LIVE at GCX Orlando 2023 — Navik v Ragu (Prego)

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Navik, the self-proclaimed Lord of the Undead, faced the filthy, squatting, chicken-hungry Ragu in a live Deathmatch at GCX Orlando 2023. The Acolytes in the room were the battlefield. Navik raised them as undead minions, and Ragu leaned on them as “friends,” a word that soured badly over the course of the night. Along the way Ragu pooped out the Box of Chaos, a child was booped to death, and Ragu evolved into Prego before a hailstorm of frozen wombat poop finished him.

The Story

A Change of Venue

The night opened with The Arbiter welcoming The Acolytes to the Dread Fortress. First he had to introduce someone “very special. At least she would like me to say that contractually.” That someone came “all the way from the Void,” the one who defeated The Shadow King: the Grandmaster. She declared that “this change of venue changes nothing!” and promised the crowd it was there “for blood, for violence, and for… Chaos!” Every cheer and jeer, she said, could lift a champion up or tear them down: “in this arena, every voice matters.”

Then she spread her arms and cast a grand illusion. Smoke in blues, greens, yellows and pinks curled out behind her (“I promise it’s not a fart”) and turned the room into a hellish landscape. Deep red lava bubbled up from the ground, and a great skull loomed behind them: the entrance to The Dread Fortress.

When the Grandmaster called the fortress “our home,” the Arbiter corrected her: “I just work here.” She replied that she charges him rent. The pair then pitched the crowd on working at the Fortress. The perks included the goblin union and the chinchilla union, health benefits with a mental health chinchilla, PTO, unlimited snow cones, and “all the ping pong balls you can eat. They’re delicious.” The Arbiter tried to call the whole thing off, because the Arbiters’ union contract says he works only on Sundays. The Grandmaster overruled him: “Chaos happens every day.” When she asked whether the champions he’d brought were cool, he said, “No, not really.”

The Champions

Navik arrived “from wherever the hell he lives” and told the Acolytes: “And you, my minions, will do as I say.” He explained that he leads a hierarchy that “starts at the top.” The Grandmaster asked whether he was middle management, and Navik complained that they had agreed beforehand she wouldn’t bring that up. He planned to let his minions grapple, drag down and destroy his enemy, because surely no one could stand against “the armies of the Undead.”

Ragu got a grander introduction as “one of the filthiest, nastiest champions we’ve ever had.” He described himself as a “filthy, dirty animal with an instinct to kill anybody that gets in my way.” He told Navik he was “already dead,” promised “I’ll kill you again,” and offered to bury him “with your other bones. Amongst friends.” His fighting style was “no mercy, killer instinct,” and he was “hungry for chicken.” Then he dropped into his signature Ragu squat, chanting his own name, and half the room squatted and chanted with him. The Grandmaster noted that a worrying number of Navik’s “minions” had joined in. When Navik tried to raise his “Army of the Damned,” the crowd was lethargic, and Navik could only offer, “It’s early.”

The Acolytes voted on who would strike first. Navik’s fans raised their hands to the sky and Ragu’s did squats, and the squatters won easily. The Arbiter then told the crowd they had “thrown off the shackles of our former dungeon” and announced a new style of combat: the Champions of Chaos.

Sweat, Lightning and the Deep Fryer

Ragu opened with his classic “Squish Swash,” a front hand and back hand with his nunchucks. Navik stopped the first swing with nothing but a raised palm. The next blow landed, with sweat flying from Ragu’s towel and seeping in like liquid death. Navik answered with crackling lightning, then raised his first minion from the crowd: “Rise, my thrall! Now attack him.” Ragu’s chosen defender was an Acolyte celebrating a birthday, and they failed him. The Grandmaster punished the failure herself. A claw came down, grabbed the unlucky Acolyte and dropped them into a deep fryer, where they sizzled “like a mozzarella stick.” Ragu apparently ate one of the fallen Acolyte’s legs and came out stronger for it.

A volunteer named Rick then made a disastrous chaos roll and was banished: “We’re shipping you to Antarctica.” The Grandmaster recruited six witty, mean Acolytes as jeerers. Navik’s boots, which the Grandmaster noted looked pulled off a dead guy, really had been (“I did”), but the insults bounced off his bony exterior. Ragu’s insults landed. The jeerers accused him of stealing the Ring Fit Adventure man’s whole swag “and his hairline,” and Ragu could only answer, “It was on eBay, thank you very much.”

Fingers, Roots and a Skeletal Centaur

A dragon-lord cosplayer with big claws wandered across the stage, and when a challenge was thrown down, the Grandmaster put the Arbiter up against him in a roll-off. The cosplayer rolled a 1 and was sent “back to the corner like last year.” Ragu went for Navik’s pretty red hand and tried to rip it off, but Navik blocked perfectly. “Ragu, instead of a hand, how about a finger?” Ragu tried to bind Navik’s ugly boots with creeping tree branches, and Navik kicked them away like dust: “Strong boots. Weak branches.”

Navik stopped bothering to move. He raised a freshly buried young dragonborn, which tore into Ragu, and then a skeletal centaur druid that Ragu recognized at once: “It’s Motaro.” Navik summed up his strategy: “I’m done. I don’t need to do anything anymore. That’s what you all are for.”

