Stalker in the Swamp | Critical Role | Campaign 2, Episode 21 

They can never remember they have an item that allows them a reroll, but God damn they will never forget about their plethora of ball bearings

M9: kiri what do you have?! Kiri: A KNIFE! M9: NO!

Fjord:" I cast eldritch blast" Beau:gets covered in acid and faints Fjord:"I cast regret"

Marisha's slow, silent head turn when Liam called Beau dead weight is the funniest shit

Theory: Kiri is the meta-gaming pigeon who repeats information that the players forget.

One of the low key impressive things in this episode is how Matt continued his normal dm tasks but still managed to accurately recall who said what so he could mimic it as Kiri the entire time.

"I'm disappointed in you Mr. Fjord!" "Eh that means....literally nothing to me." I just about died laughing at that response.

I like that Matt punished the party for chit chatting in an enemy zone

*"I cast regret."*

“I’m disappointed in you.” “That means literally nothing to me.” ⚰️

Who ever is typing up the little notes that show up is killing it this episode. “Fjord’s HP: there isn’t any” and “Magnets: how do they work?” Killed me

The fact that they actually talked like 5 straight minutes right next to their enemies and therefore lost the surprise attack LITERALLY blows my mind

Kiri tried to stab the fog but mist.

"Is it Thursday yet?" Silly Matt, it's always Thursday when you're behind. *Clicks next video*

"You can't use your trauma as an excuse to control other people," says Beau using her trauma as an excuse to control Caleb.

28:37 Caleb’s low-key panic attack when Nott says her name is Bren…. god Liam is so good

Caleb: "Why are you booing me? I'm right!"

DnD Beyond: we made you into an 80's cartoon, isn't that cool! The party and Matt: **openly sobbing**

Cali was so amazing. Her standing up for Caleb and after he walked away giving the scroll to Nott to give it to Caleb later and not going into Caleb's personal space.

They've changed so many rules to make the game more fun, but somehow "Cats don't have dark vision" is where they draw the line. lol

"If he dies we can get the money back" - Yasha with the SENSIBLE take!

everyone: wailing on caleb for being cautious cali: ‘no i completely get it it’s important to double check. he’s cool’

Laura Bailey: Oh no don't pick up Beau. Matt: What a great idea. The cardinal sin of dnd players is saying things aloud.

Mark's Levitate clutch attempt at 2:06:10 is so smart. I love how excited Matt gets at it. Like an old master getting surprised by some young person's new trick. d&d is so cool

Sam's "Caleb also likes to burn his friends"-joke went totally under-appreciated because only he and Marisha were there for the backstory. XD

Matt about Mark: "He is like my brother from another mother". Me: "He is probably exaggerating because the guy is also a DM. They may be just good friends." Mark describing a Fireball: "this green flame magic COALESCES" Me: "Definitely his brother from another mother!"

I like how Caleb learned more about a god in 30 seconds with a 12 arcana roll than the entire c3 party did in 50+ episodes.

I love those notes that come up on the screen, the deadpan sarcasm of it is amazing. “Fjord’s HP: he doesn’t have any.”

HEY NEW WATCHERS There are SPOILERS for much later in the campaign littering the comments, don't read them unless you're willing to get spoiled for MUCH LATER EPISODES

Fjord: "I go unconcious" Everyone: "Aaawww..." Fjord: "I use my relentless endurance" Everyone: Yaaaaaaayyy!"

“We take that, and we learn that as a lesson for later on.” He already learned the lesson once, Beau. He was doing that LITERALLY because he learned it once.

1:30 Critical Role anime intro 3:30 ONE MORE TIME 9:50 Episode Starts 14:55 The ninth appears 17:55 Fjord’s daughter 19:15 What kind of bowl? 25:30 An hour is a long time 29:50 Vebron is into the reverse Trogdor 31:55 The Might Nein release form (fanart?) 35:40 Fjord’s dad joke 39:20 Wrecking Caleb 41:55 The arcane knowledge of pronunciation 43:20 Caleb makes a joke 50:15 That’s Dr. Creepypervert to you 1:04:20 Classic Salty Pete maneuver 1:26:15 This is how Travis holds children 1:38:50 Choosing the right corpse 1:41:25 “Hey dead person…” 1:45:15 OH GOD, NOW WE’RE FIGHTING 1:53:45 40 feet trolls deep 1:57:50 Make a regret save 2:06:05 HDYWT Save The Day 2:09:10 Sam’s devastating jokes 2:17:20 “We’ll be idiots if we want to” 2:22:40 Break Starts and ends 2:23:50 Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal 2:25:30 Sam roasts Caleb 2:35:20 Nott Bren 2:38:00 Tugging that branch 2:53:30 Visual aid 2:59:15 Somehow the only Thor: Ragnorock reference 3:03:00 Battle Begins 3:20:00 Enlarged Beau is best Beau 3:24:45 The Snitch attempts to flee Matt 3:39:35 HDYWTDT 4:04:00 Bowl games 4:14:15 The story hooks are unleashed

I’m 100% on board with showing the HP of each character during battles. The crew at CR is killing it during the holidays!

