Full Sail Hall of Fame 2025 (live show), Ringmaster Talon v Maximilian Maxwell III

On a live stage packed with The Acolytes, the blood-drenched Ringmaster Talon faced Maximilian Maxwell III, a New York moneybags who had never been in a deathmatch and paid his way into this one. Max hired volunteers to do his kicking, hit and blocking, and he even paid the Grandmaster to bring his opponent back from the dead. It was a night of murder unicorns, homemade currency and a very dignified death by SpaghettiOs.

The Story

Waking the Dead Fish

The show opened with a welcome chant that the Arbiter found deeply unimpressive. “That was lame,” he told the crowd. “You guys are just staring at me like dead fish.” Once he demanded, “are you ready to roll some fucking dice?”, the Acolytes finally roared. “You just have to curse at him a little bit,” came the explanation. “It’s just like my dad used to do.”

The Grandmaster set the terms for the evening:

“I want to see blood, I want to see violence, and I want you to pick a champion today and cheer for them as if your life depends on it, because it does!”

The Arbiter admitted it had been a while and he wasn’t sure he remembered how any of this worked. When the Grandmaster demanded blood, death and broken bones immediately, he looked on the bright side: “At least it’s a hostile workspace.”

The Ringmaster and the Rich Boy

The Arbiter introduced “a figure known for his bloodshed and carnage,” and briefly called him “Ringmaster Talos.” Everyone called him Talon from then on. He was very tall, layered in black, masked and covered in blood. Asked about his laundry, he confessed he hadn’t washed his clothes in 12 years. “It smells like it,” said the Grandmaster, who also told him to stand further back, because “I don’t look up to people.”

Talon explained that he ran a circus for Lichter the Lich, a great and all-powerful undead wizard. “That’s my grandma, though,” the Grandmaster said. The Arbiter misheard “serves a lich” as “licking a witch,” which the Grandmaster warned was very illegal in public. Talon promised the blood the Grandmaster wanted and got the crowd shouting his name and holding up their claw-hand “talons.” She approved: “They look great on my wall.”

Maximilian Maxwell III arrived in white gloves. Asked why he would enter a blood match, he said he had promised his dear mother he would not get any blood on his white Louis Vuitton belt. He mocked the Acolytes for having “clamored for free shit” backstage, grabbing shirts, sunglasses and plastic eggs, and the hosts had to admit he had a point. He was named after his “great daddy,” though “I don’t know where my daddy went.” The Grandmaster sympathized: “Daddy issues. We all have them.”

Then he explained how he had got there: “I clearly am undefeated in deathmatches, though I’ve never actually been in one. But apparently, money gets you up on this stage.” The Arbiter said money had been tight, because somebody had to pay for the Grandmaster’s bath bombs. The Grandmaster insisted they were essential, since the scent of roses and blood is hard to find. “We need sponsors,” the Arbiter said. When Max handed over his money, both hosts decided they would allow it. The crowd chanted “It’s rigged!”

First Blood (Mostly Max’s Employees’)

The dice decided who struck first. Max managed a middling result, and the Grandmaster called it “average.” Talon bounced his die off the stage lights and got a terrible roll. “Talon, you are such a disappointment to me,” the Grandmaster said, and ordered him to hop on one leg until she said stop.

Max opened with culture. He was a big fan of the Radio City Rockettes, so he was going to “Radio City Rockette your face right back to building three.” Because Talon was so tall, the kick only reached his waist, and both men came away worn down. The Arbiter explained to the Acolytes that battle weariness builds up in the Void, and a champion who piles up too much of it dies. Max then called for help, and paid volunteers rushed the stage. An Acolyte named Caitlyn became his weapon. He picked her up and swung her feet at Talon’s face, and Talon fumbled his defense completely. The pair spun “like a tornado,” tearing up the ground and smacking straight into him. “So far, it looks like money is doing the job,” the Arbiter observed.

Max went for mental damage next. He peeled off a glove, to the Grandmaster’s pearl-clutching horror, and announced, “I bite my thumb at you!” Talon shrugged off the Shakespeare and fired back the real wound: “Is that what your dad did when he left?” He came out of the exchange feeling better than before.

Blood Rain and a Spine in the Eye

Talon began by spitting blood at Max’s suit, but an Acolyte named Christian blocked it for Max. “Your blood is no match for my scotch-guarded… $23 suit,” Max said, adding that he got it at Macy’s at the Millennium Mall, not the Florida Mall. The Arbiter had never met a man with a personal beef with a mall.

Then Talon set the stage. He chose three Acolytes and siphoned their blood until it poured “out through every orifice.” All three collapsed, drained and dead. “I’ve seen a lot of deaths. These were believable,” said the Arbiter, while the Grandmaster ordered the bodies off her stage because she had no cleanup crew. Talon couldn’t let them die in vain. “You can,” the Arbiter said. “We do it all the time.”

