First appearance: S6E1 — Murder at the Dread Fortress (TTRPG Murder Mystery) · watch it on YouTube
Iris is a dead bride in a torn wedding gown who arrived at the Deathmatch banquet in The Dread Fortress hoping she wasn’t late and slowly coming apart at the seams. She seemed like the gentlest guest in the room. In fact she was the murderer at the heart of the evening’s mystery: she had come for revenge on The Arbiter, who had stabbed her and her husband to death on their wedding night. By the end of the night she had found her vengeance, her closure and, by her own account, a whole new lease on unlife.
Story
Murder at the Dread Fortress
Iris scurried into the banquet in S6E1 — Murder at the Dread Fortress (TTRPG Murder Mystery) wearing a white gown ripped at the hem and stained with mud. She had long reddish hair, stitches across her face and neck, and a weathered bouquet, which she tucked into her dress. “I hope I’m not late,” she said. As she walked, the stitching on her arm tore and the arm began to fall off, so she caught it and sewed it back on without breaking stride. When the Grandmaster asked what corpse she had ripped the dress from, Iris answered simply: “Well, it was mine.” Skelman, a fellow undead guest, welcomed her warmly to “the undead family” and was openly impressed that she had been allowed to keep her clothes after resurrection.
She asked for a glass of wine, and Thea staggered back dragging a goblet bigger than her own torso, filled with red and white mixed together so Iris could work out which she liked. Iris praised her kindly (“Gold star for Thea!”). When she finally drank, one of her eyeballs fell into the goblet and came out stained red. She decided the eyes ought to match and dropped the other one in too. With Skelman’s help tipping the enormous cup, wine began pouring out of holes in her stomach. Asked about them, she only said, “it’s a long story. I was sad,” and changed the subject. Seated with Skelman and the bread-man Bunga, she told the table she was there “to eventually compete.” She also comforted Stuart, the Fortress’s IT man, after the Arbiter whispered to him that his dream of becoming a mage was “never gonna fucking happen”: “IT people are very valued… You fix problems.”
Once Thea turned up murdered, Iris joined the investigation with every sign of sincerity. She suspected the Loxodon, pointed a finger at the bitter Stuart, and chipped in “So additional motive” when Skelman admitted his magical bone had once vibrated in anger at Thea. The trail eventually turned on her. Bunga examined her stitches and found that the black thread in them matched a strand left on Thea’s body. Iris waved it off: “I’m a bit of a mess… my bits and parts get everywhere.” The Arbiter declared all three of them equally suspect. Then his eyes flashed with multicolored chaos lightning and he pulled the whole evening backward through time. Food came back up out of mouths, laughter ran in reverse, and near the start of the night the guests saw the killer’s hand. It was Iris’s.
Vengeance
Her innocent act dropped at once. “You seriously had to go and use the time eyes, Arbiter,” she said. He replied that he could have done it at any time and had simply wanted to let it play out. Iris explained that she had stabbed Thea over and over, “just like you stabbed me and my husband.” The Arbiter admitted he had stabbed a lot of people, so she reminded him of a wedding feast much like this one. Thumbing through his memories, he recalled it: the venue had been double-booked with a Deathmatch, and he couldn’t lose the deposit. “For a deathmatch!” Iris cried. Skelman tried to escape the fallout by ducking under the table and leaving Tim the gelatinous cube in his place, but he forgot something was homing in on him. He ended the night as a skull on the table, wishing her luck. Iris vowed she would destroy everybody in the room if she had to, and the Grandmaster applauded: “That’s the attitude I like.”
Bunga suggested the Arbiter let her face her husband for closure. The Arbiter pulled up the earth, called the pieces of a dead body through portals and re-formed it, stitched together just like Iris. Her husband Tony opened his eyes and coughed out dust. “Tony, is that really you?” It was, and things went badly for him straight away. Asked whether he had really been stealing money, he replied, “Which time?” He also admitted he had married into a lot of families for their money. Iris tried to blame the Arbiter for these lies, but the Arbiter wouldn’t take it: “I murdered the guy. I didn’t make him a douchebag.” Her tear ducts opened, though nothing came out. She picked up the rocket launcher that Skelman’s skull had helpfully pointed out, while the room, Chinchillas included, pounded the table and chanted “Closure, closure.” Tony rated her four out of ten. “Say goodbye, Tony.” She fired point-blank, and pieces of Tony splattered across the walls, the guests and Thea’s body.
The Grandmaster lifted her up in an ethereal glow as the stage lights swung onto her and called it “the energy of the Deathmatch.” She toasted Iris as one of the banquet’s graduates. Thea, it turned out, had survived as well, crawling forward “slightly tenderized like a steak” with a few more holes than before. Iris apologized for those. Thea forgave her immediately: “Now we both have holes.” She proposed a hole tour and settled on Iris’s shoulder.
Personality and Abilities
Iris looks exactly like what she is: a recently dead bride in her own ruined wedding gown, with reddish hair, a weathered bouquet and stitches everywhere. She sews herself back together with flesh and odd strands, black thread among them. Her limbs and eyes come loose without warning, and since the banquet both of her eyes have been wine-stained red. Wine leaks from the stab holes in her stomach, which Skelman urged her not to patch, because a red-eyed walking corpse full of holes is properly terrifying.
Her manner is polite, gentle and slightly apologetic. She is gracious to an overwhelmed Thea, kind to Stuart, and modest about being “a bit of a mess.” That sweetness was a cover, and a good one. Underneath it she was patient enough to sit through an entire murder investigation of her own crime, then ruthless enough to promise to destroy the whole room. She does her killing up close with a knife and at very close range with a rocket launcher. On the brink of her revenge she declared she had never felt more alive, and the Grandmaster praised the energy of it.
Relationships
- The Arbiter: Stabbed Iris and her husband to death on their wedding night because the venue was double-booked for a Deathmatch. He was the target of her revenge, and he later rebuilt Tony so she could face him.
- Thea: Iris praised her for the giant goblet, then murdered her to strike at the Arbiter. Thea survived and forgave her, perching on her shoulder by the end of the night.
- Tony: Her husband, killed alongside her. Once resurrected, he turned out to have married her for her family’s money, and she blew him apart with a rocket launcher.
- Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: Applauded Iris’s bloodthirsty resolve and blessed her as the embodiment of the Deathmatch’s spirit.
- Stuart: Iris suggested him as a suspect, then consoled him after the Arbiter’s rejection.
- Skelman: A fellow undead guest who welcomed her to “the undead family,” investigated alongside her, and claimed he had known it all along when she was revealed as the killer.
Memorable Quotes
- “Well, it was mine.” (Murder at the Dread Fortress)
- “it’s a long story. I was sad.… You don’t want to know.” (Murder at the Dread Fortress)
- “I killed poor little Thea the same way you killed my husband.” (Murder at the Dread Fortress)
- “No. I’ve come here for vengeance. And I will destroy everybody in this room if I have to.” (Murder at the Dread Fortress)
- “Now look at me. I’m undead… My eyeballs are falling out, my arm sometimes falls apart… But I’ve never felt more alive.” (Murder at the Dread Fortress)
- “Say goodbye, Tony.” (Murder at the Dread Fortress)