that was bound to this location and was essentially helping run and control the water in-and-out, under the supervision of Algar.

"Catching them, but however, not being as stealthy as you had hoped, you were noticed and as such, a battle commenced - where this Xundi, this elemental figure, was given the command by Algar to 'take care of them and see them out'. In this fray, a number of you fell and fell again.  But through a combination of Fjord's teleportation spell abilities, you guys keeping each other alive, and Beauregard repeatedly punching very hard whatever got in her way...you managed to subdue Algar, destroy his two guards (raise one as a spectre), and - noticing there was something affixed to his wrist that seemed to have some connection with Xundi - Fjord cut his left hand off..."

The Mighty Nein

 * Beauregard
 * Caduceus Clay
 * Fjord
 * Frumpkin
 * Jester
 * Nott
 * Caleb Widogast
 * Yasha (DM controlled)

New

 * Xundi
 * Marius LePual
 * Blude
 * Gallan Westman

Quotations

 * Xundi: "I see the hour is nigh for vengeance."
 * Fjord: "It's probably a good idea to kill me on sight." (Fjord making suggestions for the forged letter)
 * Beau: "Oh, you've all seen an owl before...shut up!"
 * Beau: "I'm having a bad day, okay?!" (Beau unsuccessfully trying to bluff at the docks)
 * Marisha: "It was a drive-by fruiting!" (quoting "Mrs. Doubtfire" after Caleb used Catapult with crates of fruit)
 * Caleb: "Burn them all." (Caleb setting fire to the ship)