It went wrong anyway. A splinter of spine shot straight into Talon’s eye, and he hurt himself badly. The crowd urged him to gamble, so he refused to shake off any of his weariness. “We’ve seen a lot of idiots in the arena before,” said the Arbiter. “I’m looking at you,” said the Grandmaster. His gleaming scythe swing ended in a stalemate against Jayden, a human wall Max paid to stand in the way, and that left Talon one step from death. “Oh Talon, you are so stupid,” the Grandmaster told him. “Please tell no one that you graduated from Full Sail University.”

The Murder Unicorns

The Grandmaster and the Arbiter like to switch things up. “The Dread Fortress has unicorns in our world, as every good fantasy world has,” she announced. “But here’s the thing, our unicorns murder people.” Each champion picked two Acolytes. One wore the Grandmaster’s single horn, which she admitted was cheap, and the other had to ring it with hoops she had bought on clearance.

Josh pranced magnificently as Max’s unicorn and went three for three, diving for a ring. Jared did an Egyptian walk as Talon’s unicorn. Max offered him “500 max dollars” to move out of the way, and Jared shoved the cash back into Max’s pocket twice. Talon’s team also went three for three. The final cross-stage toss came down to a miss and a ring that bounced off the horn, and the crowd couldn’t agree on a winner. The ruling: “The unicorns are untamed and stab everyone.” Both champions bled.

The Unmasking, and the Knees

Talon removed his mask, which turned out to be part of the lich’s work uniform. “What a hideous face!” cried the Arbiter. The Grandmaster wondered whether his mother was blind. Max answered with a book, “the greatest weapon that somebody could possibly have is knowledge,” and smashed it across Talon’s newly revealed face. Talon held up. Then Max teamed up with Tonya Harding to go after Talon’s knee. He missed the face of a paid Jayden from four feet away, but the blow still landed, and Talon took up a cane.

“I never said it was a fair game,” the Arbiter reminded everyone. “I just said someone was going to die.” Max went after the other knee, and that final strain was too much for Talon.

Death, and a Refund

The Grandmaster called Talon to the center of the stage and took his scythe, since he was too gross to touch. She raised her hands, and his own blood rose to his fingertips, just like the blood of the Acolytes he had drained. His heart raced, found nothing, and he collapsed. Then she stayed his heart and asked if there was any reason he should be kept alive.

Max paid her to bring Talon back: “Aren’t you having fun watching me humiliate this thing?” The Grandmaster counted the money one bill at a time, was pleased, and drove Talon’s own scythe into his heart. It beat again. “Not again!” Talon groaned. The Arbiter decided Max should pay in life as well as money. He sent black goo up both champions’ nostrils and down their throats, wiggling around their organs and hearts, and drained Max’s life force into Talon until the two stood evenly matched.

Void Bucks

More chaos followed. Twelve egg-holding Acolytes came on stage and declared for a champion. One decided by spinning his egg, and Max swayed another by throwing money at it. Inside the eggs were Void Bucks, the Void’s brand-new currency. “Suck it Maximilian, our own money,” said the Grandmaster. “Turns out all you have to do is print it.” Talon’s supporters held 40,000 of the 50,000 Void Bucks, and the imbalance hurt Max badly. “Size doesn’t matter,” he insisted.

The Grandmaster had stayed up until 2 a.m. cutting the bills by hand, and she wanted to make it rain. Instead the bills dropped straight to the floor, and Max pocketed them, because “taking other people’s money is how the rich get richer.” The Grandmaster sighed: “In my mind, that looked way cooler.”

The Blood Tsunami

Max’s friend Jesse was in the crowd wearing a title belt and wielding “evil magic witch power.” He launched the biggest food truck anyone had ever seen at Talon, who claimed he caught it but got hurt anyway. Max then hurled Talon onto University Boulevard, which wore both of them down further.

Talon called on the ocean for one mighty blow: “I think it’s time for a giant blood tsunami.” Hundred-foot crimson waves rolled across the skyline. A bidding war broke out over who would get the Arbiter’s favor. Talon objected that Max was just handing the Arbiter’s own money back to him, and Talon’s Acolytes waved a thicker stack. A broke Max phoned his mother: “Mom. Can you wire me?” With that money he paid an Acolyte named Matthew, who rolled 20s back to back. The tsunami broke harmlessly. “I guess he can swim,” said the Arbiter. “Your hurricane is a bit of a washout,” said the Grandmaster.

Talon’s next all-in strike fizzled too. The Grandmaster had the whole crowd raise their hands and donate their blood to him, which the Arbiter called “a blood spirit bomb.” This time Max’s paid defender, Alex, failed him, and Talon’s blood magic finally took hold. Bored of waiting for the bleeding to work, the Grandmaster cheated: “I speed up time around you. Eye of Makamoto is mine.” Max was left with barely a drop of fight. “Am I not fucking awesome?” she asked. “Six out of ten,” said the Arbiter.

