'Critical Role' Gains Some New Party Members

Critical Role's cast of motley characters nearly doubled in size, thanks to the arrival of a traveling animal salesman.

The popular web series features a group of voice actors playing through a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. The current campaign follows the adventures of the Mighty Nein, a motley crew of adventurers exploring the continent of Wildemount during a period of growing unrest and conflict.

In last night's episode, the Mighty Nein stumbled across a traveling salesman named Kestriv Drudy during their travels to the city of Nicodramas on the Menagerie Coast. Drudy's wares included a variety of exotic animals, some of which were simply too good of an offer to pass up on. Jester (the bubbly tiefling cleric played by Laura Bailey) was particularly excited by some of the new animals and ended up purchasing a crimson weasel and a blink dog named Nugget.

Blink dogs are iconic Dungeons & Dragons monsters, able to teleport short distances. The creatures have been part of Dungeons & Dragons lore since the game's earliest days and often align themselves with "good" party members. The creatures are the natural enemies of displacer beasts, and both originally come from the Feywild, a magical and dangerous plane.

Jester wasn't the only character to leave with a new pet. Beau (the human monk played by Marisha Ray) purchased a large owl who seems to have a similar abrasive personality and a sharper than average beak.

The three new animal companions brings the Mighty Nein's current roster up to ten, which includes six humanoid characters and one cat familiar named Frumpkin. The group is also currently down one member (as Critical Role cast member Ashley Johnson is currently away filming a TV show in New York,) which would raise their party's number to 11.

Fans of Critical Role should appreciate that Bailey's character now has two pets. During the show's first campaign, Bailey's ranger Vex was accompanied by a large brown bear named Trinket. Bailey also attempted to adopt a kenku orphan named Kiri, but the party eventually left her with a friendly family as they were heading off to more dangerous adventures not suited for a small bird child.

We'll see how long the Mighty Nein's new companions last on the show. Owls and weasels don't exactly get along, and the animals might not be very suited for some of the dangerous encounters the Mighty Nein always seems to encounter along the road.

New episodes of Critical Role air on Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET on Geek & Sundry's Twitch and Alpha. The episodes are then posted on YouTube the following Monday.