A snake-woman who loves Mother Nature met a cowboy robot who runs on oil, and the forest got very messy. In this pre-launch test bout, Brunhilda Doogle and White Hat H03 traded arrows, bullets, insults and a great deal of oil across a cliffside. Along the way came a lost hat, a cursed nickname, a giant floating screwdriver and a new snake friend who did not survive. It ended the only way two stubborn champions could end it: with each of them killing the other.
The Story
Ready to Rumble
No Grandmaster or Arbiter presided over this one. The two players ran the fight themselves and made the rules up as they went. Brunhilda, a yuan-ti ranger played by Caustic Phoenix, began perched on top of a rocky outcrop. White Hat H03, a warforged gunslinger played by Mudcat, started on the ground below. Then came the cry of “Let’s get ready to rumble!”
White Hat fired first. His “special robot eyes” saw straight past Brunhilda’s cover, and three pistol shots found their mark. Brunhilda answered with her longbow, aimed “at your stupid mechanical shiny head,” and landed two arrows before ducking behind a rock. “If you want to fight, you have to come find me,” she hissed. She added a warning about the terrain: “You do not know anything about cliffs… if you fall, you will die.”
The Climb
White Hat, who was “southern for some reason, sort of,” set about climbing up after her. It went badly, so he skipped the last ten feet with a magical step through the mist. Brunhilda was not impressed. “It’s not Misty Step, it’s Greasy Step,” she sneered. “The oil just seeps from you… polluting Mother Nature in all her glory. She hates you for it.”
His eyes glowed red as he tried to curse her. She met his gaze with a perfect, lucky stare: “Your eyes! I’ve seen them before! They’re hideous!” The spell short-circuited inside his own brain and cursed him instead. “I’m rubber, you’re glue.”
Brunhilda slung her bow over her back and lashed him with a whip of living thorns. “Mother nature doesn’t take this lightly!” She dragged him to the cliff’s edge and grabbed his “smug little metal face.” “You are so weak here and out of your element,” she told him. “I will allow you to be devoured here by nature itself.” Then she knocked his white hat clean off the cliff. White Hat was unbothered, though deeply offended on principle. “Bigger snakes have been in my boots than you. I’ll have you know that tipping a man’s head off is very unbecoming.”
White Hat Ho
Oil splattered from his thorn wounds. Worse, with his namesake hat gone, the watching crowd started calling him “White Hat Ho.” He steeled himself against the mockery and fired back with a line of his own:
White Hat H03: “Nobody calls me a hoe but me.”
Then he spat a forceful stream of oil into the front row, “like front row SeaWorld.” He spat some at Brunhilda too, with a proud declaration of his origins: “I may be just a simple machine. But I was founded on the principles of fair economics in the oil trade.”
Brunhilda tried to shove him off the ledge. He blocked her with a metal shield that formed out of his gun. So she whipped her tail around his feet and threw him off instead. While he was down, she smeared herself with dirt and vanished against the rock face.
Hurt and desperate, she found a bush of purple berries she didn’t recognize. “Berries, I eat you!” They healed her, though they also made her see funny colors. These were “dog berries,” and she kept eating them for the rest of the fight, slowly building up a resistance to the side effects. Below, White Hat patched himself up with healing magic. Then he tried the climb again and slid right off the rock he had greased with his own oil. (“Captain Planet… this is your own fault.”)
From hiding, Brunhilda hit him with a spray of poison, which his robot body mostly ignored. She threw her voice to fool him into thinking she’d moved, and he didn’t fall for it. She made the cliff even rockier. “I have the high ground, White Hat Ho.”
Then she conjured something truly terrible: a giant screwdriver with angry eyebrows, “kind of like Clippy from Word,” spinning in the air above him. It worked. “No one’s scared of you,” he insisted. “I just don’t like screwdrivers.” Brunhilda twisted the knife: “I give gifts like you to children all the time. A little wind up key and you go running to the other side.”
Flood and Rust
The arena turned on them both. A flood surged through and washed them off the cliff. Brunhilda rode the wave (“Snakes can swim”), but the rain that followed was bad news for a man made of metal. White Hat began to rust, and his armor grew weaker with every passing moment.
Things got worse when his gun jammed as he tried to shoot the bow from her hands. He cleared it, then hit her bow hard, but she held on. She drew two short swords and promised, “I will stab you like Caesar!” To really sell the menace, she licked his oil off her blade. “I eat gams like you for breakfast.” The oil hurt her, and nobody was impressed.
Then a constrictor snake slithered out of a hole in the ground. It bit White Hat and chipped a tooth on his metal leg. Brunhilda, whose gift for befriending animals works only on snakes, charmed it at once. Their tails rattled together, and it followed her around “like a puppy.” Meanwhile White Hat slipped out of sight of the screwdriver and shook off his fear. At the bottom of the ravine, he found his hat lying in the mud. He dusted it off with his pocket square and set it back on his head. “Well, seems we’ve got the upper hand again.”
