The first ever Deathmatch pitted Ditch Em’ Darrell, a grizzled old axe-man with a barbecue-sauced mustache, against Eshrinn, a snake-woman and self-styled master of spells and poisons. They fought in a secret cavern of gold that turned out to have a dragon sleeping under it. Their clash went from runway show to friendship to doomed romance to murder, all before the Grandmaster and her Acolytes. Afterwards the Arbiter quietly began a scheme of his own.
The Story
Bocce Ball for One
Out on a lava field that stretched “as far as the eye can see” stood The Dread Fortress, a rock skull whose gaping mouth led down into an underground castle. Its halls were lined with tapestries, servants and a great many paintings of the same very intimidating woman. In the throne room, on a seat of metal and bone, sat that woman: the Grandmaster. She was bored out of her mind and throwing stones into a little circle while her servants fetched them back. “They told me bocce ball for one would be fun,” she complained, “but this is hard.”
The Arbiter stepped through a jagged tear in space. He wore sleeveless black-and-white leather robes, his hood was up, and eight gem-studded rings glittered on his fingers. “Grandmaster, the preparations have been made.” She flung her rocks at his feet and reminded him, “Remember, you do not talk until I ask you something.” Unbothered, he promised that tonight’s offering was “a little bit better than rocks. Not by much.”
The Champions
Two champions stood behind him. The first was Ditch Em’ Darrell, who introduced himself along with his battleaxe, Ramona: “Me and Ramona, we love them and leave them. And how we love them is sweet, sweet violence.” Darrell had a weakness for trinkets and shiny things, and he made it plain he’d like to “borrow” a few of the Arbiter’s rings.
The second was Eshrinn, a hooded snake-woman with a bag of colored vials and a blowgun. “I am Eshrinn, master of spells and poisons. You are simple. I am experienced.” She declared the Grandmaster worthy of her love and respect, “more so than Hocum and Grocom.” The Arbiter backed Darrell, whose greed struck a chord with his own, and half-promised him a ring. The Grandmaster picked Eshrinn on principle: “Whenever you choose something, I know to always pick the opposite.”
The Gilded Thresh Hollow
The arena was the Gilded Thresh Hollow, a secret cavern deep underground where “all that glitters down here really is gold.” Waterfalls of gold spilled over piles of sapphires and diamonds, coins crunched underfoot, and the Acolytes packed the stands above, throwing popcorn. “This show, this spectacle, I bring you that you may continue to worship at my feet as my worthy and loyal acolytes,” the Grandmaster proclaimed. The Arbiter had a simpler request: “I want a dirty fight.”
Eshrinn opened with a fashion show. She snake-flipped off a ten-foot ledge like a ninja, struck a vogue pose and strutted across the gold as if it were New York Fashion Week, tossing colored vials as she went. The effect was spoiled when her own tail flipped her cloak over her head, and she pretended nobody had seen. Then she charmed Darrell outright (“Who knew that refrigerated cigarette machines with heads are my thing?”). She also befriended the Hollow’s gem beetles, iridescent bugs that look like jewels, and had them cover her like sequins until she shimmered “like a chandelier.” The crowd split between chants of “Darrell!” and “Eshrinn!” and showed both of them its favor.
Darrell, now smitten, dug through the gold and found a golden pinky ring. He kissed it and slipped it on. “It’s all free… Ain’t no goblin saying don’t take my stuff.” The Grandmaster let him dream: “Fill your pockets with coins, but you’re not going anywhere.” The floor of the Hollow, it turned out, was a thin skin of dirt over gold that might go down for miles.
Chairs and Friendship
Chaos then hit three times at once. First the floor turned into a bouncy castle, so every step was slow and every jump went twice as high. Next the Arbiter swooped in on glowing white wings and hit Eshrinn with a cheap metal chair “with 10 or 20 years of repressed rage behind it.” This was his favorite weapon, a rusty chair kept for “the Arbiter’s best friend,” who “is not really supposed to be here.” Eshrinn rolled with it, and it only stung her tail. Finally the Grandmaster threw a chair at the Arbiter for missing. He muttered, “One day I’m gonna show her. I’m gonna turn her into a metal chair and I’m gonna sit on her face.” As someone pointed out, there is no HR here.
Eshrinn bounced over to Darrell and turned on the charm again. “Isn’t it easier to just be friends?” He gave her his precious pinky ring and wedged it onto her finger. She snacked on one of her beetles, which was poisonous, though she was immune and only cracked a tooth. When he wasn’t looking, she dropped the ring into a vial of mysterious green liquid.