The Box of Chaos Arrives

The Grandmaster took Ragu aside for a pep talk: “Stop fucking up, okay?” Ragu replied, “I think I just sharted.” The Arbiter decided things weren’t interesting enough and proposed summoning The Box of Chaos. The Grandmaster asked what Ragu had been eating. He’d thought the leg was protein, but it turned out to be fiber. Chemicals mingled, something large and boxy emerged from his rectum, and Ragu pooped out the Box of Chaos. “This is a really shitty box,” he said.

He cried to heal himself, and his tears mixed with the shit below into “a strangely wonderful aroma.” As the Grandmaster put it, “there’s nothing better than tears and shit.” Then he opened his “boo-boo box.” Black shadowy fingers and yellow eyes crept out and asked, “What do you want?” Ragu traded away his nunchucks. His chosen friend fumbled the roll, but the box still handed him a small blue pill to “keep you going all night long,” buying him a little more stamina before collapse.

Friends Are Useless

Ragu finally came “off the ropes” with a solid punch, and Navik admitted, “I liked it better when you missed every hit.” Navik’s reply was a blue-haired minion (the Grandmaster asked, “What can the Hufflepuff do?”) who swept Ragu’s legs out from under him. With Ragu on the floor, Navik unleashed what he called “a villainous surge.” He raised six Acolytes, including one of his undead horde generals, and sent them crawling toward the glowing die. Ragu asked, “What is this, Thriller?” The blow landed, and the six crumbled into sparkling dust, which a janitor swept away.

Ragu, nursing his plantar fasciitis, called up all of his friends. Navik claimed them too. He pulled out what remained of their souls until “all Ragu’s sweet little friends are mine.” The Grandmaster told Ragu he now knew how Caesar felt. Ragu lamented, “I warned you, friends are useless.”

The chaos then sent both champions into a game of Red Light, Green Light. The goal was to hug a 32-year-old birthday boy first (“It’s a killer embrace”). Navik won with a cool stroll and left Ragu “a puddle of noodles.”

From Ragu to Prego

Desperate, Ragu dug deep: “If I do this heroic surge, I evolve from Ragu to Prego.” The crowd chanted “Prego!” Then both champions fumbled at the same moment. Prego’s “rad beam of energy” heated Navik up like a microwaved burrito and blasted back into Prego, burning them both. The Grandmaster warned him that one more failure would see him “collapse under your own disappointment.” The next roll was exactly that failure. The Arbiter ruled that Prego survived because he had already shaken off some of his exhaustion, while hedging, “Your breath smells like tomato sauce.” Prego shouted, “I live!”

His next lucky roll came too late to count, but the Grandmaster honored it anyway by turning the child who rolled it into a human shield. Navik decided that if he had to destroy a child, he “might as well go overkill.” He booped the child to death and raised him: “You’re a child forever.” The Arbiter shrugged: “Prom’s overrated anyway.” A minion in aviators then brought Prego to the brink.

The Power of Parmesan

Another harsh pep talk followed, and then a hype man from the crowd (“You can do it”) sent Acolyte energy surging into Prego. With a cry of “This is the power of Parmesan!”, he became the first champion to spend his strength on healing, wanting “to heal my world and make it a better place.” Fighting alone now, he threw bottles of acid from his back pocket and set Navik burning. When Navik summoned twin zombies, “Mario 1, Mario 2,” Prego back-heeled both away and claimed the floor: “You’re on my stage now.”

It wasn’t enough. The chaos struck once more, this time as six flying wombats frozen in the sky, ice cold, releasing their bowels. (“They poop in cubes.”) Navik took a pink one (“It’s always the pink shit”) and stayed standing. Prego ducked, got hit anyway, and offered his final thought: “I thought I had friends.” He collapsed under a hailstorm of frozen wombat poop.

Navik raised him at once: “Join the army of the damned!” The crowd told Prego he could finally have friends. The zombified Prego kissed Navik’s ugly boots, and his last word was “Ye.” The Grandmaster crowned Navik “our winner, our champion,” and the night ended with evil on top.

Notable Moments

• Ragu pooped out the Box of Chaos, which then took his nunchucks in exchange for a small blue pill.
• An Acolyte who failed Ragu was deep-fried by a claw from above “like a mozzarella stick.”
• Navik raised Ragu’s own friends against him, prompting the Caesar comparison.
• Ragu evolved into Prego, then survived a failure that should have killed him on a technicality.
• A child human shield was booped to death and raised as “a child forever.”
• The match ended with Prego buried under frozen wombat poop cubes and raised as Navik’s minion.

Memorable Quotes

• The Grandmaster: “This change of venue changes nothing! We are here for blood, for violence, and for… Chaos!”
• The Arbiter: “The Arbiters’ union rules. We signed it in the contract. I don’t work on any day but Sunday.”
• Ragu: “I’m already dead. I’ll kill you again. You want to be buried with your other bones? Amongst friends.”
• Navik: “Ragu, instead of a hand, how about a finger?”
• The Grandmaster: “I’m going to tell you a little secret to help you win. Stop fucking up, okay?”
• Ragu: “This is a really shitty box.”
• Prego: “This is the power of Parmesan!”
• Navik: “Prego, I wouldn’t quite say you were a worthy opponent, but you tried. And I think now, you will rise! Join the army of the damned!”

Ragu: “So, so, this is how I die… By my own friends… I warned you, friends are useless.”

Who and What Appears

Characters

Navik, Lord of the Undead (speaker 02, guest)

• A necromancer and caster; the Arbiter’s “friend,” not cool.
• Appearance:
  • A “pretty red hand” with a ring.
  • Robes, and “ugly boots” taken from a dead guy (“I did”).
  • Called skinny, “nothing but bones,” “a tall Skrillex,” and teased about his makeup.
• Mocked as “middle management.”
• Powers: raises crowd members as minions (“Rise, my thrall!”, “Army of the Damned, rise!”) and lets them fight for him. Crackling lightning and thunder.
• Takes the souls of Ragu’s own friends. Spent six minions on a “villainous surge.”
• Killed and raised a child, and raised Prego after his death.
• Won the match. “Evil always wins.”

Ragu, later “Prego” (speaker 00, guest)

• “Filthy, dirty animal with an instinct to kill.” He says he’s “already dead.”
• Wears a basketball jersey (swag “stolen” from Ring Fit Adventure, bought on eBay).
• Has plantar fasciitis. Hungry for chicken. Likes pink.
• Calls the crowd his “friends” (also “Raccoon Friends”).
• Gear and moves:
  • Nunchucks, used for “Squish Swash”; he traded them to the Box of Chaos.
  • Tree-branch roots and bottles of acid kept in his back pocket.
• Ate his dead acolyte’s leg. Pooped out the Box of Chaos. Healed by crying. Got a blue pill (fatigue limit 6).
• Evolved from Ragu to Prego through a heroic surge. Spent a power up to heal (“the power of Parmesan”).
• Killed by frozen wombat poop and raised into Navik’s army.

The Grandmaster, Elusia Skypiercer (Caustic Phoenix)

• Introduced as “She who defeated the Shadow King.”
• Casts the grand illusion of the Dread Fortress. Charges the Arbiter rent.
• Overrides his Sunday-only union rule (“Chaos happens every day”).
• Deep-fries a failed Acolyte. Honors a nat 20 by making a child a human shield.
• Says she “got stuck with” the Arbiter.

The Arbiter (Mudcat)

• “I just work here.” A member of the Arbiters’ union: only works Sundays.
• Brought “some friends” as champions. Sent “down below” off the stage.
• Proposes summoning the Box of Chaos and voices what’s inside it.
• Says he does the taxes.
• Beat the dragon cosplayer in a roll-off and sent him “back to the corner like last year.”

The Box of Chaos. Summoned at the Arbiter’s suggestion; Ragu poops it out. When opened, black shadowy fingers and yellow eyes ask “What do you want?” It takes a trade (the nunchucks) and gave a small blue pill.

Named Acolytes and crowd:

• Craig (on camera or crew).
• Rick (rolled the nat 1 and was “shipped to Antarctica”).
• The birthday boy (32) and a birthday girl.
• “Redemption” (Navik’s first minion).
• The dragon-lord cosplayer.
• The child shield, now “a child forever” in Navik’s army.
• Jennifer, Mario 1 and Mario 2.
• Six minions turned to sparkly dust.
• Six wombats.

Minion forms the GM described: a young freshly buried dragonborn, a skeletal centaur druid (“Motaro”), and undead horde generals.

Places

• The Dread Fortress and its lava region, with the large skull entrance, conjured on the GCX stage by illusion.
• GCX Orlando (the real-world venue).
• Antarctica (where bad-luck Acolytes get shipped, as a joke).

Items

• Ragu’s nunchucks (given to the Box of Chaos).
• The small blue pill (raises the fatigue limit).
• Acid bottles.
• Navik’s ring and boots.
• The D20 Deathmatch die, which “floats high, soaking in all the energy.”

Lore statements

• Dread Fortress employment:
  • Unions: the chinchilla union, the goblin union, and the Arbiters’ union.
  • Benefits: health benefits including a mental health chinchilla, PTO, edible ping pong balls, unlimited snow cones.
• The GM charges the Arbiter rent.
• Deathmatches are normally on Sunday only, under the Arbiters’ union contract. GCX is an exception.
• A janitor sweeps the arena.
• Zombies are on “flat taxes” (a Navik joke).
• The Champions of Chaos combat style is introduced in-world here, “thrown off the shackles of our former dungeon.”

Full Round-by-Round

Every beat of the episode, with timestamps (click to expand)

Opening — the illusion and the Dread Fortress’s workplace

1. 0:00:04 A hype man (04) works up the crowd: “Louder! … Stand up! Scream!” He calls it “Welcome to D20 Dungeon!”, which is probably a mishearing.
2. 0:00:24 The Arbiter welcomes the Acolytes to the Dread Fortress. Before that, he has to introduce someone “very special. At least she would like me to say that contractually… all the way from the Void. She who defeated the Shadow King. Who pierced the sky?” The answer: “The Grandmaster, Elusia Skypiercer!”
3. 0:01:01 The Grandmaster: “We come to you far, far away to bring you our show live here at GCX… this change of venue changes nothing! We are here for blood, for violence, and for… Chaos!” She promises the crowd that its cheers and jeers can inspire or hurt the champions: “in this arena, every voice matters.”
4. 0:01:58 — The grand illusion. She opens her arms. Smoke unfurls behind her (“I promise it’s not a fart”) in blues, greens, yellows and pinks. It turns the room into a hellish landscape: deep red lava gurgling up from the ground and a large skull looming in the background, the entrance to the Dread Fortress itself.
5. 0:02:56 — Rent. The GM calls it “our home.” The Arbiter objects: “It’s like your home, though, right? I just work here.” The GM: “Yeah, I do charge you rent.”
6. 0:03:08 — Recruiting. The GM: “we are always looking for more employees.” The Arbiter lists the benefits:
   • Lots of unions: the chinchilla union and the goblin union. “Are you guys pro-union?”
   • Health benefits, including a mental health chinchilla.
   • PTO.
   • “All the ping pong balls you can eat. They’re delicious.”
   • Unlimited snow cones.
7. 0:03:44 — The Sunday rule. The Arbiter: “It’s not Sunday, though, we can’t do it… It’s the Arbiters’ union rules. We signed it in the contract. I don’t work on any day but Sunday.” The GM makes an exception for GCX: “Just because it’s not Sunday doesn’t mean we can’t have a Deathmatch… Chaos happens every day.”
8. 0:04:59 Asked whether he brought champions: “I brought some friends over. I guess they can fight to the death.” “Are they cool?” “No, not really.”

Champion 1 — Navik, Lord of the Undead

10. 0:05:13 The Arbiter introduces him: “All the way from wherever the hell he lives, Navik!”
11. 0:05:49 “I am Navek, Lord of the Undead. And you, my minions, will do as I say.”
    • The Arbiter asks whether the title is self-appointed. Navik: “it’s a hierarchy, and it starts at the top.”
    • The GM: “You’re middle management?” Navik: “we talked about this beforehand… you said you weren’t going to bring up the middle management thing.”
12. 0:06:32 — Fighting style. “I will be using you minions to grapple, to drag down and destroy my enemy… Surely, he won’t stand a chance against the armies of the Undead.”
13. 0:06:55 — The poison test.
    • The GM has him pick a die. He picks purple: “It’s obviously better.”
    • He rolls a 10. Navik (likely; speaker uncertain): “It’s average… it happens to most necromancers.”
    • The GM: “all my girlfriends want to talk about how average a man is.” The Arbiter: “That’s going on your performance review, bud.”
    • Navik insists he only “tossed” the 10, and retorts that the Arbiter is middle management too. The GM: “He’s under me, so he’s in the middle as well.”
14. 0:08:08 — The Grandmaster’s roll. The GM rolls a 19: “That’s why I’m the Grandmaster!” The Arbiter also rolls a 19 and complains that the crowd “applauded way more for her. I’m feeling a distinct bias.”
    • A simultaneous countdown roll-off ends in “19 again!” It’s unclear whose die that was.
    • The Arbiter: “This is stupid, whatever… I don’t wanna talk about it!”

Champion 2 — Ragu

15. 0:09:31 The Arbiter introduces “one of the filthiest, dirtiest… doesn’t play fair. Not that he’s like, physically unclean… one of the filthiest, nastiest champions we’ve ever had, Ragu!” The GM: “I forgot deodorant today, sorry.” The crowd chants “Ragu!”
16. 0:10:17 “I’m Ragu. Filthy, dirty animal with an instinct to kill anybody that gets in my way.” To Navik: “I’m already dead. I’ll kill you again. You want to be buried with your other bones? Amongst friends.”
17. 0:10:51 — The smell. Ragu says Navik “smells like death.” The GM says Navik smells like burritos (“Did you have tacos this morning?”); the burritos are “behind the stage.” She mispronounces the name, then corrects herself to “Ragu.” From here on the table mostly says “Ragu.”
18. 0:11:37 — Fighting style. “No mercy. Killer instinct. And I’m hungry for chicken.” “Do you taste like chicken?” “No, I hope not. I hope your minions do.” The GM: “if you’re a burrito, I hope there’s some quesadillas.”
19. 0:11:54 The GM: “Arbiter? I like your friends. I think you’ve brought in two killer champions… We may have two champions, but at the end of it, I only want one standing.”
20. 0:12:27 — The Ragu squat.
    • Navik: “You will lose this bout, friend.”
    • Ragu: “You don’t have legs like I do.” He does his signature “ragu squat” while chanting “Ragu, ragu.”
    • The crowd squats and chants along. The GM notes that many of Navik’s “minions” are doing the Ragu squat.
    • Ragu calls the crowd “Raccoon Friends” (as transcribed). Navik: “you will make a wonderful drone to join them.”
21. 0:13:31 — Raising the dead. The GM asks how Navik commands the dead. “Army of the Damned, rise!” The crowd is “lethargic indeed.” Navik: “It’s early.”
22. 0:13:57 — The crowd vote for initiative advantage. Navik’s fans raise their hands to the sky; Ragu’s fans do Ragu squats. “That is a lot of squatting individuals.” Ragu wins. Navik (likely): “Turns out nobody likes me.” Ragu: “Ragu has more friends than your dad… Your dad’s friends don’t even care about you.”

