S1E4 — Multiclass — Kleen v Ivanna Kishu

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Kleen, a long-range warlock who swore he was not Mr. Kleen, faced Ivanna Kishu, a kiss-blowing aasimar druid with a few tricks borrowed from other trades, in a frozen, abandoned mine far up in the north. Along the way there was Acolyte dodgeball, a round fought entirely in Pig Latin, a howl-off, an avalanche and a showdown on a bridge over a frozen waterfall. It ended with a literal shitstorm and with the Arbiter quietly stealing the loser’s body for reasons of his own.

The Story

The Water Challenge

The night opened in the throne room, where the Grandmaster was chugging glass after glass of water while the Arbiter cheered her on from the corner. She was not enjoying it. “Why does water taste awful? Why do we have to drink this to stay alive?” She would rather have a Dr. Pepper, but the Arbiter explained there were none: “There’s a legal dispute with Mr. Pepper.” She threw the cups over her shoulder behind the throne and declared water bland, boring and everywhere. What she needed was something beautiful. Like a fight.

The Arbiter promised her that tonight she would drink the blood of the victim. The Grandmaster was having none of it: “I’m clearly not a vampire and I will not be drinking anybody’s blood tonight.” She added that it wasn’t sanitary. Undeterred, the Arbiter mentioned that he knew a guy. His friend Larry worked at a blood bank and had been at the Christmas party. The Grandmaster remembered him at once as the Larry who spiked the punch and had to be thrown out early. “He’s not perfect,” the Arbiter allowed, “but he does know blood.”

The Champions

The Arbiter clapped. The sound rippled through the chamber and split open a portal, and two champions tumbled through. The Grandmaster asked them to flex, because she needed them on trading cards.

Kleen kept his introduction short: “My name is Kleen. I am a warlock, Pact of the Genie. And I am here to battle.” He had an imp, and a fighting philosophy to match his name: “It’s going to get dirty. And then very clean.”

Ivanna Kishu took a more philosophical line. “Violence is one way, but there are always other ways. There is Ivanna Kishu ways.” She described herself as a protector, an aasimar and a druid, “and I’m definitely not OP at all,” before promising to beat the shit out of Kleen. Then she promised to kiss him. Her name is a pun on “I wanna kiss you.”

Talk turned to prizes. The Grandmaster suggested that if blood didn’t appeal, there was always “whatever juice is in your eyeballs.” The Arbiter regretted that he had a blood guy but not an eyeball juice guy. Ivanna was promised the chef’s finest eyeball juice dish. Kleen asked for chocolate ice cream with no eyeballs, and the Grandmaster was baffled: “That’s what makes the chocolate ice cream really good, is the eyeballs.”

Into Kirken’s Mine

With another clap, a cold wave of snow and wind blew through the portal and the champions found themselves in Kirken’s Mine, an abandoned mine “hidden far up in the north.” The Grandmaster explained that it used to be Kirken’s: “Of course, it’s my mine now.” Kirken, she added, never really left, “but he doesn’t own it anymore.” Kleen looked a little queasy. She noted approvingly that with all the white around, you could bleach anything and get away with it.

The mine was full of pillars, ledges, rubble, steps and slick ice, and the Grandmaster warned that anyone who slipped onto their ass would be laughed at. She also had not forgotten the chaos the Acolytes had summoned at the very end of the last battle, and she ruled that it would open this one. She left in a mini blizzard. The Arbiter left as a cloud of gas, which the Grandmaster identified as “another way of farting your way up.” He was, she explained, “compelled by his own beans.”

Dodgeball

The opening chaos was dodgeball, and the Acolytes threw everything they had. Dragons, Coke bottles, Doritos, frogs, hot dogs, spaghetti, mini cactuses, Pickle Rick, an angry cucumber, a hammer, a bomb, a toilet and “even a Mud Cat” all rained down. Kleen dodged most of it and was hit only by a Dorito, some popcorn and a banana. “This is the banana. It always is.” Ivanna was less lucky. Pasta, a cookie, a teacup and a cute pumpkin all found her, and she started the fight already bleeding.

Sniper Versus Shapeshifter

Kleen opened with a volley of eldritch blasts, then teleported to the top of a 20-foot pillar. “I am a glass cannon.” Ivanna wiped her blood off and licked it (“Not so Kleen, I see”) and called down a beam of moonlight on him. She then let the crowd choose her shape, and they chose a hippogriff. Her hair and dress floated as she spun, her arms became white wings, and a beak appeared, wearing lipstick. Her paws had nail polish. “She is very sexy, sexy Hippogriff.” It was not, she admitted, a sturdy one: “It’s a pretty Hippogriff, it’s not a strong Hippogriff.”