Death by SpaghettiOs

Max was tired and hungry, and his mom was making SpaghettiOs tonight. The crowd chanted for them, and the Grandmaster declared, “Hit him with a soup can. It’s a good form of recycling.” Talon was horrified: “I can’t die to soup cans, right?” The Arbiter offered comfort: “We’re all a little soupy on the inside.”

Max didn’t throw one can. He had his Acolytes throw hundreds on hundreds of them. Talon was pelted again and again, and the blood left his body one last time. His final thought:

“At least it’s chicken noodle.”

He collapsed with chicken noodle on his lips. “Every death means a victor,” the Grandmaster proclaimed, and crowned Maximilian Maxwell III. “Death by SpaghettiOs!” he cried. The Arbiter sent everyone home with a parting reminder: “You can’t have your money back.”

Notable Moments

• Max bought his place on the stage, and both hosts happily allowed it while the crowd chanted “It’s rigged!”
• The murder unicorns of The Dread Fortress stabbed everyone, and Jared refused Max’s bribe twice.
• Talon died, and the Grandmaster brought him back with his own scythe through the heart, paid for by Max.
• The Void got its own currency, Void Bucks, which failed to make it rain and went straight into Max’s pocket.
• The Grandmaster cheated by speeding up time around Max and rated herself awesome. The Arbiter rated her six out of ten.
• Talon was killed by hundreds of soup cans.

Memorable Quotes

• Maximilian Maxwell III: “I promised my dear mother that I would not get any blood on my white Louis Vuitton belt.”
• Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: “I don’t look up to people.”
• Ringmaster Talon: “Is that what your dad did when he left?”
• The Arbiter: “You can. We do it all the time.”
• Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: “Please tell no one that you graduated from Full Sail University.”
• The Arbiter: “I never said it was a fair game. I just said someone was going to die.”
• Maximilian Maxwell III: “Taking other people’s money is how the rich get richer.”
• Ringmaster Talon: “At least it’s chicken noodle.”

Who and What Appears

Characters

Ringmaster Talon (guest, player name not stated). Introduced once as “Ringmaster Talos.”

• Very tall, layered in black clothing, masked, and soaked in blood. Hasn’t washed his clothes in 12 years.
• Under the mask: a “hideous” face and grey eyes. His mother loves visiting him; possibly blind.
• Runs a circus for Lichter the Lich, who taught him to raise the dead and blood magic. The mask is part of “the work uniform.”
• Fights with a silver-gleaming scythe and blood magic: siphons blood, rains blood, summons a blood tsunami. Reads spells from scrolls.
• Walks with a cane after Max’s knee attacks. Claims he graduated from Full Sail University.
• Died at five fatigue, was revived by the Grandmaster for Max’s money, then killed by soup cans.

Maximilian Maxwell III (guest, player name not stated).

• A rich New Yorker who “hangs out on the main streets of New York City.” Fan of the Radio City Rockettes.
• Wears a white Louis Vuitton belt and white gloves. His $23 scotch-guarded suit came from Macy’s at the Millennium Mall.
• Named after his “great daddy”; his father left. His mother wires him money and is making SpaghettiOs tonight.
• Bought his way onto the stage and pays Acolytes to roll, take hits and defend. Claims to train with Olympic athletes (Tonya Harding).
• Paid the Grandmaster to revive Talon, then gave up half his life to him via the Arbiter. Won the fight.
• Friend of Jesse.

Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer (Caustic Phoenix).

• Loves bath bombs scented with roses and blood.
• Says “That’s my grandma, though” about a lich (joke). Mentions “my nephew.”
• Revives Talon by stopping, then restarting, his heart with his own scythe. Sped up time around Max (“Eye of Makamoto is mine”) to trigger a bleed.
• Says the Dread Fortress’s unicorns murder people. Cut the Void Bucks by hand until 2 a.m.

The Arbiter (Mudcat).

• “Official arbiter of the deathmatches.” Complains of a hostile workspace and needing sponsors. Mentions that his dad used to curse at him (joke).
• Can form black goo that transfers life force between champions. Prints Void Bucks. Takes bribes for advantage from both sides.

Acolytes on stage:

• Caitlyn: swung as a weapon, rolled the thumb-bite attack.
• Christian: defended against the blood spit, rolled the soup cans.
• Jayden (“Jay”): paid human target, “the man made of stone.”
• “Mushroom guy”: told Talon to gamble; “if he dies, you die.”
• “Mr. Totski”, “Spiderman” and a third volunteer: drained of blood by Talon.
• Josh: Max’s unicorn.
• Jared: Talon’s unicorn, refused Max’s bribe twice.
• Sarah (?): a ring tosser.
• Jesse: title belt, witch power, threw the food truck.
• Matthew: rolled back-to-back dirty 20s.
• Alex: defended for Max and rolled a 3.