Champions of Chaos introduced

23. 0:15:20 The Arbiter: “today is a very special day. We have thrown off the shackles of our former dungeon… we’ll be entering into a new style of combat as I introduce you to the Champions of Chaos.”
24. 0:15:48 — Initiative. Ragu picks pink: “I saw the Barbie movie. I like pink better.” Ragu rolls a 5 against a 17. His advantage reroll comes up 19, so Ragu goes first. Navik had told him: “You’ll need the advantage.”

Round 1

25. 0:17:11 — Squish Swash.
    • Ragu powers up immediately.
    • His classic move is “Squish Swash”: front hand, back hand, with his nunchucks. The GM likens it to a squeegee: “He’s going to squeegee your guts.”
    • He rolls 8 against Navik’s 19. Navik deflects it with just his raised hand, so the nunchuck goes “straight to the hand.” The GM: “It just turns out hands are very intimidating to you.”
26. 0:19:12 A second swing hits (21 vs 7): “swishing that towel around, sweat flying everywhere,” and the sweat seeps in as necrotic damage. A line under Ragu’s speaker ID: “Your sweat tastes like liquid death.” It reads more like Navik’s line; speaker uncertain.
27. 0:20:22 For his third action, Ragu has a crowd kid roll (“Hey, kid, you have a whole life ahead of you”). Navik’s minion rolls an 8 on defense and fails him (“You failed me this time minion”), so Ragu lands another hit.
    • Navik over-acts the pain. Ragu: “you’re dead, you don’t feel anything… you only bones, you need meat.”
28. 0:21:42 The Arbiter realizes they forgot to announce “Round number one!” “That’s on us.” The GM: “That’s you.”
29. 0:22:03 Ragu, distracted: “Oh, she’s pretty… When I’m done killing you, I’m gonna take her out to Orbeez.” It’s unclear whether “she” is the GM or someone in the crowd.
30. 0:22:30 — Navik’s turn: lightning. He attacks twice. The first hits (19 vs 15): “I think we’ll start with some lightning as I crackle in thunder.” Ragu: “What a wake up call.” Navik: “Are you awake yet, Minions?”
31. 0:24:08 — The first minion, “Redemption.” A crowd member lies on the ground and is raised: “Rise, my thrall! Now attack him.” They roll a dirty 20.
    • Ragu’s defender is an Acolyte celebrating a birthday (“Happy birthday… Congratulations on not dying yet!”). They fail.
32. 0:25:28 — The deep fry. The GM punishes the failed Acolyte: “a claw comes out, grabbing this acolyte, picking them up, dropping them down into a deep [fryer]… you sizzle till you die… Like a mozzarella stick.” Navik: “I told you they were my minions… They taste like chicken.”
33. 0:26:31 Ragu: “Since my minion died and I ate his leg, I got a power up.”

Chaos roll and the jeerers (Chaos event 1)

34. 0:26:46 The GM won’t roll chaos herself. A volunteer, Rick, comes up “from downtown.” The Arbiter tells Craig to get a tight shot “because if it goes wrong, it’s on her.”
35. 0:27:53 The roll is apparently a nat 1. The GM: “you take your bad energy, you pack it up, go… We’re shipping you to Antarctica.” The Arbiter: “We don’t know her.” “She was never here.”
36. 0:28:50 — The jeerers. The GM needs “six individuals who are clever, who are witty, who are mean,” a group of jeerers in the crowd whose jabs can inflict psychic damage.
    • The Arbiter recruits them: “How many people have you killed? … This is on the record.” The GM: “I have TPK’d my parties a couple of times.”
    • They split three and three.
37. 0:30:58 — The insults to Navik:
    • “Those shoes and that face? No.” The GM: “it does look like you pulled them off of a dead guy.” Navik: “I did.” The GM: “It was on sale.”
    • “Do they make that [cow?] in men’s sizes… I’m just paying my way through medical school.” Navik: “it was very expensive… Somebody else paid for it.”
    • “You’re a half-rate caster and your makeup is not that good. Double, double toil and trouble.”
    • The result: Navik makes the DC 15 Mettle save (19). Ragu claims “interference” because a minion kicked the die: “He’s David Beckham.”
    • The insults bounce off “his bony exterior”: a fatigue but no damage. Navik to a jeerer: “You will rise and fight for me next.”
38. 0:33:35 — The insults to Ragu:
    • “You heard of ye olde Ring Fit Adventures? You stole the man’s whole swag? And his hairline?” Ragu: “It was on eBay, thank you very much.” The GM props him up.
    • “You started off with advantage. You’re losing, so we probably should change your name to Ragpoo.” Speaker uncertain: it’s under Navik’s ID but reads like a jeerer.
    • “Have you ever played a game of basketball in your whole life?” (He wears a basketball jersey.) “When I slam dunk you.”
    • The result: Ragu fails with an 8. He takes a hit to his Fighting Spirit and a fatigue. The Arbiter: “if you reach five fatigues, you die.”

