Bar Room Blitz

is the twenty-first special episode of Critical Role.

Part I
Sam begins the adventure at the foot the of Umbra Hills in Jorenn Village. White snow caps the distant Cliffkeep Mountains  Mountains and the roads.

Sam begins at the foot of the Umbra Hills outside Jorenn village, as snow caps the distant Cliffkeep Mountains. A young woman hurriedly riding through the night hits and seemingly kills an elderly woman on the road; realising no-one has seen her, she hastily covers the body and rides away in a panic. The young woman, Val, arrives for her shift at the second crappiest tavern in town: The Ass Sailor (once called ‘The Crass Sailor’, the sign has been vandalized and the name stuck). The tavern is built atop an old chapel and has two levels, the top floor containing rooms and the bottom section a pub. The Ass Sailor is notoriously warm, meaning most patrons disrobe and leave weapons, armour and extra clothes in a pile by the door, and the homemade liquor, Greep, is infamously flammable.

Val rushes in and gets to work, on a night that will prove to be unlike any other. At the bar is Gryffin (Mary Elizabeth McGlynn), a seemingly-dignified and wealthy Summer Eladrin asking questions about a red-hair young girl which Val misinterprets as inquiries about available prostitutes. She is joined at the bar by bar regular Clothesline (Ashly Burch) a Tabaxi fighter whose face is covered in bandages, having come straight from a street brawl.Clothesline asks for milk and catnip, and takes an immediate dislike to Gryffin’s appearance (particularly her ‘weird eyes’).

Meanwhile, a pale, white-haired girl named Jayne Merriweather (Liam O’Briensitting by herself is approached by a local drow bar-fly, prostitute and one-time successful poet named Kingston LaForge (Brian Wayne Foster). She declines Kingston’s offer of a beer, but asks if he could get her some bread, which after some argument Val places on his seemingly near-infinite bar tab.

Kingston then begins to regale Jayne with his extraordinarily boring and self-aggrandizing life story, unaware that Gryffin has started eavesdropping and is getting extremely excited. Clothesline yells at Kingston to leave the girl alone, at which point Gryffin, in an awestruck daze, begins frantically asking for Kingston’s autograph since he is her all-time favourite poet. Kingston obliges, and then makes a disastrous attempt to flirt with Clothesline, which ends with the towering fighter attacking him with her claws.

The owner, Xavier, intervenes, and things briefly settle down before two dwarves enter with a young red-haired girl, Holly, who matches the description given to Gryffin. One of the dwarves, Frankfurt (Eric Bauza) is the paladin who had directed Gryffin to the Ass Sailor earlier, the second is Obby ‘The Rat’, Sam’s PC from the earlier one-shot The Return of Liam. They are transporting the girl, Holly, and are Frankfurt is eager to find someone named Garello to ‘complete the delivery’.

Things become more complicated when Kingston recognizes Frankfurt as the dwarf who seduced his wife. Kingston uses Message to inform Gryffin about the feud, but only confuses her.

Across the room, Jayne locks eyes with Clothesline and gives her a wink and a nod, before attempting to give Kingston advice regarding his ‘beef’ with Frankfurt. When Jayne touches a symbol of The Lawbearer, however, Kingston bursts into an expletive-laden rant about how much he hates the Gods.

Gryffin begins to make her way towards Kingston but is interrupted when Clothesline attacks her, yelling ‘SORRY, XAVIER! BAR FIGHT!’ and tearing into Gryffin’s scalp with her claws. The room predictably explodes into violence. As Gryffin and Clothesline fight and Frankfurt proactively attacks Kingston, Jayne seizes the opportunity to bewitch Holly and Command her to follow her out of the premises.

Suddenly, the characters flash forward to the next day, where they are interrogated in turn by the town constables. Gryffin explains she was a princess of Illyria, an Eladrin city which appears only during solar eclipses; she had been knocked unconscious by an attacker and left outside the city with no way to get back. She was searching for Holly because the girl might have information that could help her calculate Illyria’s next appearance. Kingston regales the constables with stories of his work as a prostitute servicing the town’s elderly women. Clothesline reveals that she owed Jayne a favour after the girl saved her life – starting the bar brawl to make a distraction for reasons Jayne didn’t explain. Frankfurt admits that he was transporting Holly for ‘Garello’ and flips the interview to ask about the Chained Oblivion cult. As the Constable asks Jayne what such a sweet young girl was doing in the Ass Sailor that night, she casts Sacred Flame on him, the flashforward dissolving as the constable suddenly bursts into flame…

Gryffin gets Val to hand over her keg of greep and starts pouring bottles for improvised molotovs. Jayne is attacked by a patron but immediately disintegrates him; her plan is scuppered, however, when Frankfurt and Obby move to secure Holly as she walks towards Jayne. As the temperature in the room climbs, everyone in the room is forced to remove items of clothing or suffer exhaustion: Clothesline and Frankfurt kick off their pants, Kingston goes shirtless (revealing an extremely unappealing ‘writer’s body’), Gryffin tears off her sleeves and Jayne discards her cloak to reveal her porcelain doll dress, white leather arm straps, and chain tattoos.