The unnamed “coolest” guest on stage: silent, not killed “today.”

The sign girl: round-card girl (“She’ll kick you in the face”).

Places

• The live stage / Grandmaster’s Arena at Full Sail (“Hall of Fame”). Real-world references: building three, University Boulevard, food trucks.
• The Dread Fortress, home of murderous unicorns.
• Lichter the Lich’s circus.

Items

• Talon’s scythe.
• Max’s book of knowledge, Louis Vuitton belt and $23 suit.
• Max dollars (“500 max dollars”).
• Void Bucks: the Void’s printed currency. 50,000 were in 12 eggs.
• The unicorn horn and the clearance infinity-hoop rings.
• The pink die. The soup cans (SpaghettiOs / chicken noodle).

Lore statements

• The Dread Fortress has unicorns that murder and stab people. (Grandmaster, 0:34:22)
• The Void now has its own currency, Void Bucks, printed by the Arbiter and Grandmaster. (0:01:00)
• “Our economy is kind of in the 20s” (Talon, a joke). It’s tax season in the Void (joke).
• The Grandmaster can stop and restart a champion’s heart and speed up time around a champion.
• The Arbiter can drain life force from one champion into another.
• Sponsorship money now gets champions onto the stage.

Full Round-by-Round

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

Opening — warming up the Acolytes

1. 0:00:01 The show opens with a crowd chant and “Welcome to D20 Deathmatch!” The Arbiter scolds the crowd: “That was lame… You guys are just staring at me like dead fish.” He demands, “are you ready to roll some fucking dice?”, and the crowd finally cheers. “You just have to curse at him a little bit. It’s just like my dad used to do.” The crowd restarts the welcome, then he introduces the Grandmaster, Elusia Skypiercer.
2. 0:01:27 The Grandmaster’s opening: “I want to see blood, I want to see violence, and I want you to pick a champion today and cheer for them as if your life depends on it, because it does!”
3. 0:01:39 The Arbiter: “It’s been a while since we’ve been here. Do you remember how to do this?… Because I don’t.” The Grandmaster would “love people to fight to the death.”
4. 0:03:05 The Grandmaster wants “blood… death… broken bones now!” The Arbiter: “At least it’s a hostile workspace.”

The champions

6. 0:03:16 — Ringmaster Talon. The Arbiter introduces “a figure known for his bloodshed and carnage, Ringmaster Talos.” For the rest of the show everyone calls him Talon. He is covered in blood (“that is a lot of blood”). Asked about his laundry, he says: “I haven’t washed my clothes in 12 years.” The Grandmaster: “It smells like it… I have no nostril hairs anymore.” She also tells him he’s too tall: “Please stand further back… I don’t look up to people.”
7. 0:04:20 — The lich’s circus. Talon has “the greatest job in the world. I run a circus… a circus for Lichter the Lich,” “a great and all-powerful undead wizard who controls… everything you see.” Grandmaster: “That’s my grandma, though.” The Arbiter mishears “serves a lich” as “licking a witch.” The Grandmaster: “You can’t do that publicly… That’s very illegal.” Arbiter: “If you survive, we’ll provide you all the witches you want.”
8. 0:05:04 Talon: “I heard you wanted to see some blood today, and I think I can supply.” He asks the crowd to shout “Talon as loud as you bloody can.” The Grandmaster has everyone show their “talons” (claw hands): “Oh, look at the baby Talons out there… They look great on my wall.”
9. 0:06:13 — Maximilian Maxwell III. The Arbiter pretends he forgot the name: “I just like to say that to make myself feel important.” Max wears white gloves (“You’re going to get a lot of blood on those gloves”). Asked why he’d enter a blood deathmatch: “I promised my dear mother that I would not get any blood on my white Louis Vuitton belt.”
10. 0:07:16 Max mocks the crowd for having “clamored for free shit” backstage: “Oh, give me that t-shirt! Give me those sunglasses!… Give me an egg! It’s a plastic egg.” The Grandmaster and Arbiter admit he has a point.
11. 0:08:04 — The name. Max is “named after my great daddy and my great daddy… I don’t know where my daddy went. But that’s a whole other story.” The Grandmaster: “Daddy issues… We all have them.”
12. 0:08:29 — He bought his way in. Max: “I clearly am undefeated in deathmatches, though I’ve never actually been in one. But apparently, money gets you up on this stage.” The Arbiter explains that things have been tight and “someone has to pay for all your bath bombs.” The Grandmaster: “My bath bombs are essential. It’s really hard to find the scent of roses and blood.” Arbiter: “The roses and blood are from the Andes… We need sponsors.”
13. 0:09:09–0:09:38 Max appears to hand over money (the transcript shows only a long run of “whoa”; inferred from the reactions). The Arbiter: “As the official arbiter of the deathmatches, I’m going to allow it.” The Grandmaster: “This is pretty nice. I’m going to allow it.” The crowd chants “It’s rigged!” Max: “Money talks… I hope you brought plenty, though, for today’s match because I think it’s going to be rather expensive.”

