First appearance: S3E5, Edge Lords - Captain Fable v Verryn Ruth · watch it on YouTube
Verryn Ruth was a tiefling warlock with bat-like wings, clacking hooves and a tattoo reading “MOMS ONLY.” He was pulled into The Void to face the brooding minotaur pirate Captain Fable in a bout of pure, glorious edginess. Verryn flattered the Grandmaster, solved her throne dilemma with an illusory bust of Doja Cat, and traded a nipple ring for a magical codpiece. He spent the whole fight trading dark one-liners with a man every bit as moody as he was. He lost his head, literally, but insisted to the end that this wasn’t his first life. Judging by what happened afterward, he was right.
Story
Verryn arrived in the throne room of The Dread Fortress strutting, his hooves clacking on the cobblestones “like a couple of coconuts.” He greeted the Grandmaster with smooth praise: “It is a blessing to look upon you, Grandmaster. Your visage is fabled.” He called himself “but a humble, forlorn soul” who was “thirsty for glory,” armed only with what his patron gave him, “blessed by the shadow.” He showed off his wings and folded them back into his back, and the Grandmaster declared them “Beautiful, majestic, love it.” That annoyed The Arbiter enough that he flared his own giant glowing white wing to wave the champions through the portal. The Grandmaster had been unable to choose between five thrones, so she asked each champion for advice. Verryn answered by conjuring an illusory bust of Doja Cat. She was instantly smitten (“This is an immediate choice”), several goblins began drooling, and she ordered a sculpture made. The bust served as her temporary throne during the fight, with Doug sitting at her feet.
The arena was the ruins of a forgotten cathedral in a swamp, long overgrown, thick with green fog and old bones, and it smelled “like farts and death everywhere.” Verryn flew thirty feet up, above the fog, and addressed The Acolytes directly: “Is this what you wanted? Two ruthless individuals tearing each other limb from limb for your enjoyment, for your capitalist endeavors? Then you shall have it.” His opening attack was an illusory voice coming from Fable’s direction, chanting “Bitch, I’m a cow.” It wounded the minotaur’s feelings for exactly one point of emotional damage. A pack of children in the stands then roasted both champions (“Your wings aren’t that special. Anyone can fly”). Ordered to be encouraging, the Arbiter told Verryn, “You’re much taller than those children… Don’t listen to them. They’re short,” and healed him for his trouble, adding that the children’s moms “are probably very promiscuous.” One mom in the crowd winked back, and Verryn ripped his top to show off his “MOMS ONLY” tattoo. She blew him a kiss, which patched him up a little more.
Verryn then armed himself. He wrapped himself in an “armor of chaos” and pulled a shadowy greatsword straight out of the abyss beside him. He promised Fable, “It is with this, Fable, that I will rend your soul from your body.” He tossed a bejeweled nipple ring toward The Box of Chaos, but it fell short. Gerald slithered out as a shadowy snake to grab it and came back wearing it, balanced with a pink glittery tassel. In return Gerald gave Verryn a Sentinel Shield, and Verryn chose to make it a codpiece: “Someone hand buffed this thing.” He cursed Fable by planting a shadowy vision of his own face in the minotaur’s mind: “Thank you for the real estate inside your mind. I’ll be sure to put it to good use.” A mushroom had shrunk Fable down a size. Verryn raised a shadow creature from Fable’s own shadow, which dragged the minotaur’s tragic past into the open, and then dive-bombed to the ground beside him. When the shrunken Fable came at him, the glint off the codpiece put him off his aim. One of Fable’s blows rang off it “like a bell.”
The tide turned when Fable grew back to full size, while his undead skeleton was still holding him up with its hands cupping his butt cheeks, and the skeleton slashed Verryn to one knee. The blow scattered Verryn’s shadow creature. Verryn answered by plunging the field into magical darkness that only his shifting eyes could see through, and he drew on the crowd’s roar for two sword strikes. The first whiffed right after one of his coldest lines. The second landed for what the table dubbed “sadness damage.” In the end Fable called up skeletal hands that chained Verryn to the ground. Verryn’s magic fooled one swing, but the second came down with a thunderclap and a bolt of lightning, burying the blade in his neck and clavicle. Dying, he gave his creed: “I was born by chaos. I lived by chaos.” Fable offered him a place in his skeletal crew. Verryn turned it down by offering him the finger instead, and Fable cut his head clean off. The Arbiter carried the body out over one shoulder, holding the head by the hair. Later, though, Verryn walked out of the locker room still sweaty and bloody, a towel over his shoulder and his own head tucked under his arm like a helmet, ready to offer some advice about feelings.
Personality and Abilities
Verryn was a tiefling with hooves and bat-like wings that folded away into his back. Under his tunic he wore bejeweled nipple rings, and a “MOMS ONLY” tattoo ran across his chest. He played the part of a dark, brooding soul, but there was a wink behind it. He answered menace with flirtation (“Kinky, I like it”) and dropped bedroom jokes in the middle of grim speeches. He said his power came “from the abyss, from chaos itself.” His patrons tried to control him, he explained, but were “quite poor at it. They give me their power and I do as I will.” At the table, his player described him as a veteran of many lives and many deaths, with the arena just a stop before he went back to his hedonism. He also called Verryn “emotionally unhealthy.”
He fought as a hexblade warlock, with a shadowy greatsword drawn from the abyss and a magical “armor of chaos.” He could cast illusions, curse a foe from inside their own mind, and turn aside a sure blow with a taunting whisper (“oh, he’s not there, he’s over here”). He could also summon a creature of despair from an enemy’s shadow and fill an area with magical darkness. His eyes changed colour to see through that darkness, complete with a night-vision-goggle sound. His wings let him hover out of reach for much of the fight. Gerald’s gift, a hand-buffed Sentinel Shield worn as a codpiece, added both protection and dazzle.
Relationships
- Captain Fable: His opponent and fellow edgelord. The two traded dark quips all fight, and Fable decapitated him after Verryn refused to join his skeletal crew. Fable’s verdict: “Devoted to your foolish ideals. Respect.”
- Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: Verryn flattered her on arrival and won her over with the Doja Cat throne idea. She gave him her blessing at the decisive moment, though it didn’t save him.
- The Arbiter: He was irritated by Verryn’s wing display and flared his own wings in reply, but later cheered Verryn up after the children’s insults and healed him.
- Gerald: He accepted Verryn’s nipple ring, wore it with a pink tassel, and gave him the Sentinel Shield codpiece in return.
Memorable Quotes
- “It is a blessing to look upon you, Grandmaster. Your visage is fabled.” (S3E5, Edge Lords - Captain Fable v Verryn Ruth)
- “Thank you for the real estate inside your mind. I’ll be sure to put it to good use.” (S3E5, Edge Lords - Captain Fable v Verryn Ruth)
- “Fable, I see the darkness in your heart, but how do you fare in true darkness?” (S3E5, Edge Lords - Captain Fable v Verryn Ruth)
“I was born by chaos. I lived by chaos. And though you may not know it, you too serve chaos. It is to chaos I go, and by chaos I will return.” (S3E5, Edge Lords - Captain Fable v Verryn Ruth)
- “That sounds like a pretty good deal. This isn’t my first life though. So I’ve got a better deal for you. I’m gonna give you the finger and you can rip your sword out of my chest.” (S3E5, Edge Lords - Captain Fable v Verryn Ruth)
- “I suppose the best advice that I would be qualified to give is it’s important to feel. Your feelings are… powerful things. They remind you you’re alive.” (S3E5, Edge Lords - Captain Fable v Verryn Ruth)