Sam Riegel

This page is about the actor.  For the character from the "Liam's Quest" special episodes, see Sam Riegel (character).

Sam Riegel

Sam Riegel (@SamReigel) is a voice actor who plays Scanlan Shorthalt, a gnome bard, Taryon Darrington, a human artificer, and Nott the Brave, a Goblin Rogue. Outside of Critical Role canon, he has played a fictional version of himself in "Critical Role EXTRA – Liam's Quest!" (Sx12) and Obby "the Rat" in "Critical Role Extra – The Return of Liam!" (Sx15). Sam was the Dungeon Master for "Critical Role: Bar Room Blitz" (Sx21).

Before Critical Role began, Sam and his best friend Liam O'Brien created a podcast called allworknoplay, with the purpose of trying to get more fun into their busy schedules. Towards the end of episode 2 of the podcast, the two of them talked about getting ready for the upcoming "one-time" D&D game. Sam asked Liam what was the "worst character" to play as, and Liam suggested a gnome. Sam talked about being a bard in the podcast, which would suit him due to his background in music both from college and his help in writing show ideas for The Voice.

Sam recorded a few short clips of the pre-stream Critical Role game from when they were running Pathfinder. These clips can be found on his vine page, here.

As Scanlan the bard, he is known for improvising songs on the fly. Examples include: "I think you're really handsome and nice! You're going to have inspiration dice!" He often pulls songs from pop culture and modifies their lyrics, as in, "Here's a little song I wrote! It's filled with inspiration, note for note. Don't fuck up. Or I'll kill you."

Sam became the first player in the Critical Role canon to introduce a second player character when Scanlan Shorthalt left Vox Machina, to be replaced by Taryon Darrington in "A Bard's Lament" (1x85). He would later reprise his role as Scanlan in "Masquerade" (1x99), leaving Tary behind in "Thar Amphala" (1x101).

Trivia

• On Talks Machina, the host Brian Wayne Foster likes to "#ThankMyGuests" with names that are either mispronounced or wordplay that sounds close to their names. Here are the names for Sam Riegel so far:
  • Sam Rie-Gel
  • Sam Seagull
  • Spam Peehole
  • Jean Claude Van Sam Fecal
  • Slam Creedskull
  • Sham Beagle
  • Stan Smeagol
  • A Tad Evil
  • Uncle Sam's Eagle
  • Scram People

External Links

• Critical Role's Sam Riegel: From noob to gnome hero (September 17, 2015)
• Critical Role's Sam Riegel: Where you've heard him before (February 10, 2016)
• Sam's Reddit AMA (July 12, 2017)

References

Art: