Narrative Telephone Round 2 Ep. 3: The Night Before Winter's Crest 

"I love how Mica totaled the car, drove it to the auto body shop, Sam's like 'I'll take care of this', poured gasoline on it, set it on fire, and then Marisha's like 'Yeah, this drives!'" - travis willingham 2020, perfectly summarizing narrative telephone

The original poem: 'Twas the night before Winter's Crest And all through the tower The Mighty Nein were still stirring Never mind the late hour Yasha paced her room nervously Cracking her fists Hoping Beau would come knocking To give her a kiss Caleb read sadly Absently petting his cat While Veth hid in a corner Wishing for her son to look at Jester, that's me Polymorphed and went roaming While Fjord dreamt of the sea Waves crashing and foaming Caduceus sipped calmly His dead people tea His thought drifting to family And their cemetery *gasp* When from the base of the tower There arose a clamor so great All of the Nein came out of their rooms To investigate Down they thought And drifted below To find out what was the noise They just had to know When suddenly before them Was a vision so bright A banquet and presents Piled high, what a sight They looked around curiously Wondering who could have done this Beau said "Don't eat anything It's probably poisonous" So Fjord flipped the table Gifts went flying everywhere Till the room was a mess Of torn wrapping and tableware Ho-Ho-Ho-oh COMON Said a man who appeared before them I tried to give you a party This is just mayhem With a sparkle in his eye he said "Damnit, tis the season Hasn't anyone ever been nice to you for no reason?" Oh Yasha, Oh Beau, Oh Caleb, Oh Veth Oh Jester, Oh Fjord, Caduceus what the heck Then he patted his belly and raised up his fists Merry Winter's Crest Mighty Nein How do you want to do this?

I can’t believe “How Do You Want To Do This” was immediately lost...

"caleb was upstairs playing with fire and reading books Jester was upstairs thinking about how great she looks" Ashley, God of Improv

I love that it goes from "Everybody was stirring, nevermind the late hour" to "Nobody was stirring, not even a mouse. Also Fjord was making poison".

The real reason why Mica's here is because Brian was here last time so this is her reminding him not to get cocky about his position as host of talks machina

Taliesin honestly sold himself short. He maintained the integrity of a good number of the rhymes as well as pretty good plot structure!

I can't express how much I enjoy that Laura wrote a poem where the mighty nine got in a fight with Santa Claus purely because they are all so damaged and paranoid that they can't believe someone would do something nice for them.

_"Don't fall yourself short."_ _"I'll throw you under a bridge."_ _"I killed my whole family."_ Keep those Mighty Proverbs comin'! :D

“This is where the rhyming stopped” immediately followed by clatter/matter

I love how Ashley accidentally forgot Veth, remembered, dead named her, and then shit on her by not giving her any presents and that was Veth's entire inclusion the entire story

In jesters house where she painted on an easel not a creature was stirring especially not the dead weasel

I've never seen sam panic before, and it was totally because of all the emmys

"Yasha was upstairs, dreaming of giving Beau kisses / while Beau was dreaming of punching some bitches" I wanted SOMEONE to say this SO BAD

Love how everyone gave Beau a sister and Marisha was so confused by this she needed to make up a different rhyme

"Don't be jelly!" Gosh, I love hearing what people add to the poem to keep the rhyme scheme.

Yasha at the start: Sapphic Yasha by the end: Sapphic and Violent

Nobody: Taliesin: I deserve this...

"caleb was playing with fire and had plenty of books to read and caduceus was . . ." My brain: caduceus was smoking weed.

Okay but Travis did SO WELL with what he was given

This was Ashley's best and Sam's worst. What happened? :D

Talesin's deadpan, "I deserve this," was amazing

Mica: "Travis didn't know what rhymes with poison" Sam: "Fjord was making poison, to kill people!"

God, the *timing* on Ashley's "Nobody ate the food" was the hardest I've laughed at a single line in this show 30:30

genuinely impressed with how much ashley's jester impression has improved since 'HEeYYLLo, i'M JEYyStERRrR'

Not sure if they all forgot or are just skipping past it because it's funny, but Beau doesn't have a sister.