The Arbiter’s patience ran out. “This isn’t the arena of friendships.” He flicked a gold coin at Darrell’s head to snap him out of it. The Grandmaster called a pause for popcorn and asked the Arbiter to give Darrell “the friendship talk.”
It’s Time to Wake Up
After the break the Grandmaster struck the ground with her staff, the Arbiter clapped, and she said: “It’s time to wake up.” A giant dragon rose out of the gold with both champions on its back, burst out of the cave and soared over snowy mountains. Darrell’s mustache froze, and the melting ice tasted of week-old KC Masterpiece barbecue sauce.
The cold also cleared his head. “We ain’t friends. We ain’t never been friends. And you use my mind against me? How dare you, Essie?” He promptly slipped on the icy scales (“I got old, brittle bones”), and the Arbiter snapped, “Get it together, Daryl, or there’s no rings for you.”
Eshrinn, now “pretty much snake from the shoulders up” with a patterned cobra hood, played her trump card. “Your Arbiter may not give you any rings, but I will.” The ring was soaked in a magical laughing potion, and Darrell collapsed in helpless giggles. She spat acid on him, which gave off “a hot sizzling, like bacon at one of Daryl’s weekend gatherings.”
The Arbiter’s Debt
The Arbiter revealed what was really riding on this fight. “I need this money. I’m behind. I owe some people. I need you to win.” He spurred Darrell out of his fit. Darrell answered, “We are no longer friends,” and buried Ramona in Eshrinn.
Eshrinn’s arrogance curdled into fury. The Grandmaster sighed, “In any other situation, this would be romantic… The perfect honeymoon.” Eshrinn blinded Darrell with a burst of color, hurled a knife of ice, landed a poison dart from her blowgun and talked him out onto the dragon’s wing. Darrell answered by playing Ramona like an electric guitar and firing a brown blast of eldritch energy from her pommel. “I’ll just be like Aladdin and show you the world.”
Then the Arbiter played his secret trick. He snapped his fingers, the dragon’s eyes went lifeless white, and the beast flipped upside down. Both champions clung on by sheer luck. The Grandmaster added her own chaos, the thunder twins, and two bolts of lightning struck them both.
The Fall
Eshrinn flicked the Arbiter a gift for his help: “a very shiny, very heroic looking coin.” Her ice knife exploded at Darrell’s handhold and he fell. A moment later she lost her own grip. Both crashed back into the golden pit and left craters and a pool of blood.
Darrell healed himself by laying hands on his own body, announcing that he would “very provocatively touch myself.” The dragon landed beside them, eyes still white, and sat at the Arbiter’s command. When asked the dragon’s name, the Arbiter replied, “I’ll answer all your questions when you’ve won me my money.” Darrell pinned Eshrinn’s tail under his boot. The Grandmaster conceded the night was “better than rocks,” then warned, “Survival in this arena does not mean that I will spare you.”
Are You Not Entertained?
Eshrinn vanished in a wisp of mist and scrambled thirty feet up a cliff (“Apparently snakes do climb”). The Grandmaster threatened to send the Arbiter in himself if nobody bled within three rounds. The Arbiter grabbed Eshrinn with a giant spectral hand and dropped her right in front of Darrell: “You wanted my help, didn’t you?” She sprayed him with poison, badly hurt him and dashed sixty feet away. Then Darrell rolled a perfect natural 20, and his blast killed her.
He knelt and kissed her scaly forehead. “We could have been something. It would have been horrific and beautiful… me and Ramona, we gotta ditch you… Are you not entertained?” Then he shoved gold into his pockets.
The Grandmaster floated down to the arena floor:
“Victory may hurt, but it lets us know that we are alive.”
Darrell offered some wisdom of his own: “My granny always said you can’t make the biscuits without buying the bread.” The Grandmaster asked the Acolytes to “congratulate and welcome our first champion, Ditch Em’ Darrell,” and the snacks flew. (“We’ll pick that up later. I know that’s littering.”)
Dried Blood
Back in character, Darrell said a wistful goodbye. “Old Ditch Em Darrell, he didn’t expect to find love. He expect to find glory.” Life has twists and turns, he reflected, and Eshrinn was the one thing he wished he hadn’t had to ditch.
The night had one more secret. While the Grandmaster addressed the crowd, the Arbiter walked over to Eshrinn’s body and snapped his fingers. She sank through the gold into his hidden lair, a room full of beakers and arcane equipment. He tapped her chest and brought her back to life. “I’ve got a plan for you.”