Initiative

14. 0:10:24 Talon: “After you, moneybags.” Max: “Make way… Part like the Red Sea.” There is a mention of a card reading “the prophecy foretold” (unclear). Max rolls a 10: “better than the fours half these jackasses were rolling when I was backstage.” The Arbiter: “I’m surprised that you lowered yourself enough to roll your own D20.” The Grandmaster: “It’s average.”
15. 0:11:24 Talon throws his die off the stage lights and rolls badly (heard as “Neutral!”, likely a natural 1). The Grandmaster: “Talon, you are such a disappointment to me.” He gets disadvantage on his first defense, and she orders him to hop on one leg until she says stop. A loophole follows: she “didn’t say it had to be just one leg.” She threatens: “I will chop off your leg… the Grandmaster doesn’t have to get her hands dirty yet, but when I do, you will know.”

Round 1 — Max

16. 0:13:00 — The Rockette kick. Max is “a man of culture, of class, I hang out on the main streets of New York City… a big fan of the Radio City Rockettes. So I’m gonna Radio City Rockette your face right back to building three.” His pants are tight (“you might see my full sail”). The Arbiter: “We got enough gaff tape to cover that up.” The attack and Talon’s defense tie, so both gain a fatigue. The Arbiter explains to the Acolytes that fatigue is battle weariness, and five fatigue means death. The Grandmaster: “Even with your mediocre efforts, you can still fail.” She narrates the kick as only reaching waist high on the much taller Talon.
17. 0:16:07 — Caitlyn, the human weapon. Max asks for help, and paid volunteers rush up. The Arbiter: “Who needs a job? He’s paying… Look at these sellouts.” Caitlyn, an Acolyte, joins him. Asked how she is at high kicking, she says “pretty all right” (Grandmaster: “Don’t write that on your cover letter”). Max: “What if I picked you up and threw your feet at [Talon’s] face?” The roll is again an average 10. Talon rolls a natural 1 on defense, and the Grandmaster narrates: “this swinging duo spins like a tornado… ripping up the groundwork, and smacking straight into Talon.” Talon takes double damage and a second fatigue. The crowd chants “Max!” The Arbiter: “So far, it looks like money is doing the job… There’s a lot of people desperate for money here.”
18. 0:19:24 — The thumb. Max removes a glove, and the Grandmaster gasps at the bare hand: “Someone clutch their pearls!” Max: “I am not only here to cause physical damage, but mental damage as well… I bite my thumb at you!” The Grandmaster: “That is incredibly rude. You will not be invited to the mixed tea party, sir.” The attack rolls high (Caitlyn appears to roll it), but Talon rolls a natural 20 on defense. Talon dismisses the insult: “anyone’s seen Shakespeare… why are you biting your thumb?” Then he lands the counter-insult: “Is that what your dad did when he left?” Talon heals a point of fighting spirit and gains an adrenaline.

Round 1 — Talon

19. 0:22:02 — Blood spit. Talon leaves his scythe by his side: “I’m just going to spit a little blood at you… that suit looks like you’ve never done hard work in your life.” He rolls a 7. Max calls up Christian, an Acolyte holding an egg, “to be my great defense from his blood,” and has him throw the defense die. It nearly flies off the stage and comes up 17. Max: “Your blood is no match for my scotch-guarded… $23 suit. I got it at Macy’s. No, not the Florida Mall, the Millennium Mall, the Fancy Fucker.” The Arbiter: “I’ve never met a person who had a personal beef with a mall.”
20. 0:24:48 — Blood rain and three sacrifices. Talon: “I want to set the stage… rain some blood!” He picks three Acolytes (“I’m so glad you brought eyes, because a few of them are gonna disappear”), including people called “Mr. Totski” and “Spiderman” (probably costumes or nicknames). The Grandmaster narrates and the three act it out: Talon siphons their blood, which pools to their heads and fingertips and pours “out through every orifice,” and they collapse dead, drained of life. The Arbiter: “I’ve seen a lot of deaths. These were believable.” The Grandmaster: “Now get off my stage. I don’t have a cleanup crew. No goblins.” Talon puts three people’s blood at “like 12 liters” (Max: “If you find the one that knows, they’re on my team”). Talon: “I can’t let them die in vain.” The Arbiter: “You can. We do it all the time.”
21. 0:27:18 Talon rolls a natural 1. The Arbiter: “One of those spines… splinters off, shooting you right in the eye. You get a splinter of spine right in your eye.” Talon hurts himself and takes a third fatigue. He could clear one, but polls the crowd and gambles, keeping all three. The Arbiter: “We’ve seen a lot of idiots in the arena before.” The Grandmaster: “I’m looking at you.”
22. 0:28:36 — The scythe. “I see your head coming off nice and clean… our little scythe here.” The Grandmaster: “It silver gleams in the sunlight, moonlight, whatever light we have.” He rolls 13. Max pays Jayden (“Jay”) to stand on stage as a target (“I’m paying you so I can throw this at you”). The Grandmaster coaches Jayden to negotiate: “Know your worth… This is career 101.” The die bounces off Jayden’s chest for a 13. The Grandmaster: “Give it up for the man made of stone himself… A wall.” It’s a tie, so Talon goes to four fatigue and Max to two. Max keeps Jayden on stage.
23. 0:31:36 Talon has no actions left to clear fatigue. The Grandmaster: “Oh Talon, you are so stupid. Please tell no one that you graduated from Full Sail University.” Talon: “I totally did.” “Let’s boo this fool.” Max: “Who could your last teacher possibly be?”

