Tales from the SMP/The Village That Went Mad

The Village That Went Mad is the second installment of Tales from the SMP. It was streamed on January 2, 2021 at 8 PM EST and starred Karl Jacobs, BadBoyHalo, Corpse Husband, Dream, GeorgeNotFound, LazarBeam, Ponk, Quackity, and Tubbo.

The story took place hundreds of years before the current-day Dream SMP and followed the eight townspeople of "Not A Very Good Town" town (all except Karl). The villagers roleplayed Town of Salem (also known as Mafia), where each person was assigned a role. Each night, the murderers killed someone, and during the day, the townsfolk gathered to figure out who the murderers were before they wiped out the entire village. Karl acted as the gamemaster, narrating what was happening as well as murdering/executing on behalf of the murderers/townspeople.

The participants played two rounds: one practice and one canon. The winners of the canon round had a chance to win $1000.

Poster
The poster has text on the top showing the name of the series, the name of the episode, and the day and time the episode would occur below it. Near the top right, it shows a list of some of the people that were going to feature in the episode. Karl is the focus of the poster, with Corpse, Lazar, Bad, George, Quackity, and Dream behind him. Due to this episode's theme of death, the background depicts trees without their leaves, a burgundy sky, and a raven flying overhead, which all symbolize death in some way.

Canon round
This round occurred after the non-canon round.

First day
During the day, the townsfolk met at the well at the center of the village while Karl narrated.

During the night, Helga slept in Miles' house. They made a lot of noise, so many of the villagers did not get enough sleep. Cornelius was murdered during the night while in the same house as Catboy.

Second day
During the day, the townsfolk discovered Cornelius was dead and held a meeting around the campfire. Catboy revealed that he felt the murderer's presence, but was unable to identify them because he was blind. The other townspeople, including Bob the builder and Mayor Jimmy, immediately questioned this, and Catboy admitted that it could have been him. Helga made fun of the conversation and the other people, but also put suspicion on the orphan Robin.

Although Catboy defended Robin, the townspeople put Robin, Catboy, and Miles Memington on the chopping block. Catboy repeated that he could be the murderer and Robin revealed that he was the Jester in their defenses. (Miles Memington just repeated his name.) Catboy received the most votes and was executed. Because he had always been Robin's father figure, Robin became distraught and stayed in the jail cell for the night.

During the night, the murderers chose not to kill anyone.

Third day
During the day, the townsfolk gathered around the campfire and realized Catboy might have been telling the truth about his blindness. Helga attempted to convince the depressed Robin to speak in his defense before the townspeople executed him, as Robin had been the closest person to Catboy. Robin put suspicion on Jimmy.

The town sent Robin and Jimmy onto the chopping block. Robin did not defend himself and only hung his head in sadness. Robin received the most votes and was executed, joining Catboy in the afterlife. Karl revealed that Robin was indeed the Jester, so he had won. However, the game would still continue.

During the night, Helga went stargazing alone on the rooftops and was murdered. With her death, the murderers achieved dominance against the innocents, so Miles and Jimmy (the remaining innocents) were also murdered in their homes.

Fourth day
During the day, only Jack and Bob came out of their houses. Karl revealed that they were the murderers, and had won the game. Since Robin, the Jester, had also won from getting executed, the three of them split the $1000 prize.

Non-Canon Round
This round happened first, but was declared non-canon by Karl.

First day
During the day, the townsfolk met at the well and introduced themselves. BadBoyHalo played another character in this round (with a different skin), although both of his characters were the Mayor of the town.

During the night, Miles Memington was murdered.

Second day
During the day, the townspeople gathered around the campfire and voted to put Jimmy and Robin on the chopping block. Robin appealed with his tragic orphan backstory and also claimed to be the Doctor. As a result, Jimmy convinced the village to execute him instead.

During the night, the murderer attempted to kill Robin. However, Robin chose to save himself and survived.

Third day
During the day, Catboy claimed that he was the investigator. The townspeople voted to put Jack and Helga on the chopping block, and ultimately executed Helga. After her death, Helga chose to haunt Jack.

During the night, the murderers chose not to kill anyone.

Fourth day
During the day, the townspeople gathered around the campfire and voted to put Jack and Cornelius on the chopping block. Catboy revealed that Jack had never left his house during the game, so the townspeople executed Cornelius instead.

Karl declared that the townspeople could sleep peacefully that night because all the murderers had been executed, giving the win to the innocents.