Notable Moments
- Eshrinn’s catwalk across the gold, which ended with her tail flipping her cloak over her head.
- The Arbiter’s metal-chair ambush, answered at once by the Grandmaster throwing a chair at him for missing.
- Darrell gave Eshrinn his beloved pinky ring, and she turned it into a weapon by dosing it with a laughing potion.
- The arena itself woke up: a dragon rose from the gold and carried the fight over snowy mountains.
- Darrell shredded on his battleaxe like a guitar and blasted Eshrinn with it.
- The Arbiter secretly revived the fallen Eshrinn in his hidden lair after the show.
Memorable Quotes
- The Grandmaster: “They told me bocce ball for one would be fun, but this is hard.”
- The Arbiter: “What I’ve brought you tonight is a little bit better than rocks. Not by much.”
- Ditch Em’ Darrell: “Me and Ramona, we love them and leave them. And how we love them is sweet, sweet violence.”
- Eshrinn: “Be sure you pay attention to me. Otherwise, you might miss your death.”
- The Arbiter: “One day I’m gonna show her. I’m gonna turn her into a metal chair and I’m gonna sit on her face.”
- Ditch Em’ Darrell: “We ain’t friends. We ain’t never been friends. And you use my mind against me? How dare you, Essie?”
- The Arbiter: “I need this money. I’m behind. I owe some people. I need you to win.”
- The Grandmaster: “Victory may hurt, but it lets us know that we are alive.”
Who and What Appears
Ditch Em’ Darrell (endlesschad). Old (50-some years), walrus mustache full of KC Masterpiece barbecue sauce, chews tobacco; battleaxe Ramona that he plays like an electric guitar and fires a brown Eldritch Blast from; paladin/warlock (lay on hands, cure wounds, Eldritch Blast). Loves trinkets, rings and shiny things; calls the Grandmaster “manager” and the Arbiter “assistant manager.” Has a granny with sayings. Fell for Eshrinn, then killed her. First champion of D20 Deathmatch.
Eshrinn (BDTeej). Snake-woman (Caustic Phoenix and TJ say yuan-ti) “pretty much snake from the shoulders up,” cobra hood with ornate patterns, forked tongue, tail; hooded cloak; bag of colored vials; blowgun. Rogue/spellcaster, “master of spells and poisons”; immune to poison. Charmed and befriended Darrell; dressed in gem beetles; ate one. Invokes “Hocum and Grocom.” Killed; secretly revived by the Arbiter, one of his recruits.
The Grandmaster (Elusia Skypiercer). Bored; bocce for one; paintings of herself everywhere; gold and black silvery dress; black feathered wings; a staff; throws chairs at the Arbiter. “Victory may hurt, but it lets us know that we are alive.” Retired from battle (intro).
The Arbiter. Black and white sleeveless leather robes, hood, eight gem rings; white glowing wings; favorite weapon a metal chair; bets on champions; owes people money; resents the Grandmaster (“One day I’m gonna show her”); controls the dragon; revives Eshrinn in a secret lair. Has a “best friend” who isn’t really supposed to be at the arena.
The dragon. Slept beneath the gold of the Gilded Thresh Hollow; woken by the Grandmaster and Arbiter; flown over snowy mountains; the Arbiter’s snap turned its eyes white and flipped it; unnamed (“I’ll answer all your questions when you’ve won me my money”).
Gem beetles. Iridescent beetles living in the gold; poisonous to eat.
Places
- Dread Fortress: lava field, rock skull with an open mouth leading to an underground castle; paintings of the Grandmaster; meeting rooms and feast halls; the throne room (iron door, throne of metal and bone, hearth), the seat of the Grandmaster’s power and her home (Mudcat).
- The Gilded Thresh Hollow: a secret golden cavern with gold waterfalls, piles of gems, pillars, ledges; a dragon sleeping under the gold.
- The Arbiter’s secret lair beneath the Hollow (beakers, arcane equipment).
- Snowy mountains the dragon flies over.
Items
- Ramona, Darrell’s battleaxe.
- The golden pinky ring: found by Darrell, given to Eshrinn, dosed with hideous laughter, given back.
- The metal chair(s) in the Grandmaster’s back corner.
- Eshrinn’s heroic coin (her hero point, flicked to the Arbiter).