Round 2

40. 0:36:19 — The dragon lord in the corner. A slow-walking crowd member, apparently a dragon cosplayer with claws, crosses the stage. The GM: “You are a dragon lord… Big ol’ dragon feet.” Ragu: “Isn’t that your death prom date?… I see why you broke up.”
    • A challenge is thrown down. The GM nominates the Arbiter for a roll-off; he boasts: “I could pound him in the dirt with my fists… If I beat you, you go back to the corner like last year.”
    • The Arbiter rolls 18. The challenger rolls a natural 1 and is sent to the corner: “you stare at that wall.” “Don’t make it look cute… Don’t stand like a hero.”
41. 0:38:08 Ragu picks pink again. When the Arbiter offers him purple: “If it’s not pretty, it belongs to the ugly guy.” The GM: “when you’re a ruler, who cares if you’re ugly?”
42. 0:39:06 — The hand.
    • Ragu: “Hey, ugly, which hand is your favorite?” Navik: “I’m right-handed.”
    • The GM describes Navik’s pretty red hand: all five fingers, little muscles, a pretty ring. Ragu tries to rip it off by force.
    • Navik rolls a nat 20 on defense: “Ragu, instead of a hand, how about a finger?” He regains Fighting Spirit and gains adrenaline.
    • The Arbiter to a crowd member: “he almost took your arm and your girlfriend.”
43. 0:40:56 Ragu: “I’m not trying to be the guy that gets fingered.” His second attack misses (8 vs 19). Navik: “When does the fight start?”
44. 0:41:40 — Roots. Ragu tries a status effect: “I’m going to get some really strong tree branches and wrap it around his ankles,” around “those ugly boots.” It fails (12 vs 19).
    • The GM: Navik kicks off the creeping branches like dust, “like the bones crushed beneath your heel.”
    • Ragu: “Did you spray paint your Timbs?” Navik: “Strong boots. Weak branches.”
45. 0:43:11 — The dragonborn minion. Navik doesn’t move (“I’ll make it easy”).
    • He raises “a young, freshly buried dragonborn,” who roars (“a lovely lullaby of sorts”). They roll 19 against the birthday girl’s 5.
    • Navik: “my faithful minion came forth, clawing at him, tearing him apart. I’m done. I don’t need to do anything anymore. That’s what you all are for.”
    • Ragu bleeds: “I smell my own blood… Nobody make me bleed my own blood.” The score is Ragu 14 Fighting Spirit, Navik 16.
46. 0:45:25 — The centaur. Navik’s next minion becomes a skeletal centaur druid, “majestic and horrifying.” Ragu: “I haven’t seen this since Mortal Kombat. It’s Motaro.”
    • It hits 11 to 10, “biting and chewing.” Ragu (likely): “Get off me, damn animal.”
47. 0:46:44 The Arbiter brings the cornered dragon cosplayer back to roll chaos and redeem himself (“Look at those giant claws.” “The kiss of death”). He rolls an 8: “better than a one.” Navik: “That’s not one of my minions. I don’t know that one.”

Round 3 — the pep talk and the Box of Chaos

48. 0:48:14 — The pep talk. The GM pulls Ragu aside: “I’m going to tell you a little secret to help you win. Stop fucking up, okay?” She tells him to let it metabolize into his small intestines.
    • Navik: “Is this a fight or a Pilates class?” Ragu: “I think I just sharted.” The GM: “I’ll get you a new pair of pants after the fight.”
49. 0:49:15 The Arbiter: “this isn’t interesting enough… maybe we summon the Box of Chaos!”
50. 0:49:54 — The box arrives.
    • The GM asks what Ragu has been eating. “I ate a leg a while ago… I thought it was protein, but it was fiber.” To drink: “Blood.”
    • Chemicals intermingle, and “something larger, boxier begins to emerge from your rectum. And you poop out our Box of Chaos.”
    • Ragu: “This is a really shitty box.” Using it costs an action, and either champion can pick a minion to roll for it.
    • Ragu: “I’m just gonna be out here with this open butt?… That’s not the breeze I wanted.” The crowd chants “Clench!”
51. 0:52:17 — Crying heals. “I’m gonna cry and heal.” The GM: his tears mix with the shit below, “releasing a strangely wonderful aroma… there’s nothing better than tears and shit.” He regains one Fighting Spirit.
52. 0:52:47 — Opening the box.
    • Ragu: “It’s my box! This is my boo-boo box.”
    • The Arbiter: “The box lid creaks open and black shadowy fingers and yellow eyes peek their way out. What do you want?” It’s Mudcat voicing the box.
    • Ragu: “I want your service… I don’t work for free… I trade you my nunchucks,” the ones he smacked Navik with. “I am willing to sacrifice my nunchucks.”
    • He picks “friends,” not minions, to roll. His chosen one has red shoes (“which means blood”).
53. 0:54:33 — The blue pill.
    • The friend rolls a natural 1, so Ragu rolls again himself and gets an 8.
    • “From the hand of the blackened soul floats a small blue pill. This should keep you going all night long.” Ragu: “I’m sorry, who has those problems?”
    • The pill raises Ragu’s fatigue limit from 5 to 6. The nat 1 still costs him a Fighting Spirit and a fatigue.
54. 0:56:23 Ragu to the GM: “I just want to let you know I hate you before I die.” “Put it on a sticky note.”
    • The GM loses track of actions. The Arbiter: “Don’t worry, that’s why I’m here.” The GM: “I’m just a pretty face.” The Arbiter: “She doesn’t do anything… This guy knows all about your boss taking credit for your shit.”
55. 0:57:04 — Off the ropes. Navik: “Finally, a fight!” Ragu calls on his friends and hits (19 against Navik’s 18 after the GM fixes the math). He comes “off the ropes” with a punch, restaged front and center “into the light.” Navik: “I liked it better when you missed every hit.”
56. 0:58:23 — The Hufflepuff.
    • Navik, “clearly winning,” raises a blue-haired minion. The Arbiter: “It’s weird that you’re asking the minions instead of just telling them… you’re delivering with a little soft.”
    • The minion rolls 9 and Navik frets: “You’re embarrassing me in front of my friends.” The GM: “What can the Hufflepuff do?”
    • Ragu rolls a 4. Navik: “Ravenclaw’s better anyway.” The minion “goes low for the ankles,” sweeping both of Ragu’s legs: “This is my weak point.”
57. 1:00:41 — The villainous surge.
    • With Ragu on the ground, Navik takes the heroic surge (“I believe a villainous surge”) for five times damage.
    • He raises six crowd members, including “one of my undead horde generals.” They all touch the die as “the undead crawl towards the aura of the D20 Deathmatch die.” Ragu: “What is this, Thriller?”
    • They roll 19. The six collapse, spent; their bones shimmer into sparkly dust in the wind. The Arbiter: “give them a people’s elbow.” The GM: “the janitor comes and sweeps you all up… quit making my arena dirty.”
58. 1:03:18 — Ragu’s friends. Ragu (rubbing his plantar fasciitis) calls up all his friends, “those that helped me and got me killed… Watch me die in peace.”
    • Navik: “I’m glad my new minions are already flocking to me.” Ragu’s friends roll 13. “And evil prevails again!” Ragu drops to 7. “I’m not dead. I’m just taking a nap… lamenting my crushed dreams.”
59. 1:04:56 — The betrayal. Navik describes the blow: “I pulled forth what remained of their souls, and poor Ragu’s friends came to his side, I took them too. And now all Ragu’s sweet little friends are mine… biting, digging, scratching, tearing.”
    • The GM: “Taken down by your own friends… You know what Caesar feels like now.”
    • Ragu: “So this is how I die… By my own friends… I warned you, friends are useless.”
60. 1:06:23 The chaos roll reaches 9. Navik: “I don’t like that. Let me roll again.” He rerolls a natural 20. The Arbiter: “it was definitely the first roll and not the second one.”