Chaos event — the murder unicorns (0:32:37)

24. The Grandmaster calls for chaos and says the Grandmaster and Arbiter “like to switch things up.” Each champion picks two Acolytes. Talon picks “Mushroom guy… He’s the reason I’m almost dead” (the Acolyte who urged him to gamble, inferred).
25. 0:34:22 “The Dread Fortress has unicorns in our world, as every good fantasy world has. But here’s the thing, our unicorns murder people.… They stab people! They are vicious beasts.” Each champion must ring their unicorn to attack: one Acolyte wears the horn and the other tosses rings onto it, three times, stepping back each time. The rings are an “infinity hoop” the Grandmaster bought “on clearance.” She has only one horn: “I’m cheap.”
26. 0:35:15 Josh is Max’s unicorn and shows off a prance (“You did a new art form here”). The Arbiter: “I usually have to pay people to do that.” They go three for three, with Josh diving for the ring.
27. 0:37:24 Jared is Talon’s unicorn. The Arbiter: “Oh, he’s an Egyptian unicorn” (walk like an Egyptian; the Grandmaster says much of the audience is too young for it). Max tries to bribe Jared: “I will give you 500 max dollars if you move out of the way.” Arbiter: “That’s worse than Monopoly.” Jared shoves the money back in Max’s pocket and rejects it twice: “Majestic unicorn, Jared, you have high standards.” Talon’s team also goes three for three.
28. 0:39:33 — The cross-stage toss. The Grandmaster: “The wind is going approximately 15 miles per hour due northeast… If you miss, we all die.” Talon’s tosser (possibly named Sarah) misses. Max’s toss bounces “off the horn!” The crowd is split, so they rule it both: “The unicorns are untamed and stab everyone.” Each champion takes unicorn damage.
29. 0:42:18 Round 2 is announced with the round-card girl: “She’s beauty. She’s grace. She’ll kick you in the face. That is our sign girl.” Talon is at four fatigue: “A nat one or a tie, he’s dead.”

Round 2 — the unmasking

30. 0:43:04 The Grandmaster asks why he fights in a mask. The Arbiter: “I think you stole his outfit from Darth Maul.” Grandmaster: “His [lich] lord requires it. It’s part of the work uniform.” Talon unmasks. Arbiter: “What a hideous face!” Grandmaster: “Your mother must love visiting you… Is she blind?” Talon, who has grey eyes: “Do your eyes turn gray when you go blind?… She might be blind.” He insists “they love me.” The Arbiter: “They also love money.”
31. 0:44:37 — The book of knowledge. Max: “The greatest weapon that somebody could possibly have is knowledge.… This, I know you all don’t know, is a book.” He smashes it across Talon’s “dumb little face that apparently you just showed the world.” The Grandmaster: “Knowledge can hurt is the lesson… You should have brought a hardcover.” Max: “Any chance I could pay you to put [the mask] back on?” Talon defends. The Arbiter: “He is incapable of learning.” Grandmaster: “His skull, too thick. His brain, too empty.” Talon can read: “these things called scrolls that spells are on.”
32. 0:47:11 — Tonya Harding. “I train with Olympic athletes… Me and Tonya Harding are going after your knee.” Talon: “Not knees? Just knee?” Max brings Jayden back and pays him “400 max dollars” to be hit in the face with the die. The crowd chants “Smash his face!” Max misses Jayden’s face from four feet away. The Grandmaster: “No one could pay you to win this.” The roll is still a dirty 20. Talon has his defense die rolled by the Acolyte who told him to gamble, and the Arbiter rules: “If he dies, you die.” The hit lands. Talon: “Not my knee… That’s why I got my cane.”
33. 0:51:13 The Arbiter reminds both champions they have power-ups, status effects and heroic surges: “I never said it was a fair game. I just said someone was going to die.” Max: “I’m here to play the long run.”
34. 0:51:30 — The other knee. “Now that you’re hobbling, I’m going to go after your other knee.” The Arbiter: “And then I’m going to take out your high knee. You can’t even pay me to laugh at that joke.” Talon has an Acolyte roll his defense: “My left knee’s in your hands… If you roll a one, I die… And he dies, too.” It comes up 3, which ties the attack. That is Talon’s fifth fatigue.