The Final Blow
With his hat restored, White Hat came back firing. He landed a dazing shot and more bullets on Brunhilda. Then, in a burst of speed, he shot her new snake friend into flopping sections, because it had bitten him. “Oh, this hurts so much, my snake friend,” Brunhilda mourned.
She turned invisible, ate more berries, and let him fire blindly while he backed up against the rock face. That was a mistake. She shot the loose rock above him twice and buried him under two rockslides, pinning him to the ground. “I will bury you alive.”
The sky had its own say. Lightning struck them both, breaking her invisibility so that she reappeared “as if I came from this lightning itself.” White Hat seized the moment and shot the bow out of her hand.
Brunhilda Doogle: “My precious bow! That was a gift! You’ll pay for this!”
She charged, whipped him with her tail, then wrapped it around his neck and hoisted him off the ground. “I will murder you and I will suck all of the oil and life from your cold metal frame,” she hissed, baring her fangs. “You’ll die here. Even if I have to hold you till you rust in the rain.”
Her squeezing fired every neuron in his synthetic brain at once. His hand jerked on the trigger, and the shot went into her stomach. Brunhilda dropped “like a ribbon falling to the ground,” her blood mixing with his oil in the mud.
White Hat did not outlast her by long. “Well, it seems that this was my day to shine in the sun,” he said. Rain poured into the open circuits of his crushed throat. He sparked in every direction, staring up at the sky, and finally rusted to a stop. “Mutually assured destruction.” On D20 Deathmatch, it was a tie.
Notable Moments
- White Hat’s curse backfired straight into his own brain after Brunhilda met his glowing red eyes with a perfect stare.
- Brunhilda knocked his hat off the cliff, the crowd christened him “White Hat Ho,” and he answered by spitting oil into the front row.
- Brunhilda’s fear spell took the form of a giant angry-eyebrowed screwdriver, “kind of like Clippy from Word.”
- Brunhilda licked his oil off her sword to look intimidating. It only hurt her.
- White Hat found his hat in the mud, dusted it off with his pocket square, and immediately shot Brunhilda’s new snake friend to pieces.
- Both champions died within moments of each other: she was shot by his involuntary trigger pull, and he short-circuited in the rain.
Memorable Quotes
- Brunhilda Doogle: “You can’t get me. You are very weak, and you do not know anything about cliffs.”
- White Hat H03: “Bigger snakes have been in my boots than you. I’ll have you know that tipping a man’s head off is very unbecoming.”
- White Hat H03: “Nobody calls me a hoe but me.”
- White Hat H03: “I may be just a simple machine. But I was founded on the principles of fair economics in the oil trade.”
- White Hat H03: “No one’s scared of you. I just don’t like screwdrivers.”
- Brunhilda Doogle: “I will stab you like Caesar!”
- Brunhilda Doogle: “You’ll die here. Even if I have to hold you till you rust in the rain.”
- White Hat H03: “Well, it seems that this was my day to shine in the sun.”
Who and What Appears
Brunhilda Doogle (Caustic Phoenix). Yuan-ti (Caustic Phoenix calls it “yaunty”), Gloom Stalker ranger, level 13. Coral-snake colors: red and black with gold instead of yellow, and silver (“Red touch yellow, kills a fellow”). Speaks with a hiss. Longbow that was “a gift”; two short swords; can use her tail to strike, throw and strangle. Animal friendship works on snakes. Spells: thorn whip, poison spray, fear, greater invisibility, frostbite; hide in plain sight. Immune to poison (she says). Ate the purple “dog berries” many times. Befriended a constrictor snake, which White Hat killed. Died, tied.
White Hat H03 (Mudcat). Warforged gunslinger with pistols that can form a metal shield; white hat and pocket square. Speaks Loxodon and Leonin, “so he can speak to the animal races.” “Southern, sort of.” “Special robot eyes.” Bane makes his eyes glow red. Resistant to poison, shrugs off cold. Spits oil. “Founded on the principles of fair economics in the oil trade.” Rusts in rain. Chat nicknamed him White Hat Ho after he lost his hat: “Nobody calls me a hoe but me.” Died, tied.
The constrictor snake. Chaos-event creature; bit White Hat and chipped a tooth; charmed by Brunhilda; shot to pieces by White Hat.
The purple berries (“dog berries”). Grow all over the forest; heal, but make you see funny colors the first time.
Places
- An unnamed forest arena: rocks and a cliff (made rockier by Caustic Phoenix), a ravine, a mushroom pedestal, berry bushes; flooded by rain.
Full Round-by-Round
Every beat of the episode, with timestamps (click to expand)
- 1:37:20 — Placement. Brunhilda starts on top of the rocks; White Hat on the ground. “Let’s get ready to rumble!”
- 1:43:24 — White Hat opens fire. “Special robot eyes” ignore Brunhilda’s cover; three pistol shots hit.
- 1:46:30 — Brunhilda aims her longbow “at your stupid mechanical shiny head,” hits twice, then hides behind a rock: “If you want to fight, you have to come find me.” “You do not know anything about cliffs… if you fall, you will die.”