Chaos event 2 — Red Light, Green Light

61. 1:07:02 Both champions are sent to the far wall for Red Light, Green Light. The goal is the birthday boy (he says he’s 32): “Whoever can hug you first.” The Arbiter: “With your consent, of course. Or take his soul.” The GM: “It’s a killer embrace.” The Arbiter: “Why are you explaining it to him like he’s a child?” “He looks dumb.”
62. 1:08:47 The birthday boy calls the lights. Ragu: “My plantar fasciitis fails me again.” It goes “neck and neck.” The crowd: “Ragu goes down… Another minion! Ragu takes out the legs!”
63. 1:10:38 “In a cool stroll, Navic easily manages to win. Ragu, you are a mess, a puddle of noodles.” Ragu takes a Fighting Spirit and a fatigue, for three fatigues.
    • “Halfway? I’m already dead!” The GM: “You just look dead… Mostly dead.” The crowd lifts Ragu up with chants. Navik: “I love the way you all cheer for one of my new minions.”

Round 4 — Ragu evolves into Prego

64. 1:12:06 Ragu complains he can’t hurt Navik (“every time I hit him, he’s like, ow… I need some type of magical source”). He takes his heroic surge. The Arbiter teases “a c-c-c-combo… you’ll learn.”
65. 1:13:53 — The evolution. “If I do this heroic surge, I evolve from Ragu to Prego.” The crowd chants “Prego!” From here on he is Prego.
66. 1:14:13 — Double nat 1.
    • Prego rolls a natural 1. Navik’s defense is also a natural 1.
    • The GM stages a beam clash: Prego fires “a rad beam of energy.” Navik absorbs it and “begin[s] to heat up just like in the microwave. I did call you a burrito earlier.” Navik glows red and the beam shoots back at Prego.
    • Both take two Fighting Spirit damage and two fatigues. Prego: “I’m Prego. It is getting a little hot, though.”
67. 1:16:17 The GM warns: “If you get one more nat 1, you are dead… you can overextend yourself and become so big of a loser that you collapse under your own disappointment.” Navik: “Sheesh, and I thought I was fighting him.”
68. 1:16:55 — Not dead.
    • Prego uses an action to clear a fatigue, then has a “pink” friend squat-roll for him. The GM: “I need those ass cheeks of yours to touch the ground… Fast and deep.”
    • The roll is a natural 1, but the Arbiter rules that Prego had already cleared a fatigue with an action, so he survives.
    • Navik: “Now, I know what dead looks like.” Prego: “I live!”
    • The GM asks if the Arbiter is vouching for this. He hedges: “I’m not, like, vouching in, like… is this going to come back on me? Your breath smells like tomato sauce.” The GM allows it.
    • Prego takes a Fighting Spirit hit anyway: Prego 4, Navik 13. The GM: “If you roll another nat one, I will make sure you’re dead.”
69. 1:21:00 — The human shield.
    • Prego’s actions run out, but he rolls “for posterity” and gets a nat 20 (“Only when it doesn’t count”).
    • The GM honors it: the child who rolled becomes a human shield between Prego and Navik. “Should you hit, you will destroy this child.” Navik: “That’s one of my minions!”
    • Navik powers up: “If I have to somehow destroy a child, I might as well go overkill.” He rolls 22; the child’s defense is 8.
    • Navik kills the child with a “Boop.” “Booped to death.” Prego: “My only friend, the Prego.”
    • Navik: “They brought him up here to defend him… He never stood a chance.” He raises the child: “Rise, my minion, rise.” The GM: “You’re a child forever… He’s never gonna grow up and go to prom.” The Arbiter: “Prom’s overrated anyway.”
70. 1:25:03 — Danger zone. Navik’s second power up uses a minion in aviators (“Danger zone over here”; the GM calls them a “big fat phony/pony”). They roll a dirty 20 against Prego’s 18. Prego drops to 1 Fighting Spirit. The Arbiter: “See how quick friends turn on you?”
71. 1:27:04 The chaos roll reaches 19. “We’re one away.”