Laura in the thumbnail is the face of someone who knows exactly what she's unleashing upon her friends and is loving every second of it

*Here we see the great 'ole Taliesin;* *Of the bunch, he was the most wellspoken.* *Racking his brain and struggle to rhyme,* *We all know he deserve it this time.*

Travis calling Santa ‘the fat man’ is giving me flashbacks to the critmas one-shot

Everyone looks so proud when they come up with a rhyme

Beau now has a little sister, it's canon

The “and then they... left?” Saga continues

The absolute amazingness of Mica to film her video in front of her dad's one million Emmys and then send the video over to Sam

Liam's accent lowkey sounds like dr doofenschmirz, not gonna lie.

My absolute favorite moment was when they lost the "clatter, matter" rhyme and then the poem went so poorly they got it back. Fucking Sam lmao

Holy crap Laura, and I thought Taliesin's was cruel

I love Ashley's ability to go from a confused adult to an overly excited child in an instant

I feel like Ashley’s is the most accurate to how Jester would tell it

Sam: *flexing his Emmy* Mica: "Have you met my dad LeVar?"

I'm sure Matt is writing up Displacer Mice for the Dms Guild right now

Laura's tale needs to be made into an animated Christmas special

I love how the rhymes change even though the meaning stays

"There was a man there in a red suit with a belly and he said I brought everyone presents except you Nott don't be Jelly" omfg I laughed so hard at this. PS Ashley's Jester has come such a long way from her Christopher Walken 🤣

I now want jester to be cloned and refered to as "technically jester" the only distinguishable difference is that the clone has memory loss problems

Watching people try to replicate Jesters accent brings me great joy

Santa: No presents for you Nott, you’ve been bad. Nott: Fjord is literally poisoning people! How am I worse than that? Santa: He’s only poisoning pirates. Nott: NOT AT FIRST HE WASN’T!

I like how all of the narrative telephone stories end up devolving into like "aaaaand that's what happened"

How is Laura's Beau voice so on point 😂😂

Something with a Bee... (...) ... something of the sea. ~ Talesin, 2020 Best Comeback award winner

Laura Bailey just destroyed Shakespeare's entire career

How to mess with Sam get him forget things and get him all frazzled: put 80 emmys and a Grammy in the background

No one's gonna say anything about how Ashley has so much confidence in herself lately? These crazy people got her out of her armor. She has such amazing energy!

This time, the telephone password is “Don’t fall yourself short.”

I love "Displacer mouse" Sounds like the cutest thing ever haha

Sam to Mica: "Your family has NO experience with children's literature..." Me: "Who's her family?" [Googles] "Wait, she's the daughter of the Reading Rainbow guy?! Huh." Edit: Now I have the Reading Rainbow theme song stuck in my head. Dang it.

this went from a nat 20 charisma check to a nat 1 charisma check so quickly

When jester starts rhyming the entire critical role was having a fit. the whole gang was flustered thinking "oh shit" it was a lovely poem about winters crest it really didn't matter what happened to the rest. we had fun and we laughed and with warmth in our hearts now we patiently wait for when the next episode starts. Happy Holidays!

00:59 laura starts 03:01 talesin second 05:06 ashley third 07:04 travis fourth 09:07 mica fifth 11:00 sam sixth 12:58 marisha seventh 15:45 Liam eighth 17:29 Matthew ninth 19:53 Full group view

obsessed with ashley beginning every verse describing the nein with "(name) was upstairs"

Matt: And then the rhyming stopped Also Matt: *continues rhyming*

Can you imagine being Ronan and hearing this as your christmas stories. He is so lucky.

I started SCREAM laughing once Marisha put her "beard" on and triggered a massive coughing fit I LOVE this so much oml

Ok Travis was so amazing this time. Tal left Ashley with a fallen civilisation, but Travis rebuilt it.

i love how brilliantly Laura uses the night before christmas rythm in her poem, so when people find themselves unable to remember parts of the poem they start interjecting the night before Christmas rhymes into it.

Laura Bailey is a 100% magical agent of chaos. She's a gift we don't deserve. This may be my favorite episode yet.