- 1:49:14 — The climb. White Hat (“southern for some reason, sort of”) struggles up a rock (“a DC of seven… the lowest DC I’ve ever heard of”) and misty-steps the last ten feet. Brunhilda: “It’s not Misty Step, it’s Greasy Step. The oil just seeps from you… polluting Mother Nature in all her glory. She hates you for it.”
- 1:51:09 — Bane backfires. His eyes glow red as he casts Bane; she rolls a nat 20 on her Lucky reroll (“Your eyes! I’ve seen them before! They’re hideous!”) and the spell short-circuits in his brain, baning him instead. “I’m rubber, you’re glue.”
- 1:53:17 — Thorn whip. Brunhilda puts her bow on her back and lashes him with a thorn whip (nat 20, “Mother nature doesn’t take this lightly!”) and drags him to the edge. She grabs his “smug little metal face”: “You are so weak here and out of your element… I will allow you to be devoured here by nature itself,” and pushes his white hat off the cliff. He isn’t scared: “Bigger snakes have been in my boots than you… tipping a man’s head off is very unbecoming.”
- 1:58:16 — White Hat Ho. Oil splatters from the thorn wounds. Chat starts calling him “White Hat Ho” now that he’s lost his hat; Caustic Phoenix makes him roll to resist the mockery; he passes on a reroll: “Nobody calls me a hoe but me,” and spits a forceful stream of oil into the front row “like front row SeaWorld.” He spits oil at Brunhilda too: “I may be just a simple machine. But I was founded on the principles of fair economics in the oil trade.”
- 2:03:46 — Off the ledge. Brunhilda’s tail whips around his feet and throws him off the ledge (he’d blocked her shove with a metal shield formed from his gun). She camouflages herself against the rock with dirt (hide in plain sight).
- 2:08:09 — The purple berries. She finds purple berries she doesn’t recognize, eats them in desperation (“Berries, I eat you!”) and heals, but sees funny colors (the berries are “dog berries”). She keeps eating them all fight; she builds up a resistance to the side effects. He casts cure wounds on himself and falls off the slick rock face he greased with his own oil (“Captain Planet… this is your own fault”).
- 2:15:20 — Poison spray from hiding (he’s resistant as a robot). She claims to have moved and throws her voice; he isn’t fooled. She makes the cliff rockier. “I have the high ground, White Hat Ho.”
- 2:23:06 — The screwdriver. Brunhilda casts fear: an image of a giant screwdriver with angry eyebrows, “kind of like Clippy from Word,” spins over him. He is frightened (“No one’s scared of you. I just don’t like screwdrivers”). “I give gifts like you to children all the time… A little wind up key and you go running.”
- 2:28:23 — Chaos event: flood and rain. A flood washes them off the cliff; Brunhilda rides the wave (“Snakes can swim”). In the rain White Hat begins to rust, his armor weakening each round.
- 2:31:31 — Jammed gun. His disarming shot rolls a nat 1 and his gun jams; he fixes it and hits her bow hard but she holds on. She draws two short swords: “I will stab you like Caesar!” Then she licks his oil off her blade to intimidate him (“I eat gams like you for breakfast”); the oil hurts her and nobody is impressed.
- 2:38:45 — Chaos event: a constrictor snake slithers out of a hole. It bites White Hat and chips a tooth on his metal leg. Brunhilda charms it with her snake-only animal friendship: their tails both shake like rattles; it follows her “like a puppy.” White Hat breaks line of sight and shakes off the fear. He finds his hat in the mud at the bottom of the ravine, dusts it off with his pocket square and puts it back on: “Seems we’ve got the upper hand again.”
- 2:47:00 — White Hat hits her with a dazing shot and more bullets, then action-surges to shoot her snake friend into flopping sections because it bit him.
- 2:51:08 — Greater invisibility. “Oh, this hurts so much, my snake friend.” She vanishes and eats more berries; he fires blind and backs against the rock face. She shoots the loose rock above him twice and buries him in two rockslides, pinning him prone: “I will bury you alive.”
- 3:00:53 — Chaos event: lightning. Both are struck; her concentration breaks and she reappears “as if I came from this lightning itself.” He shoots her bow out of her hand: “My precious bow! That was a gift! You’ll pay for this!”
- 3:08:00 — The end. She charges, whips him with her tail, then wraps her tail around his neck and lifts him by it: “I will murder you and I will suck all of the oil and life from your cold metal frame… Even if I have to hold you till you rust in the rain.” She bares her fangs. Her squeezing fires every neuron in his synthetic brain and his hand jerks the trigger involuntarily, shooting her in the stomach. She drops “like a ribbon falling to the ground,” her blood mixing with his oil.
- 3:13:44 — White Hat dies too. “It seems that this was my day to shine in the sun.” Rain pours into the open circuits in his crushed throat; he short-circuits, sparking in all directions, staring at the sky, and “ceases to function. It’s rusted and stopped.” “Mutually assured destruction.” “On D20 Deathmatch. It’s a tie.”