“Hey you dead person” is the required verbal component FYI. I love whoever makes those messages.

Just Yasha, low-key saving the world from Tiamat.

Everyone’s talking about Beau and Caleb But not Molly saying he’s bad at communication when Caleb made it very clearly why he was so cautious 💀

“Liam likes to burn his friends” “Caleb also likes to burn his friends” YIKES

at 4:10:09, the way liam delivered the line, "beauregard, what if she had been lying to us?" hurt me so much. he plays caleb so heartbreakingly well

Caleb: "We should be cautious with this world ending artifact" Cali: "I agree with Caleb" Everyone else: "Wow Caleb, don't try to control other people's destinies you dickhead"

4:04:00 Poor Caleb, he was totally right on wanting to be cautious before giving the bowl to Cali.

Love how Matt is committed to play the sleazy and creepy Febron.

Cali: "Cats don't like me" Caleb: "I take a step and a half away from Cali"

Sam's flask says "the bagel knows." Sam couldn't have known yet because Everything Everywhere All at Once wasn't out. but speaking to you from the tail end of 2022, yes, the bagel does indeed know.

Caleb: Wants to be cautious with highly enchanted communication device to one of the most evil beings in the universe. Everyone else: Why would we be cautious with that? Super powerful artifacts should always go to people you met this morning who self professed growing up in a cult.

Cali: is it flammable mr. Creepy pervert. Verbron: First off I resent that. Cali: Do you? Verbron: shakes his head nah.. Lol

Came back to catch up on new episodes and thought I'd check out the comments for this episode, glad to see Bowlgate lives on. XD Almost reminds me how much I miss playing Cali. :(

Why do I get the feeling that at least a part of Beu’s baggage is what’s causing her to lash out at Caleb about his baggage

I love how you can tell what NPC Matt is playing simply by the mannerisms he has like when he switches to Kiri he starts looking around jerkily and bobbing his head before he even says anything

Props to Matt for dealing with 8 insane characters, playing two NPC's, and DMing simultaneously

I love at 1:59:27 you can actually see Matt transition from DM to husband as he realizes this will kill Marisha's character. After a moment he then goes back to being impartial when her says "What are you doing Caleb?". Honestly never thought I'd get so into a show about DnD, but 80 hours deep and here we are.

Caleb: We should be extremely cautious handing over this instrument of world ending destruction Everyone else: You're being unreasonable just hand the thing over That exchange made me absurdly upset

Fjord's HP: "He doesn't have any."

HEY, there might be some SPOILERS under the thing 1:30 Critical Role finally gets an anime intro (Kamil and Kevin, karekareo on Twitter) 3:30 ONE MORE TIME (k on Patreon, Ki Frame on RU-vid) 9:50 Episode Starts 14:55 The ninth appears 17:55 Fjord’s daughter 19:15 What kind of bowl? 25:30 An hour is a long time 29:50 Vebron is into the reverse Trogdor 31:55 The Might Nein release form (fanart?) 35:40 Fjord’s dad joke 39:20 Wrecking Caleb 41:55 The arcane knowledge of pronunciation 43:20 Caleb makes a joke 50:15 That’s Dr. Creepypervert to you 1:04:20 Classic Salty Pete maneuver 1:26:15 This is how Travis holds children 1:38:50 Choosing the right corpse 1:41:25 “Hey dead person…” 1:45:15 OH GOD, NOW WE’RE FIGHTING 1:53:45 40 feet trolls deep 1:57:50 Make a regret save 2:06:05 HDYWT Save The Day 2:09:10 Sam’s devastating jokes 2:17:20 “We’ll be idiots if we want to” 2:22:40 Break Starts and ends 2:23:50 Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal 2:25:30 Sam roasts Caleb 2:35:20 Nott Bren 2:38:00 Tugging that branch 2:53:30 Visual aid 2:59:15 Somehow the only Thor: Ragnorock reference 3:03:00 Battle Begins 3:20:00 Enlarged Beau is best Beau 3:24:45 The Snitch attempts to flee Matt 3:39:35 HDYWTDT 4:04:00 Bowl games 4:14:15 The story hooks are unleashed Between Twitch and RU-vid, live viewership of this episode peaked around 55,000 people. The in-game start day for the episode was the 8th of Fessuran 835. Sam’s flask says “The Bagel Knows” The Stream of Many Eyes was great for those who were able to catch it live. The games should be going up on the Dungeons and Dragons RU-vid page in the next few days, so watch for it. I really loved Matt’s Force Grey game. Any moments I missed? Feel free to post them here. Is it Thursday yet?