Laura’s story was so cute and it got so ruined XD Rhyming helps with remembering things long term but short term like this it really made everything harder cause everyone was trying to rhyme instead of sum up the plot of the story like they normally can XD

Every single time Ashley has this upbeat music for her part

Liam: "Travis just turned eight." Travis like 5 seconds later: "F*ck this sh*t!" Yup. Total eight year old.

Matt’s face while watching his own segment is just the disapproving scowl you would expect from a wizard to their apprentice.

Sam: "Twas the night before Winter's Crest, and all through the Xhorhaus... Not a creature was stirring, not even a..." Me: *Dormouse* Sam: ... Displacer Mouse...

I feel like we got a pretty perfect degradation over time here. Too many of the “hard” ones disintegrate immediately, and everyone else is left mumbling without enough info to make it interesting; this one was weighted pretty perfectly, well done Laura.

How the poem ended up: It was the night before Winter's Crest, And all through the Xhorhaus, Not a creature was stirring- Not even a displacer mouse! Upstairs Yasha dreamt about kisses, While downstairs Beau dreamed about near misses! Spells of all kinds danced around Caleb's head, And Fjord was dreaming of making pirates dead! Suddenly, from below, there was such a clatter! The Mighty Nein sprung up, to go and see what was the matter? There was a great, jolly man "Ho ho ho! You're the naughtiest Nott that ever Notted!" "Ho! So I hope you enjoyed this poem. Now go get that Lucien, I know you can show him!"

Performance reviews: Laura - omg that was amazing (A+++), somebody please animate this asap Tal - he may have changed a few rhymes and dropped the ending, but dang good job! Ashley - half of it's made up but way better than I was expecting! Travis - somehow produced an exact replica of Ashley's take, how is he so good?! Mica - okay so we may have lost a bit of poem but still fun, so glad to have you here Sam - xhorhaus, displacer mouse, ~oh Fjord, beard, xhorhome, all beautiful additions! Marisha - big improvement from beau's "sis" to "no misses", A+ armadillo(?) beard Liam - good beard (~technically), ha okay so the ending might've flopped a bit Matt - fabulous lighting issues with the beard, A+ giggling (I really love how literally the only thing to stay was Yasha thinking of kisses.)

I love that Laura's Santa is a Ashley doing a man impression.

I love how when someone uses a prop, everybody else uses just what come to hamd.

I was so sure that "dead people tea" was gonna be what made it to the end.

The Guilt in Taliesans Eyes when everyone is watching lauras :D

Not gonna lie... At first, I thought "Santa" was going to be Pumat Sol

I am THOROUGHLY disappointed that none of them ended their poem with: "You poopin?"

I love how Mica's voice gets higher as the story progresses

I expect an errata to the Guide to Wildemount with a displacer mouse stat block.

If we ever get a "The Legends of the Mighty Nein" cartoon, this has to be the basis of the Christmas Episode

The pain in taliesin's eyes as he tries to keep the poetic beat I love it!

Daaaamn Ashley's Jester has improved. You've been practicing, huh ^^ At the start of the segment especially haha

"Dont fall yourself short." I need that T-shirt. Laura gett on it!

Evryone's Jester impressions have come on so far, especially Marisha's

Taliesin got it pretty close! He was like the great value brand version of the story. Lol

So when are we getting an illustrated children's book for this story?

The second they announce a picture book version of Laura's poem, you know it'll sell out in 0.000001 seconds.

Laura just flexing on everyone again.

Taliesin did so well oh my god, Laura Bailey is the best Christmas chaos elf ever

"Fat Man and The Jelly" sounds like a radio morning show team.

Omg Laura that is the cutest thing I've ever heard

I felt Taliesin's "...I deserve this..."

I feel rhyming is actually wonderful because the story can be simple and still be hard, and if lines are forgotten, they can just make them up like a true gnome bard! Use your improv classes!

I'm super excited for when Jester's original story eventually gets animated. So cute.

I can image Santa Claus, arms raised in classic pugilist style, saying “Okay Mighty Nein, how you wanna do this?”

These are like watching the sinking of the Titanic.

See, this is Oltgars first canon appearance

At this point, Technically is Jester's surname