Present-day - Ponk
On January 12, 2021, Ponk revealed that he was a descendant of Jack (although he varied on the exact relation). He had also found out about Helga from Jack, saying that she was very respected, rich and had many connections (although he again varied on how he found this information). He then built a grave for Helga.

According to Ponk, Jack and "Shrimpdick" were the only survivors of the village, implying that Bob's real name/nickname was Shrimpdick. Ponk also said that Helga had a very strong relationship with Shrimpdick, but didn't clarify further. Sam remarked that the picture of Helga looked like Quackity and Ponk said that Quackity could have been related to her. Ponk also said that he read about a man named Cornelius in the diary, who was apparently very green.

On February 1, the viewers are shown what seemed to be snippets of different conversations between Jimmy the mayor and Jack the farmer with a background of Jimmy and Jack staring at each other. In these snippets, Jimmy said the following things:


 * Jimmy told Jack that he was a potato farmer and shouldn't be growing lemon trees.
 * Jimmy said that Cornelius was a strange person and that the crops had been doing well since they "burned that witch"- killed him.
 * He warned Jack to stay away from his wife Helga.
 * Staring at Cornelius wouldn't put hair on Jack's chest.
 * Ever since they burned Miles Memington for being a witch, that orphan boy (Robin) had never been the same.
 * The town needed potatoes, so Jack should stop wasting his time and tend to the fields. He should also stop stealing *inaudible* from people. Jimmy said that he was sure Jack's father would disapprove of what Jack was doing.

After the last line, the Jimmy in the background turned to face the camera, before the background faded away.

The lines including the death of Cornelius and Miles may indicate that unlike what the viewers saw in the episode, the death of the villagers was not just the work of the killers, but the entire village coming together to kill who they thought were 'witches'.

A few minutes after the scene, Ponk said that he just had the weirdest dream. He said that he might be related to Jack the potato farmer, seemingly having forgotten that he called Jack his ancestor multiple times. He also said that he learnt about the village from Helga's diary, contradicting his initial story that he read about it from Jack's diary. Ponk then spotted a house on the horizon and felt a connection to it, feeling that it was Jack's house. The house was in horrible condition, with many parts of the walls missing and the entire thing being covered in cobwebs. Ponk saw a sign next to the front door, which read, "JACK'S YE OLD FARM HOUSE". There was also a lemon tree with a sign reading "JACK'S LEMON TREE INSURED BY BANK OF COR*" and a grave with a sign reading "RIP JACK THE POTATO FARMER".

He entered the house and explored it. He managed to find a bookshelf that turned to be a fake painting. He went behind a painting and climbed down a secret set of ladders until he reached an underground room with many villagers kept in boats in order. There were also one skeleton and two cave spider farms, each with a spawner. He also heard cats inside the walls for some reason. Ponk said that he would be rich but didn't touch the chests, fearing that there may have been someone else there recently. He also said something about a person called Karl, saying that he didn't think that that person was involved in this. He said that Shrimpy/Bob had survived as well and he may have been involved in the house. This may mean that Karl was mentioned in the diary as well, meaning that the diary would contain an actual first-hand experience of one of Karl's time-travel adventures.

The next day, he checked out the chests in the basement and found an assortment of items, including a Cat music disc and ender pearls. He also found a book and quill in the chest from Jack, which he started reading. Jack wrote of a strange man made of straw with eyes made of emerald (a description which matches Foolish Gamers' appearance and color scheme). The book also included something about a new land that used sand as stone and had gold everywhere (a description matching Foolish's summer house perfectly). It said that the strange man was fascinated by lemons and brought him a caravan of good and 21 'statues' in boats which were possibly the villagers. Two weeks after this encounter, Jack's writings seemed to become more and more incoherent. He wrote about cats in the walls and said that the cats murdered people. He also disliked Shrimpy's interest in his 'statues'. Then, one day, he wrote that he had a sudden urge to murder. He said that Helga was tempting but her husband needed to die, highlighting the tense relationship between Jack, Helga and Jimmy. Jack stopped writing in the journal for the next 135 days, during which most of 'The Village That Went Mad' likely took place. His last journal entry was after 'The Village That Went Mad', babbling about how only him, Shrimpy and the statues were left and that life was good.

Ponk frequently came back in the coming days to trade with the villagers.

Trivia

 * This is the only Tale to be heavily connected to the current Dream SMP storyline, via Ponk.