First appearance: S2E12 — Blood Cookies — Wandering Willy v Martin Messiah Malenko · watch it on YouTube
Wandering Willy is a laid-back druid who calls everyone “man” and carries a pocketful of snacks. He was pulled into The Void to fight Martin Messiah Malenko in a graveyard Deathmatch with cookies as the prize. He shrugged off what should have been a fatal spell, then talked his would-be killer into a friendship pact. The two left the arena as “the Bone Brothers,” sharing the victory and wearing matching necklaces made by the Grandmaster herself.
Story
Willy arrived in The Dread Fortress’s newly revealed TV room for S2E12 — Blood Cookies — Wandering Willy v Martin Messiah Malenko. He wasn’t paying attention and had to be told it was his turn to introduce himself. The Arbiter had brought him and Martin in as “the most nat one rolling individuals in the entire universe.” Willy didn’t seem to mind. He decided almost at once that Martin was his best friend and offered to make matching friendship necklaces, including one for the “grandmother,” who corrected him firmly. When the Grandmaster promised the winner any cookie they liked, Willy asked for snickerdoodles.
In the graveyard arena, Willy’s first move was a friendly visit to Gerald. He gave the coughing box some throat lozenges and asked whether he had any flowers. Gerald gave him a ghost lantern holding a restless spirit that would stabilize him if he fell unconscious (“This is lit. Get it? Because it’s a lantern.”). Willy then tried to persuade Martin to steal Doug the Pug and “blow this,” and made his own pitch to Doug, offering him freedom and new friends. The Grandmaster beat him with a single tiny doggy treat. Unbothered, Willy turned into a dog himself and nuzzled Martin’s leg. Martin “played fetch” by throwing him a holy hand grenade wrapped in a fireball, and Willy came out of it with singed eyebrows and the words “Whoa, man. Whoa, not cool.”
The fight slowly got real. Willy called down the storm already raging overhead, accidentally woke a corpse he named Kevin, who coughed up a pouch of dust, and asked the graveyard skeletons, who “all have a hive network,” to help scare Martin. The ground erupted under Martin, and three zombies clawed out of the cracks just as the two champions moved in for a hug. Then Martin sprouted a golden halo, rose on wings, and declared “It’s high noon” before casting a spell that should have ended Willy on the spot. Willy rolled a natural 20 and walked away from it. “Wow, man, I thought we were friends. That kind of hurts,” he said, and ate a fudge brownie in front of Martin. He tossed the Grandmaster a bag of sour gummy worms, which won him her favor, healed himself, turned invisible, and sat alone at the edge of the arena with tears in his eyes, feeling betrayed by a friend.
When Martin apologized, Willy came back with a twinkle in his eye and a plan: “I think they’re trying to drive a wedge between us. What if we teamed up?” Martin agreed, and the two healed each other in a glowing embrace. They pitched a future tag-team match, and the Grandmaster accepted on one condition: they had to forfeit all the cookies they had earned. The Arbiter, furious, sent Gerald to shoot them with Martin’s own lucky bullet. Martin leapt in front of Willy, and both shots missed. After the Arbiter stormed off, Willy gave Gerald two more lozenges and got a Deck of Many Things in return. The Grandmaster raised bones from the graves and wove them into friendship necklaces for the pair. Willy named the duo the Bone Brothers, and they ended the night throwing brownies, chips and gummy worms to The Acolytes.
Personality and Abilities
Willy is unfailingly friendly, gently confused and very easy to distract. He is a pot smoker and leans on it to explain things: storms answer him after “a really nice set of nature’s meal,” and as “a man of the leaf” he claimed he would inhale the Arbiter’s lung-burning fog with advantage “based on my history.” When Martin tried to sniff him out while he was invisible, the Arbiter asked whether he smelled like pot, and Willy explained that in the locked arena “it’s a hotbox.” His small store of life lore includes a guy named Mike who once gave him something “magical” (Willy has “smoked that before”), a dryad he “knew once,” and a high school teacher who called him a loser every day. He studied at Boulder Gate Community College Online and didn’t graduate. He talks to skeletons, names corpses, mangles proverbs (“It’s not the destination, but it’s the destination’s journey that you get to it”) and calls the Arbiter “Erebarator.”
As a druid, Willy can turn into a dog, call lightning from a storm, make the earth burst up beneath an enemy, heal himself and others, and slip out of sight. He came to the arena with an assortment of “stoner snacks”: brownies, sour gummy worms, chips and candy bars. From the Box of Chaos and the graveyard he gained a ghost lantern, a pouch of dust of sneezing and choking, and a Deck of Many Things. His most effective weapon turned out to be kindness. He refused to finish off a friend, and he won over the Grandmaster with gummy worms.
Relationships
- Martin Messiah Malenko: His opponent, whom he declared his best friend before the fight began. They became the Bone Brothers and agreed to a future tag-team match.
- Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: He called her “grandmother” and bribed her with sour gummy worms. She let the Bone Brothers share the victory and made their bone necklaces.
- The Arbiter: He called him “Erebarator.” The Arbiter threatened to disintegrate him and later sent Gerald to shoot the new friends in the back.
- Gerald: Willy treated the box’s cough with lozenges, twice, and received a ghost lantern and a Deck of Many Things.
- Doug the Pug: Willy tried to free him, lost to a doggy treat, and then turned into a dog himself.
- Shiloh: Martin’s songbird, who kept clawing Willy. “I don’t really like you… you’re mean.”
Memorable Quotes
- “This is lit. Get it? Because it’s a lantern.” (S2E12 — Blood Cookies)
- “Two’s a tango, five’s, like, just way more than I can count.” (S2E12 — Blood Cookies)
- “Yeah, Martin, you wish you could have something this moist.” (S2E12 — Blood Cookies)
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“There’s no I in team. There’s a me, if you mix the letters around. But you know what’s better than me? Us.” (S2E12 — Blood Cookies)
- “We’re the Bone Brothers.” (S2E12 — Blood Cookies)
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“Friendship kicks ass.” (S2E12 — Blood Cookies, Dried Blood)