The Ruby and the Sapphire

is the thirty-third episode of the second campaign of Critical Role.

Pre-Show
Three of the cast (Matt, Taliesin, and Marisha) are back from the dust and chaos, and they missed you all terribly.

Announcements

 * First and foremost, Critical Role has two wonderful sponsors tonight:
 * First, our friends at D&D Beyond: Sam is actually nervous about this ad. The number "9" has been very important to Critical Role, and tonight, it's important for another reason.  At 9:00 pm PDT tonight, the "Waterdeep: Dragon Heist" adventure releases on dndbeyond.com and will be available for purchase through the D&D Beyond Marketplace.  Don't forget to pick it up in a couple of hours!  Set your alarms, and the cast will probably remind the viewers when 9 pm comes around.  But that's not all!  The number 9 is special for another weird reason: this Sunday (September 9, 2018, or 9/9) is the first game of the regular NFL season for Travis's favorite team: the Dallas Cowboys.  They are already ranked at the top of the National Football Conference (as much as it pains Sam to admit).  Two years ago, the Cowboys won nine straight games, and last year, they only won nine games during the entire regular season (which Travis begrudgingly confirms).  This year, at the training camp, the standout defensive player was Antwaun Woods...jersey #99.  To honor this amazing concurrence of "9", Sam (who is a fan of the Washington-team-whose-name-he-will-not-say) has done the unthinkable: he is wearing a Dallas Cowboys T-shirt.  Travis immediately rolls an Insight check to confirm whether it's an actual Cowboys shirt.   Sam has to admit that it feels pretty outstanding.  Actually, it starts to feel a little odd.  Laura asks what's wrong?  The cast starts to notice blood start leaking through the Cowboys shirt.  Sam says it feels really weird.  Oh God, Sam thinks his heart has exploded!  Sam collapses on the table.  Laura realizes he died because of the shirt, and declares they have to get the shirt off of him...quick!  Travis asks if Laura is an accomplice in this?  Once Laura takes the Cowboys shirt off, Sam gasps back to life...revealing a blood-soaked shirt in Washington-team-whose-name-he-will-not-say burgundy-and-gold colors, which says "Keep Calm and Hate Dallas".  Laura angrily points out that Sam got blood on her clothes.  Travis laughs and points out that now a blood-soaked Sam has to play like that all night.  Marisha tries not to panic when she points out that there is now definitely blood on the Wyrmwood table.  Laura angrily runs off camera upon seeing blood on her dice tray.  Travis hopes this gag was worth it.  Laura comes back claiming Sam had asked her to take off his shirt for the ad, but he never mentioned the blood.  Sam is COVERED in blood, and lifts up his shirt to show that the blood soaked completely through.  Sam says it's EVERYWHERE, and stands up to show his bloody crotch.  Marisha asks if Sam has a change of pants.  Sam does not.  Travis declares that is the divine wrath for provoking the Cowboys.  Matt states the point is that Sam is alive and D&D Beyond will have "Waterdeep: Dragon Heist" at 9 pm tonight.  Sam reassures that he does in fact love Travis and Dallas.  Travis realizes that's why Sam wouldn't hug him before they went live.  Marisha had seen Producer Max holding all this tubing before the show...she realizes she should've asked what it was for, and she should've known what was coming.  Dani Carr hands more paper towels to Sam and Laura.  Travis asks Sam what the blood tastes like.  Sam immediately licks his finger...it does not taste good!  Matt is pretty sure that's probably not "mouth blood", and points out that there's actually different types of blood for on-camera stuff.  Travis asks again if Laura was recruited for this whole disaster?  Sam states that Laura immediately texted him back: "Is Travis going to be upset with me?"  Sam texted back: "No, he's just gonna be upset with me."  Laura defends herself by claiming he didn't tell her what was going to happen.  Travis is actually very proud of Laura.  Liam suggests that the rest of the cast will never understand the pressure of creating a D&D Beyond bit each week.  Travis declares that Sam has finally snapped, to which Marisha agrees that Sam has jumped the shark.  Matt decides to continue with the other announcements.