Gryffin accidentally sets fire to the bar and the tavern cat, and as she sends a firebolt at Clothesline she is overcome by her wild magic, behaving erratically and lapsing into an aggressive New Jersey accent. When she recovers her senses, she proposes to team up with Frankfurt to protect Holly; the dwarf agrees and heals Gryffin back to full health.

Suddenly and without warning, a new figure bursts into the bar, radiating even more heat that the fireplace – the intruder looks human but with glowing red eyes and Gryffin makes out a tail under his cloak. The intruder grabs Holly and yanks her from Frankfurt’s grasp and all eyes turn on him – except for Kingston, who is still fixated on killing Frankfurt. Gryffin hits the intruder with a ray of cold, which he appears to be especially weak to. Jayne tries to attack Clothesline and the intruder with Chill Touch – although the attack fails, Clothesline realises the death cleric is betraying her and was using her as a patsy, though Jayne’s Sanctuary spell prevents her from retaliating. Obby decides this is above his pay grade and leaves the bar. Killing a patron in the way with a mere touch, the mysterious man bolts down a trapdoor into the basement, taking Holly with him.

Player Characters

 * Clothesline, Tabaxi fighter
 * Gryffin Errondil, Eladrin half-elf sorcerer
 * Frankfurt, dwarf paladin
 * Kingston LaForge, drow bard
 * Jayne Merriweather, human cleric

New

 * Unnamed old woman
 * Holly, a mysterious girl
 * Garello AKA Sal, a salamander
 * Kay, a prostitute
 * Valerie, bartender at the Ass Sailor
 * Xavier, manager of the Ass Sailor
 * Zarva, a prostitute

Returning

 * Obby

Mentioned

 * The Chained Oblivion
 * Kord
 * The Lawbearer
 * Sarenrae

Quotations
Kingston: I just want to- Clothesline: So choose the next few words carefully! Kingston: Catnip and chill? Ashly: Can I attack Kingston? Sam: Sure! Clothesline: I'm going to- Sam: She's prone. Ashly: I'm prone? What can I do then? Sam: You can get up and you can Liam: It's half your movement, but you can fuck me up still. Ashly: I can get up? Clothesline: Then I'm going to clothesline that motherfucker there (points to Liam/Jayne) Sam: Great! Roll an attack. Liam: I haven't lost a hit point this entire game. Ashly: NATURAL 20! Mary: Boom, karma's a bitch. Sam: That certainly hits. Roll 1d4+4. Mary: Karma's a beeotch, beeotch beeotch beeotch. Ashly: Come on, baby. Sam: 1d4+4 Ashly: 3+4--7 Sam: Double it, 14. Mary and Ashly: FOURTEEN Liam: Nonononono, 3--the dice are doubled. Sam: OK. 6--it's 10. And you're knocked--you're not knocked prone but- Ashly: Did I take my second action surge? Sam: No, do it. Ashly: I'm gonna clothesline you again! Liam: Do it, do it. Mary: Action surge! Ashly: A NATURAL 20! Liam: WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT? GET OUT OF THIS BUILDING, GET OUT OF THIS BUILDING. Ashly: (howls) Mary: This die...[inaudible] this die--you could sell this die for millions. Sam: So Clothesline turns around, delivers a right arm clothesline to you--it hurts. Mary: Kaboom. Sam: She kisses her bicep, uses the other arm, left arm clothesline on you. Ashly: Gimme a 4, baby, give me a 4. A FOUR! Sam: A 4! Ashly: And you're prone, motherfucker!
 * Clothesline: You are this close from a claw in your goddamn eye Kingston.
 * Sam: Kingston just saved you. Clothesline, you are alive, it is your turn.

Trivia

 * Although the cast did not necessarily know each other's characters before starting, Sam gave each of them at least one reason to hate someone else's character and one reason to like a character.
 * For instance, Brian was told that Kingston had a cat fetish, that he hated the gods and anyone who loved the gods, and that a dwarf named Frankfurt had slept with his wife. He did not, however, know that Ashly would be playing a Tabaxi, or that Frankfurt was Eric's character.
 * This was Sam Riegel's very first time as Dungeon Master. Likewise, it was Eric Bauza's very first game of Dungeons and Dragons.
 * When affected by Wild Magic surges, Gryffin slips into a thick New Jersey accent and makes various fourth-wall breaking references to New Jersey. Liam, who is from New Jersey, also swaps to a New Jersey accent in response to Gryffin's outbursts throughout the episode, at one point joining Mary in waxing nostalgic about the now-closed Clam Broth House in Hoboken.