My favorite detail of that DnDBeyond commercial is them adding in Caleb casting dancing lights as the fight starts

29:26 I love how Travis gets excited and matt just winks back, what a bro moment I love it :D

It's honestly absurd that cats don't have dark vision

Ashley: "Is Kiri Down here?" Matt: "Yeah shes down in the corner." Ashley: "Ffffffffff She better not die."

My favorite part is everyone yelling at fjord for how he holds Kiri

Damn, Matt’s hair is looking especially glorious this episode

1:55:55 "Febron, by the way? *Fuckin' DEAD* "

CritRoleStats Time Stamps for Kiri parts! (0:12:43) (like Fjord) It’s sharp! (0:17:30) (like Jester) A bird! (0:17:33) (like Jester) She walks around. (0:17:40) (like Cali) Hello? (0:19:14) (like Jester) Your underwear? (0:25:15) (like Nott) Welcome to The Mighty Nein! (0:25:28) (like Cali) Hello, Kiri! I’m Cali! (0:25:35) (like Cali) You’re Kiri. (0:26:37) *growls like crocodile* (0:27:12) (like Frumpkin) *purrs* (0:29:03) (like Jester) This is Kiri! (0:33:04) (like Jester) Welcome to the Mighty Nein! (0:37:01) (like Jester) There’s lots of creatures around that could hurt. (0:39:27) (like Cali) Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire! (0:39:37) (like Jester) Wrapped around his weenie. (0:42:28) (like Cali) MEE-ster Fjord! (0:56:32) *imitates windchime* (1:18:35) (like Fjord) You’re a fan of pie. (1:22:00) (like Nott) You’re a cultist? (1:26:34) (like Nott) It’s me, Bren! (1:41:22) (like Jester) I’ve never done this before! (1:41:28) (like Jester) Be careful. (1:44:17) (like Cali) If it bleeds, we can kill it. (2:04:18) (like Beau) F***! (2:56:26) (like Cali) I killed people. (2:56:35) (like Jester) Kiri. Don’t. Move. Unless something chases you. Right. (3:58:37) (like Cali) I killed people! (4:03:20) (like Jester) I’m so proud of you!

I’m just saying, Caleb is in the right. Remember the last time let a guest near a powerful artifact? Nothing personal, just business lol

Can I just say I love the contrast of Matt bending over backwards last episode to make sure the Nein saved Kiri to this episode where he’s doing everything he can to kill the little pervert dude they hired 😂 Like Kiri tanked a 19 damage hit that definitely should have killed her, meanwhile the Nein took their eyes of this dude for 10 seconds and Matt was like “Sorry he got snatched by a troll, it happens 🤷🏽”

Yeah, I gotta agree with some of the other comments; I feel like Caleb being apprehensive in returning this Godly item to a complete stranger was the right thing to do. Beau and Jester flaming him left me a bit salty.

Part elf, part human, part dragon Sounds like it was a fun party

Matt: Every hit it takes, it spews this toxic green caustic spray that really damages the shit out of anyone near it. Oh, and Febron is dead cause you hit it and is covered in it. Marisha: I run up and take as many attacks as possible. Matt: You take 33 points of damage from the toxic spray. Marisha: *shocked Pikachu face* Travis: I hit it two mo' times while she's right in front of it. WTF?

I am SO glad that this campaign Matt isn't having the universe wait for them no matter what they decide to get sidetracked on.

I love the side chat scroll."Fjord hp: He doesn't have any." and "Beauregard hp: "We know it's still wrong it's chat's fault."

Matt's imitation skills are absolutely incredible.... listening without watching and I keep having to stop and look at the captions to see that it is Kiri talking.

The fact that the whole group was so willing to immediately trust Cali when they STILL don’t trust Caleb and Nott is wild to me. They even have a spell to ensure someone is telling the truth and refused to even entertain the idea. It honestly made me think less of most of the party. Especially Beau, who KNOWS why Caleb doesn’t trust easily when it comes to powerful magic.

Beau telling Caleb "you don't get to control others because of your PTSD and your shitty self-image" made no sense to me here. She's already used that in a previous episode, and it was spot on. This was about something way beyond himself. That was a dangerous item, and he was the only one being cautious, while the rest were just not wanting to be distrusting of a guest's character on the show. A little rough getting through that conflict with Beau, because no one else had his back. Marisha tries too hard sometimes. Liam was my favorite player in C1 and he's already becoming my favorite in C2.