 * Matt finishes up with our second sponsor, The Rook & The Raven: They are jumping into their Kickstarter, where they have these high-quality, disc-bound journals/gaming notebooks. They are all different designs, and Matt holds up Marisha's as an example.  They have spaces designed for you to fill in all your character stuff, spells, etc.  It's a really, really badass design, and they are really awesome.  You can check out their stuff at therookandtheraven.com/criticalrole.  Get there before the Kickstarter ends on September 20, 2018!  The Rook & The Raven is amazing, and the quality of their stuff is fantastic!
 * Critical Role Live: Travis announces that Critical Role will be doing a live show during their appearance at New York Comic Con (NYCC)! East Coast: this show is for you!  Take a plane, train, automobile, or whatever it takes to get to Washington Heights at 9:00 pm EDT on Thursday, October 4, 2018!  VIP tickets are sold out, but there are plenty of general admission seats still available (Laura states that there's actually a few orchestra seats still open too).  They will be at the United Palace Theater, which is a gorgeous proscenium arch theater (if you're a theater nerd like the cast is).  Liam backs this up, saying the theater is covered in gold.  It's going to be raucous and amazing.  If you're a Critter who hasn't yet been to a Gen Con live show or one of the ones the cast did in Los Angeles, THIS is the live show you don't want to miss!  Matt corrects Travis that there was only one live show in Los Angeles, and both he and Marisha insist that it will be the first and only live show they ever do in L.A.  Live shows are frenetic, crazy, and uh-may-zing!  Travis is sure that Sam will dress entirely normal.  Go to critrole.com to find all the information and links to Ticketmaster.
 * Handbooker Helper: Marisha reminds the audience that there was a new episode of Handbooker Helper yesterday, and it's Liam giving the first Quick Build: "How to Build a Rogue". Super-quick: to address why people are confused why they went straight from dice basics to character sheets, Critical Role wants to show that they're doing a little bit of everything.  Handbooker Helper will be rolling out tips as well as character stuff: that way newbies can get playing as quickly as possible.  In Marisha's experience, the first thing someone does for a new player is push a character sheet over to them.  As Travis puts it: Critical Role gave new players their very first swimming lesson ever, so jump right in!  Liam points out that they're only two weeks in, and they have a whole year of episodes already planned.  So a year from now, there will be an entire library of Handbooker Helper content that new players can access forever (or at least until Internet-based civilization ends).  Marisha asks people to be patient: more rules are coming.  The new studio can only produce as fast as Producer Max's little hands can manage.
 * Pablove Foundation: Sam (still covered in blood) gives a quick update on the charity drive for the Pablove Foundation. They hit their first two donation goals: $20,000 and $50,000!  Sam will be running a one-shot with the "Crash Pandas" RPG, and an actual research grant to cure childhood cancer has been fully-financed by the Critters.  A new donation goal of $100,000 has been added: not only will Sam do his own Fireside Chat (complete with robe and fancy wine), and that $100,000 will fully fund the Shutterbugs Summer Photography Camp (an incredible week-long summer camp for children suffering from cancer to learn photography and artwork).  More details and links on how to donate are all available on critrole.com.  It was hard for Marisha to watch Sam talk about such wonderful things while looking like a criminal who just murdered someone in cold blood.  Sam asks if all this fake blood will wash out?
 * Matt gives a quick congratulations to all Critters in India, especially those who are members of the LGBT community. The cast loves them very much, and the court's ruling is a step in the right direction!
 * merch update from Laura: Same announcements from last week. All the stuff that was available at Gen Con is now available in the Critical Role store.  You can check out some amazing maps (the really beautiful Wildemount maps by Deven Rue).  They've got pins and they've got T-shirts and they've got bumper stickers that are praising The Traveler's name!

The Mighty Nein

 * Beauregard
 * Caduceus Clay
 * Fjord
 * Frumpkin
 * Jester
 * Nott
 * Caleb Widogast
 * Yasha (absent, mentioned)

New

 * Marian Lavorre
 * Nadine
 * Algar Diamon

Returning

 * Nugget
 * Sprinkle
 * The Gentleman (via Sending)