End of 2019 Fireside Chat

The thumbnail for "**End of 2019 Fireside Chat**" (Sx50), featuring Taliesin Jaffe, Ashley Johnson, Liam O'Brien, Laura Bailey, Travis Willingham, Matthew Mercer and Marisha Ray

### Episode

Specials,​ Episode 50
(C2E88b)

### Transcript

Transcript

"**End of 2019 Fireside Chat**" (Sx50) is a special End-of-2019 Fireside Chat.The cast of Critical Role sits down to answer questions and play some games in a fireside chat to close out 2019.

## **Synopsis**

* Some content has begun migrating onto their official Critical Role channels. This process takes a little bit of time, so thanks for patience while they get all these things moving. More about it soon. It will be back.
* Sam could not make it because he's too stupid... or too sexy... or his teeth overtook the rest of his body. Sam is The Laughing Hand.
* Favorite Christmas cookies: gingerbread, sugar cookies with icing, snickerdoodles, eternal rum-soaked British regiftable fruitcakes.
* Ronin is getting a little wooden kitchen for Christmas. And some throwing stars.
* Matt's intramural basketball team is... going. Taliesin has been thinking of joining and installed a basketball hoop while they were out of town. Matt's either the goalie or the shortstop or the kicker. Only Travis seems to understand which is correct.
* **CR Content Alert!** The people of Tal'Dorei celebrate Winter's Crest at this time of year. It's a holiday specific to Tal'Dorei as it celebrates the end of a terrible time in their history. The equivalent winter solstice holiday in Wildemount is Barren Eve on the 2nd of Duscar, the longest night. Sorry, but they missed Christmas while they were being pirates.
* Winter's Crest was created early on in their home game when they begged Matt for a Christmas-themed D&D game. This one had a tiny dragon. They exchanged in-character gifts, and Grog's presents included pine cone earrings for Pike and some grass and leaves for Keyleth.
* **CR Content Alert!** They figure out that Halas wasn't immortal at all. He was just using the Happy Fun Ball to skip the boring (or dangerous) parts. Taliesin wants back custody of the Fun Ball.
* Who is on the Tal'Dorei Council? Matt doesn't know. Probably some important people. Every time the question is asked, one of them dies.
* Essek celebrates the holidays by reading. But he'd be a great figure skater with a floating triple axel, and he never falls.
* Happy Things this year: Getting Ashley back. The Kickstarter. Terrorizing Travis. Seeing *Hadestown*. Liam enjoyed going to Burning Man after hearing about it for eight years. Laura had a really good doughnut. Ashley came home! Although New York has great coffee.
* IRL, during the winter break they'll be visiting family, working, writing, beekeeping, seeing a movie in an actual movie theater.
* **All Work No Play** is coming back, top of the year.
* **CR Content Alert!** There are Vestiges of the Betrayer Gods. Finding them would be really easy, and not have any sort of consequences.
* Matt enjoys seeing everyone without Sam. Sam calls in. "How dare you!" Sam is at a party with his kids that hasn't started so he's just sitting on a bench watching the stream. Would they mind having 16 seven-year-olds join the stream?
* New Years Resolutions? Better work-life balance. To find more ways to use their goodwill to help others - stuffs coming up next year that do that.
* Thanks to all the hard-working mods on all their official community spaces! And to their awesome wonderful off-screen crew.
* Artists listened to: Chvrches, Billie Eilish, Lizzo, Phoebe Bridgers, *Hadestown*, *Zelda and Chill*. Ronin loves *The Greatest Showman*. Liam and Ashley bond over depressing music.
* Favorite moments this Campaign: "In Hot Water" (2x43). Going into the Happy Fun Ball for the second time.
* **CR Content Alert!** They kind of fucked over the only person who could tell them how to adjust the passage of time in the Fun Ball, so good luck figuring that one out.
* What content are they proudest of this year? UnDeadwood. Call of Cthulhu: Shadow of the Crystal Palace. Working on The Legend of Vox Machina - they've been recording their dialogue and it's been dreamy going back.
* Avantika definitely worshiped Uk'otoa.
* Game of the year? They haven't had a chance to play much this year, so it's the oldies but goodies mostly. Red Dead, Hidden Folks, Stardew Valley, Bloodborne, Observation, Mario Odyssey.
* What's it been like launching their own company? Hiring the right people in. Learning as they go. Laura loved helping to designing the office space. Checking in with each other and setting aside time to relax and hang out together. Thursday is still sacred space - it's the beating heart of everything that they're building, but it doesn't feel like work. It re-centers everything when they get together to have fun at the table. They have to be careful what they say in the office because if enough people laugh at it, it happens. Taking the characters they've forged together and getting them ready to go "off to school" in a comic book or toys or whatever. Utilizing people within the community.
* Critical Role Land - someday you may go to it, or someday it may come to you. Maybe a traveling Ren-faire? Much discussion of historical World's Fairs and serial killer H. H. Holmes.
* Favorite Christmas songs? *O Holy Night*, *Red Water (Christmas Mourning)*, *Christmas Wrapping*, *Baby It's Cold Outside (The Consensual Version)*, *The Christmas Song*, Nat King Cole and *A Charlie Brown Christmas*.
* Let's play some games!