The Acolytes granted each champion a favor from the crowd. Kleen then revealed just how far his blasts could reach: “My range on my Eldritch Blast is 600 feet.” The Arbiter said it might as well be ten kilometers. His first shot was a natural 20, and the volley tore the hippogriff apart and left Ivanna back on her feet, badly hurt. “Never let a DM build a character,” Ivanna’s player sighed.

Ivanna dug in. Her moonbeam held firm, and the Grandmaster ruled that her stubborn mind would make it burn twice as hard. Then she brushed her hair, and the brushing somehow healed her almost completely. “That is a recovery like I have never seen before,” said the Grandmaster. She shifted again. She wanted a lion and settled for a dire wolf “with stripes,” flavored as a tiger.

That raised an important question: did the wolf have a good howl? A howl-off was declared, with the Acolytes voting in a poll. Kleen’s howl was “The pain I feel.” Ivanna won the crowd’s small blessing. The Arbiter, impressed by her “real tenacity in the face of an unrelenting Eldritch Blast,” also wrapped the wolf’s fur in a sheet of protective ice. “It has nothing to do with the fact that I placed a small wager on you.” The wolf leapt a wide gap and burrowed into a snowdrift to hide.

The Round of the Pig

After a break, during which the Arbiter chatted with Acolytes by the nacho fountain, the crowd demanded more chaos. For one round, everyone had to speak Pig Latin, and anyone who slipped got a small rock thrown at them by the Arbiter. “Igpe Atenle.”

It went badly for everyone. Kleen garbled his way through, jumped off a ledge, twisted his ankle, and wreathed himself in flames that lit the dark mine. Ivanna’s attempt to steer her moonbeam in Pig Latin was met with a flat “Nope,” so it stopped just short of him: “It would be his choice to step into the spotlight.” The Grandmaster answered a question in plain speech and got two rocks thrown at her. Ivanna used her favor from the crowd to cast a spell while still in wolf form, earning a rock of her own, and pelted Kleen with an ice storm that left the ground around him even harder going on his bad ankle. The Acolytes demanded that Kleen take a rock to the face too, and he did. When the round ended, a small herd of happy Latin pigs ran across the map and lifted the curse forever. “I’ve never thought I would miss speaking normally,” said Ivanna’s player.

Fire, Ice and an Avalanche

Kleen spotted steam rising from the wolf’s snowdrift and, in the snow, something shiny: a snowball with a ball of ice at its core. The Arbiter called it a game ender. Kleen tucked it away: “I will set my balls into my pants.” The Grandmaster laughed so hard that the water she was pretending to drink spilled all over the Arbiter, who steamed himself dry, “cooking those pigs that ran through.” Kleen’s next volley came out in the shape of a bald man with an earring. “There is no Kleen like Mr. Kleen!”

Kleen took on the traits of his genie patron and floated thirty feet into the air. Ivanna dropped the wolf entirely. “Ivanna comes back! I am tired of all of this. Let’s end it.” She called lightning down on him from the storm.

The Arbiter, though, was bored. “They’re very far apart.” He clapped, a thunderous boom echoed off the mountain, and an avalanche buried Kirken’s Mine. Both champions burst out through the mineshaft door onto a rickety, swaying bridge 80 feet above a frozen waterfall.

The Bridge

Kleen struck first with another devastating volley, then hit her with the ice snowball. “With one swift snowball movement,” the Arbiter announced, “you have brought this fight back to almost dead even.” Ivanna licked her own blood back into her body (“This is the new way of healing. You drink your blood back”), and the Arbiter asked if she’d like to talk to his guy, Larry. She prayed to the crowd for a blessing, spotted an ice snowball of her own in the snow, and blew a kiss.

When the Arbiter called him Mr. Kleen, Kleen set the record straight: “Mr. Kleen is my patron. I’m just Kleen.” He tried to confuse Ivanna, failed, and tried to fly off. The Grandmaster had had enough. “No. I am your Grandmaster.” She walled both ends of the bridge with snowbanks. “Quit running away on my map.” Kleen landed in the middle. “Come at me, Ivanna.”