Full Round-by-Round
Every beat of the episode, with timestamps (click to expand)
- 0:00:31 — The Dread Fortress. A lava field “as far as the eye can see,” a humanoid skull made of rock with a giant open mouth leading underground. Inside, “this underground castle”: stone walls, sconces, tapestries, servants, and many paintings of the same very intimidating woman lining the halls. Meeting rooms, great halls for feasts, a large iron door.
- 0:01:32 — The throne room. “An intimidating throne made of metal and bone.” A hearth, attendants. The Grandmaster sits throwing stones into a small circle out of boredom (“bocce ball for one”); servants fetch the stones back. She wears a gold and black silvery dress; two giant black feathery wings pop up behind her. She throws the rocks at the Arbiter’s feet: “You can give that little stupid monkey back her game of rocks.”
- 0:02:19 — The Arbiter steps through a jagged tear in space in leather, black and white, sleeveless wizard’s robes, hood up, eight rings with gems of different colors, two champions behind him. “Grandmaster, the preparations have been made.” She: “Remember, you do not talk until I ask you something.” He: “What I’ve brought you tonight is a little bit better than rocks. Not by much.”
- 0:06:01 — The champions. Ditch Em’ Darrell: “They call me Ditch Em Darrell… My battleaxe, well, we call her Ramona… me and Ramona, we love them and leave them. And how we love them is sweet, sweet violence.” He loves trinkets and shiny things and wants to “borrow” some of the Arbiter’s rings. Eshrinn: “master of spells and poisons. You are simple. I am experienced… the Grandmaster, as she is worthy of my love and respect, more so than Hocum and Grocom.” The Arbiter bets on Darrell (“strikes a chord with my more greedy side”) and half-promises him a ring; the Grandmaster picks Eshrinn because “whenever you choose something, I know to always pick the opposite.”
- 0:10:12 — The Gilded Thresh Hollow. A secret location deep in the caverns: “all that glitters down here really is gold.” Waterfalls of gold, sapphires, diamonds; coins underfoot. Above, hordes of spectators in stands, throwing popcorn. The Grandmaster: “This show, this spectacle, I bring you that you may continue to worship at my feet as my worthy and loyal acolytes.” The Arbiter: “Acolytes, you have come for dungeons and dice and deathmatches… I want a dirty fight.”
- 0:16:04 — Eshrinn’s runway. She snake-flips off a 10-foot ledge “like a ninja” and sticks a vogue pose, then catwalks “New York Fashion Week” across the gold, tossing colored vials, until her tail flips her cloak over her head (she pretends no one saw). She charms Darrell (“Who knew that refrigerated cigarette machines with heads are my thing?”), then casts animal friendship on the gem beetles (iridescent beetles that look like jewels) so they cover her like sequins and she shimmers “like a chandelier.”
- 0:25:04 — Hero points. The crowd, split between “Darrell!” and “Eshrinn!,” awards each a hero point.
- 0:28:55 — Darrell, charmed, digs through the gold and finds a golden pinky ring, kisses it and puts it on. “It’s all free… Ain’t no goblin saying don’t take my stuff.” The Grandmaster: “Fill your pockets with coins, but you’re not going anywhere.” The floor of the Hollow is a thin layer of dirt over gold that may go down for miles.
- 0:33:41 — Three chaos events at once. The floor becomes a bouncy castle (movement halved, jumping doubled). The Arbiter swoops in with white glowing wings and hits Eshrinn with a cheap metal chair “with 10 or 20 years of repressed rage behind it” — “your favorite weapon, the metal chair,” the rusty one kept “for the Arbiter’s best friend” who “is not really supposed to be here.” Eshrinn rolls so it only stings her tail. Then the Grandmaster throws a chair at the Arbiter “for missing.” He: “One day I’m gonna show her. I’m gonna turn her into a metal chair and I’m gonna sit on her face.” (“We have no HR here.”) She asks him for “secret rolls” all episode toward a planned surprise.
- 0:41:37 — Friends. Eshrinn bounces up to Darrell and casts friends: “Isn’t it easier to just be friends?” He gives her the pinky ring, wedging it on her finger. She eats one of her beetles (it’s poisonous; she’s immune but cracks a tooth), then secretly drops the ring into a vial of mysterious green liquid.
- 0:53:28 — The Arbiter gets bored (“This isn’t the arena of friendships”) and throws a gold piece at Darrell’s head to break the charm. The Grandmaster calls a pause for popcorn and asks the Arbiter to give Darrell “the friendship talk.”
- (0:59:27–1:09:54: break; spoof ads such as “dogsonly.woof” and the show’s intro video. See the intro below.)