"What appears to be. . . " -Matt Mercer, every episode.

The similarities between Caleb and Calis backstory are insane. The "I helped kill people, I helped torture people, I have to make sure they can't do this to anyone ever again" is so similar to Calebs words.

Caleb: We shouldn't trust Cali's word, we just met her Cali: That's fair Beau: You can't control other people's destiny, let the woman we met a couple hours ago have the item that can be used for evil WTF Beau? Jester, Molly, don't encourage her having reckless abandon.

Why is Caleb THE ONLY critical thinking member of the group. Everyone else: "I trust this random person i just met with a super powerful tool" Caleb: "maybe we should just think about it first, just to be safe" Everyone else: "why are you trying to control people" Like what? Especially beau! Like she is wholly unreasonable and acts emotionally and not logically. She always jumps on him when logic is on his side. Period. Like "if we screw up then we learn it for next time..." OR hear me out...."think...BEFORE you have to learn the lesson" I would have Caleb's back in EVERY one of these disagreements so far. Like it's crazy lol

Pretty sure Kiri is an excuse for Matt to start impersonating and practicing his Jester for when Laura goes on maternity leave... quite clever.

So you've got a character who is descended from a specifically evil kind of dragon. And they have a tendency to be overwhelmed by that draconic nature. And they admit to having done some seriously evil shit as part of a cult dedicated to one of the great forces of evil in the world who is also draconic. Sure let's give them the bowl without checking their intentions. You know the bowl. The one that lets you commune with said evil draconic god when you fill it with blood. The evil bowl. The bowl specifically for evil. That bowl.

Very very late, but I would 100% watch an 80s version of the M9 as shown by DnD Beyond.

I felt sooooo bad for Liam bc that was total bs at the end there, but then I remembered when he picked Scandland up by his scruffy neck and escorted him to a cave corner ; removed his belt, and had a similar conversation in S1

Yasha: Does her thing at the end Stormlord: Good job. Take that you 5 headed scaly bastard!

Why are people acting so agressively to Caleb? Checking that an absolute stranger with a very strong desire for a very powerful object is to be trusted sounds exactly the right thing to do. He didn't even word it badly saying that he hopes she is telling the truth he just wants to check. Didn't understand that at all

I love how Sam and Laura are always whispering to each other and giggling. This groups friendship is so wholesome and weird, I love it.

First time watching.... Caleb's actions with Cali were sooooo valid. 😤 That conversation was so so frustrating and I'm thankful for Cali agreeing with Caleb's actions. 🤌 But ugh. Ridiculous. 😤

I love how Knott and Jester get all motherly and yell at Fjord for carrying Kiri wrong 😅 straight up Momma Bears!

58:45 Matt: The material of the chime isn't wood, it's bones. And the twine is dried sinew. M9, disgusted: oh god Ashley smiling and nodding: cool!!

last episode: marisha and laura talking about captain maximillian’s luscious locks this episode: matt shows up with luscious locks 💅

Travis's face when Yasha pulled out that sword was perfect. Just pride and pure awe.

28:38 "What's your name?" Nott: Bren Caleb: *Stares down Nott in shocked horror/anger for several moments.* Nott: shurgs in confusion Me who is watching this the second time: 😲

Cali: Please don’t blame him. Beau: I don’t blame him. Caleb: Press X to doubt.

Liam*Remembering the last time someone took a powerful object and just said “nothing personal, just business” and blinked out*

"OMG it's all our characters animated!!!" - 😭😭😭 hits different, now that both VM and M9 got animated

1:26:52 Calli: "I'm going to stand closer to "Bren".." Caleb: Visibly flinches

51:15 Mark: “can I have like a d6, anyone?” Everyone: *here is my entire collection*

Kiri's little shake of her feathers made me SO HAPPY 1:26:35

I love coming back and watching Liam/Caleb stress TF out every time they say the name “Bren”. I also love that it was a complete accident on sams part.

caleb: i'm awkward, i don't like people, people don't like me also caleb: hello newcomer i'll help you integrate yourself into the group oh you're having a hard time? here's my literal emotional support cat for you hope it helps love you

I love the look on Ashley's face to Jester, when she starts to cast talk with the dead, one thing that she did many times as Pike, like, "My little girl is learning". Is so sweet. 1:41:05

I LOVE the messages that pop up. 'magnets, how do they work😂'

Caleb being cautious and the entire party turns on him. Its annoying sometime. The fucking wizard that knows the most about the arcane gets shat on because he wanted to make sure a stranger that they knew less than a day doesn't turn around and just use it

I love how Beau and Fjord' avatars both look bloody and dirty and bruised when their hitpoints are almost down to zero, and then Caleb's looks dirty and messy even when his hit points are at his maximum.