Round 5 — the last stand of Prego

72. 1:27:28 The GM enters (“She is beauty. She is grace.”) and gives Prego another harsh pep talk: “you dug some up from underneath the ground, revived some, and then that’s it. It’s spent.” The Arbiter: “Why is she so mean to him today?”
73. 1:28:22 — The hype man. A sprinter from the crowd is recruited: “speaking from the heart. Do you have one?” “You can do it.” “I can do it.”
    • The GM: “You see the energy from your Acolytes going straight to your body!”
    • Prego attacks: 10 against Navik’s 22. Navik: “Child’s play!”
    • The GM makes Navik repeat his evil laugh, bigger each time: “I’ve got shivers.” Prego: “Your breath smells like resurrection.” “I’ve been working on that.”
74. 1:31:41 — The power of Parmesan. The GM: “Make little Parmesan proud.” Prego: “This is the power of Parmesan!” He becomes the first to spend a power up on healing: “I want to heal my world and make it a better place.” The Acolytes chant him back up to “four… five” (the count is unclear).
75. 1:33:57 — Acid. Prego goes alone (“I have no friends”), since Navik keeps converting his friends. He hits (21) with a poison-acid status effect: “I’m just going to throw a bunch of acid on you, just like from bottles… It was in my back pocket.”
    • Navik is burning: “I think the burn looks good on me.” The GM: “you couldn’t look worse to begin with.” Prego: “She said you look like a tall Skrillex.”
76. 1:36:08 — Mario 1 and Mario 2.
    • Navik summons two minions in matching hats. The GM: “They’re so adorable. I hate them. Mario 1, Mario 2.” They pose as zombies.
    • Jennifer rolls first. Prego back-kicks a nat 20 on defense, regaining Fighting Spirit and gaining adrenaline. “You died. You’re terrible.”
    • The second minion rolls an 11 and Prego dodges with another back-heel. Navik banishes the minion: “Fool’s back to the grave with you! Get off my stage!”
    • Prego: “You’re on my stage now… And that’s the bottom line, because Prego says so.”
77. 1:39:25 — Taxes. The GM tells Navik he needs better-quality undead (“dig deeper into the depths of the earth”). Navik asks how much she bought the Arbiter for. “I got stuck with him. If you want him, you can have him.” The Arbiter: “She acts like she could do the taxes without me.” Navik: “you’re tax certified?… zombies are on flat taxes” (as heard). The GM: “This is not a CPA meeting opportunity.”
78. 1:40:10 A chaotic event costs a fatigue. Prego has gained one and lost one, so one is left before death. The Arbiter rolls a 6, which triggers chaos. Prego: “I’m so dead.”

Chaos event 3 — the frozen wombats

79. 1:41:07 The GM needs “six wombat-looking acolytes.” Fun fact: “They poop in cubes.” The Arbiter: “Don’t worry, we only killed one child today… we can’t do two.”
80. 1:42:38 The six wombats huddle and mime flight. “Our flying adorable wombats, frozen in the sky, ice cold… release their bowels… a series of frozen poop ice cubes.” Any champion who can’t avoid every cube is going down.
81. 1:43:26 — Navik’s volley. Three wombats throw. Navik is hit by pink cubes: “It’s always the pink shit.” The GM: “That was your weakness the whole time?” No death is called for Navik.
82. 1:44:17 — Prego’s volley. Prego announces he’s ducking (“This feels like cheating”). He is hit anyway. “Our three wombats fly away with no regrets, leaving behind their poo-poo caca.” The Arbiter: “I got hit by guano.”
83. 1:45:46 Asked for his final thought: “I thought I had friends.” The Arbiter: “now I just feel bad.” Prego collapses under “a giant hailstorm of wombat poop.”
84. 1:46:14 — The raising. Navik: “Prego, I wouldn’t quite say you were a worthy opponent, but you tried. And I think now, you will rise! Join the army of the damned!” The crowd: “And now you can have friends!”
    • Prego, zombified, kisses Navik’s “ugly boots.” Asked for a last word, he says: “Ye.” Navik: “Minions aren’t known for their speeches.”
85. 1:47:23 — The victor. The GM: “Navic, our winner, our champion, who made hit after hit, move after move.” Navik (likely): “Evil always wins!” “Thank you, and good night from D20 Deathmatch!”