Talon dies, and is bought back

35. 0:53:44 The Grandmaster calls Talon to centre stage and takes his scythe (“I don’t want to touch you. You’re too gross”). “The Grandmaster raises her hands and you feel, just like the blood of the Acolytes that you’ve taken before you, your own beginning to rise to your fingertips. Your heart’s beginning to race… it finds nothing. Your knee, the one good one, feels weak… you collapse.” She has him die at the front of the stage, then “stays your heart for a second. Is there any reason you should be kept alive?”
36. 0:55:06 Max pays her to spare Talon: “Aren’t you having fun watching me humiliate this thing?” (Talon: “Thing?”) “The Grandmaster looks at your money, counts it one by one and she is pleased. She holds up the scythe of Talon and she drives it into his heart,” and his heart beats again: “You have found a life for now, Talon!” Talon: “Not again!” Grandmaster: “You will murder your opponent, for I have plenty of money now.” Max: “If this backfires, this is going to suck.”
37. 0:56:42 — The Arbiter’s blood cost. “Maximilian was willing to give up his money… it’s only fitting that he give up some of his life as well.” The Arbiter forms a black “Icarus” (ichorous?) goo that goes up both champions’ nostrils, down their throats, “touching their organs and hearts and wiggling around.” (Aside to the Grandmaster: “I’ll show you a movie later that you’re going to love.”) Max’s life force drains into Talon until both have eight fighting spirit. Talon’s fatigue resets to zero (inferred from “Talon, being revived, has one point of fatigue” after the next tie at 1:11:21).

Chaos event — the eggs and the Void Bucks (0:57:54)

38. The Arbiter calls for more chaos. Twelve Acolytes hold plastic eggs, come on stage and each declare for a champion. One egg-holder spins his egg to decide (“Did we just discover perpetual motion?… It’s like high school all over again”), and Max “threw the money at the egg. It worked.”
39. 1:00:01 The Arbiter: “Maximilian has a lot of money in his pocket, but… the Grandmaster and the Void also needed our own currency. So within your eggs, you will find Void Bucks.” “Is that trademarked?… V-Bucks?” Grandmaster: “Suck it Maximilian, our own money. Turns out all you have to do is print it.” 50,000 Void Bucks are split across the 12 eggs (“the 12 tribes or whatever”). Asides: eating money is “good fiber”; Talon says “with the way that the Void is going these days… our economy is kind of in the 20s.” Grandmaster: “Stay tuned for more financial advice. Wait till tax season.” Arbiter: “Oh, shit, it’s tax season.”
40. 1:02:05 Talon’s side holds 40,000, Max’s 10,000. Max: “Size doesn’t matter.” Max takes damage, down to five. The Arbiter: “He gave up half his life for this guy and then lost three more.” The Acolytes keep the money.
41. 1:03:05 — Make it rain (fail). The Grandmaster wants no litter (“I love the environment”) and stayed up until 2 a.m. cutting the bills. They throw the Void Bucks, and the bills drop straight down (“They don’t just live like real dollars… This was a horrible idea”). Max pockets them: “Ever heard the phrase, the rich get richer?… taking other people’s money is how the rich get richer.” Arbiter: “All we had to do was print money and then take it?” Grandmaster: “In my mind, that looked way cooler.”

Round 3 — Max

42. 1:05:15 Max (5) faces Talon (8, “gifted from your own body, from your loins”). Max spots his friend Jesse in the crowd wearing a title belt. Jesse starts leaving (“He’s leaving me like he always does”), so the crowd chants him up the stairs. Max: “This thing has evil magic witch power. Do you have any magic witch powers?” The Grandmaster: “Burn him! He’s a witch!” Max: “Can you throw one of those food trucks directly at his dumb face?” (Arbiter: “I like churros.”) Max: “We’ll all go over there and churros are on Jesse.”
43. 1:08:00 Jesse rolls 17 (“my favorite Winger song… Nobody here knows Winger”). Talon rolls a 2. The Grandmaster asks which hole Jesse pulls the food truck out of (“I got a few”). Then: “Small, it grows, and it grows… the biggest food truck you’ve ever seen as you launch it over the Talon.” Talon: “I caught it. Well done, Jesse.” He still takes damage.
44. 1:09:43 — The sleeves. Max unbuttons his sleeves: “Maximilian is getting serious.” Arbiter: “Did you pay for an arm hair transplant?” Max: “I pay for a lot of things I don’t understand.” Then: “Now it’s time to throw you… onto University Boulevard.” He grabs Talon “in his many black layers of clothing.” The Grandmaster riffs on Max’s “this many” (“like when my nephew tweets to me”). It’s a tie: Talon goes to one fatigue and Max to three. Arbiter: “How the turntables.”