- 1:10:29 — “It’s time to wake up.” The Grandmaster strikes the ground with a staff; the Arbiter claps. A giant dragon rises from under the gold with both champions on its back and flies out of the cave over snowy mountains. Darrell’s mustache freezes; melting ice tastes of week-old KC Masterpiece barbecue sauce.
- 1:14:42 — Darrell’s awakening. “We ain’t friends. We ain’t never been friends. And you use my mind against me? How dare you, Essie?” He slips on the icy scales: “I got old, brittle bones.” The Arbiter: “Get it together, Daryl, or there’s no rings for you.”
- 1:16:01 — The ring trick. Eshrinn, “pretty much snake from the shoulders up” with a cobra hood, offers the ring back: “Your Arbiter may not give you any rings, but I will.” The vial was hideous laughter; Darrell collapses laughing. She spits acid on him (“a hot sizzling, like bacon at one of Daryl’s weekend gatherings”).
- 1:21:24 — The Arbiter’s debt. “I need this. I need this money. I’m behind. I owe some people. I need you to win.” He gives Darrell inspiration to break out. Darrell: “We are no longer friends.” He hits Eshrinn hard with Ramona.
- 1:25:43 — Eshrinn’s mood shifts from arrogance to anger. The Grandmaster: “In any other situation, this would be romantic… The perfect honeymoon.” Color spray blinds Darrell; ice knife; a poison dart from her blowgun; suggestion sends him out onto the wing. Darrell plays Ramona like a guitar and fires a brown Eldritch Blast from its pommel: “I’ll just be like Aladdin and show you the world.”
- 1:46:07 — The Arbiter’s secret trick: he snaps his fingers, the dragon’s eyes go lifeless white and it flips upside down. Both hang on with nat 20s. The Grandmaster’s chaos event: the thunder twins, two lightning bolts, hit them both.
- 1:51:19 — The coin. Eshrinn flicks the Arbiter “a very shiny, very heroic looking coin” (her hero point) for his help; her ice knife explodes at Darrell’s grip and he falls. Then she loses her own grip. Both fall into the golden pit, leaving craters and a pool of blood.
- 1:57:47 — Darrell lays on hands for 50 (“very provocatively touch myself”). The dragon lands, eyes still white, and sits on the Arbiter’s command. “What’s his name?” “I’ll answer all your questions when you’ve won me my money.” Darrell pins Eshrinn’s tail with his foot (nat 20). The Grandmaster: “It is better than rocks… Survival in this arena does not mean that I will spare you.”
- 2:01:12 — The end. Eshrinn misty-steps and climbs 30 feet up a cliff (nat 20: “Apparently snakes do climb”). The Grandmaster threatens to send the Arbiter in if nobody bleeds within three rounds; the Arbiter grabs Eshrinn with a giant mage hand and drops her in front of Darrell (“You wanted my help, didn’t you?”). Her poison spray hurts him badly, and she dashes 60 feet away. Darrell’s nat 20 Eldritch Blast kills her. He kisses her scaly forehead: “We could have been something. It would have been horrific and beautiful… me and Ramona, we gotta ditch you… Are you not entertained?” and shoves gold into his pockets.
- 2:17:36 — The Grandmaster floats down: “Victory may hurt, but it lets us know that we are alive.” Darrell: “My granny always said you can’t make the biscuits without buying the bread.” “Help me congratulate and welcome our first champion, Ditch Em’ Darrell.” Snacks fly (“We’ll pick that up later. I know that’s littering”).
Full Dried Blood notes (click to expand)
- First Dried Blood, with BDTeej (“Big Daddy Teej”) and EndlessChad. Out-of-character: Chad riffed everything (the axe-guitar, tobacco-spit blast, the love-story ending); TJ planned “kill them with kindness” and the ring trick; the dragon was Mudcat’s planned “secret roll” threshold event; the map is an animated Patreon map.
- Darrell’s farewell (in character): “Old Ditch Em Darrell, he didn’t expect to find love. He expect to find glory… his 50 some odd years living… life has twists and turns… this would be one thing that he wished he couldn’t have ditched, but he has to.”
- Canon epilogue (2:27:20): while the Grandmaster addresses the crowd, the Arbiter walks to Eshrinn’s body, snaps his fingers, and it sinks through the gold into a secret lair full of beakers and arcane equipment. He taps her chest, bringing her back to life: “I’ve got a plan for you.” (Transcript says “the Grandmaster and the body begin to sink”; context means the Arbiter.)