Round 3 — Talon: the blood tsunami

45. 1:12:02 The Grandmaster: “You’re like glistening in the sun… the blood just really shines… Does that make you Krillin?” A Dragon Ball tangent follows (super saiyan stages, Caustic Phoenix’s “rose gold” mix-up; Mudcat: “Quit embarrassing me, Grandmaster”). She offers a heroic surge with advantage: “your super saiyan moment… one mega hit.” Max: “You want to hit a man with glasses?” Talon: “I definitely will.”
46. 1:13:38 Talon: “We got the ocean. It’s really not that far. I think it’s time for a giant blood tsunami.… a bunch of blood starting to pool slightly around your ankles… That skyline is covered in red… these hundred foot waves are ramping to you.” The Grandmaster: “That crimson horizon upon us.” With advantage he gets 17.
47. 1:15:02 — The bidding war. The Arbiter hints that Max could get advantage “but it won’t be cheap.” Max pays him, and Talon objects: “Isn’t that your money that he’s just giving back to you?” The Arbiter: “A spirit of heroism comes over you and blah, blah, blah. You get advantage as well.” Then Talon’s Acolytes counter-bid: “The battle of the bill has begun.” Arbiter: “His stack is bigger than your stack… that’s a thick boy… I gotta go with the guy who’s gonna hand me the big stack of money.” The Grandmaster: “The Acolytes have spoken with their wallets… Roll with advantage.” (It’s unclear who kept advantage; Max does roll twice below.)
48. 1:17:39 — Calling mom. Max is broke. “Mom. Can you wire me?… Love you. Bye.” Talon: “Some people’s kids.” Max pays Matthew (the Arbiter likes his jacket) to roll. Matthew gets a dirty 20 on the first roll, then rolls again and gets another dirty 20, “back to back”. The crowd chants “Matthew!” Talon: “It’s rigged.” The tsunami is blocked. Arbiter: “Your heroic surge was an absolute failure. I guess he can swim.” Grandmaster: “Your hurricane is a bit of a washout. Boo. Puns suck.”
49. 1:20:53 — Double power-up. Talon stacks both power-ups on one hit. He rolls 9, Max defends with 11 (the die bounces “off the butt”), and both power-ups are wasted. The Grandmaster: “Talon, you suck at this… What did your lich teach you that made you think you could win this?” Talon: “Before I got told how to raise the dead and… blood magic.”
50. 1:22:54 — The blood spirit bomb. The Grandmaster: “You just need more blood.” She has the whole crowd raise their hands and donate their blood to Talon: “Absorb the blood, Talon.” Arbiter: “This is like a blood spirit bomb.”
51. 1:23:34 Talon stacks all three status effects, including bleeding twice. The crowd chants “Gamble!” He rolls an 8. Max asks who has blood left and pays Alex (“all of it,” so “take like… 100”) to defend. Alex rolls a 3. Talon finally lands a hit, and Max is left with three status effects ticking on him.
52. 1:25:42 — The Grandmaster cheats. “I am tired of waiting… I speed up time around you. Eye of Makamoto is mine.” She triggers a bleed immediately, and Max is at one fighting spirit. Grandmaster: “Am I not fucking awesome?” Arbiter: “Six out of ten.”

Round 4 — death by SpaghettiOs

53. 1:26:22 The Arbiter tells Max a heroic surge could kill Talon. Max: “I’m getting tired. I’m getting hungry. My mom is making SpaghettiOs tonight.” The crowd chants “SpaghettiOs!” The Grandmaster: “The dinner of champions!… Hit him with a soup can. It’s a good form of recycling.” Max brings back Christian (“This is your idea”), who rolls 15 total.
54. 1:27:51 Talon: “I can’t die to soup cans, right?” Arbiter: “If it makes you feel any better, we’re all a little soupy on the inside.” Talon picks out “the special pink” die and squishes a “pink… ugly marshmallow thing” for luck (“No whammies”). He rolls 7.
55. 1:29:06 Max: “I’m not just throwing one soup can. I have all of my… acolytes throwing soup cans. Hundreds on hundreds of soup cans.” Talon: “No! Make it stop!” The Grandmaster: “Talon, you find yourself pelted again and again… Bruises abound. The blood leaves your body once more.” Asked for his final thought: “At least it’s chicken noodle.” “With that final word, chicken noodle on your lips, you collapse.” The Arbiter: “Death!”
56. 1:30:17 The Grandmaster: “Every death means a victor… our winner, our Maximilian Maxwell III!” Max’s speech: “Death by SpaghettiOs!” “Thank you, Hall of Fame! This has been D20 Deathmatch!” The Arbiter: “Go home, get out of here! You can’t have your money back.” Stickers are handed out (Grandmaster: “I feel like I’m feeding the ducks… Put them on your laptops”).