Ivanna tried to confuse him back, failed, and pulled her snowball out of her shirt: “Coming out from my shirt, two balls!” It landed at his feet. She was not proficient with snowballs, she explained, only with chess balls. The Arbiter then rolled a natural 1, and the Grandmaster sentenced him to clean the stadium toilets that night. The goblins got the night off.

The Final Blow

Kleen stepped forward and fired, then called on the crowd’s favor for one last burst. “Then let us end this.” Three more blasts, and Ivanna collapsed into the snowbank, unable to drink her blood back up again. Her last words: “You stinky balls. I don’t want to kiss you.”

The Grandmaster praised Kleen’s timing and the colors he showed “when push came to shove.” Kleen declared himself the real Mr. Kleen, then asked how many toilets they were talking about. At least 52. Someone had even pooped in the stands. Kleen magicked the filth of all 52 into the clouds, and it rained down on the spectators. “So you’re telling me this is a shitstorm?” asked the Grandmaster. “It is a literal shitstorm, Grandmaster.”

While the poop rained down, nobody watched the Arbiter. He grabbed Ivanna by her wings, vanished with her into his laboratory, laid her on the table and revived her. “I’m not done with you yet. You will kiss again.” Back in the arena, the Grandmaster crowned “a true Kleener,” and the crowd, shielding their eyes and mouths from the poop rain, turned their cheering into a mud poop fight.

Dried Blood

At the table afterwards, Kleen’s player admitted he’d had more fun than usual and liked being the center of attention. Pig Latin had been hard going for a player who isn’t American, and Kleen’s player suggested French next time. It turned out the Pig Latin was payback for an earlier game where the Grandmaster had been made to speak French and could only remember “axe” and “cantrip.” Kleen’s player had been hoping Ivanna would walk into his circle of flame. She never did. “I’m never doing whatever you want me to do,” she said.

Notable Moments

• The Arbiter’s friend Larry from the blood bank, remembered by the Grandmaster as the man who spiked the Christmas punch.
• Ivanna’s lipsticked, nail-polished hippogriff, chosen by the Acolytes.
• A full round of the fight conducted in Pig Latin, with the Arbiter throwing rocks at the Grandmaster herself.
• The Arbiter buried the whole arena in an avalanche because the champions were standing too far apart.
• Kleen ended the night by turning 52 dirty toilets into a literal shitstorm over the crowd.
• The Arbiter secretly carried Ivanna’s body off to his laboratory and brought her back to life.

Memorable Quotes

• The Arbiter: “There’s a legal dispute with Mr. Pepper.”
• The Grandmaster: “That’s what makes the chocolate ice cream really good, is the eyeballs.”
• Ivanna Kishu: “It’s a pretty Hippogriff, it’s not a strong Hippogriff.”
• The Arbiter: “It has nothing to do with the fact that I placed a small wager on you. This is totally arbitrary and out of the kindness of my own heart.”
• Kleen: “Mr. Kleen is my patron. I’m just Kleen.”
• Ivanna Kishu: “You stinky balls. I don’t want to kiss you.”

The Grandmaster: “So you’re telling me this is a shitstorm?” The Arbiter: “It is a literal shitstorm, Grandmaster.”

• The Arbiter: “I’m not done with you yet. You will kiss again.”

Who and What Appears

Characters

Kleen (“Master Kleen”; Chris). A warlock, Pact of the Genie.

• His patron is Mr. Kleen (“Mr. Kleen is my patron. I’m just Kleen”). Not short for anything.
• Built by a DM (per Sylvie), with Cha-heavy stats and AC 12. “A glass cannon,” “literally a camper.”
• Gear and spells:
  • An imp familiar.
  • Eldritch Blast with Eldritch Spear (600-ft range) and Spell Sniper (ignores half and three-quarters cover); his blasts can take the form of a bald man with an earring.
  • Misty Step, Investiture of Flame, Elemental Gift (genie flight, bludgeoning resistance), confusion (one pact slot), Prestidigitation.
• Twisted an ankle. Found and threw an ice snowball.
• Won. Promised chocolate ice cream (no eyeballs). He made it rain toilet filth on the crowd.

Ivanna Kishu (Sylvie). “A protector, an aasimar, and druid” (Circle of the Moon). She is clearly multiclassed (the episode title): she has sorcery points and metamagic, and healing hands.

• Catchphrases: “Me too,” “I’m gonna kiss you,” and blown kisses. “There is Ivanna Kishu ways.”
• Wild shapes into a chat-chosen hippogriff (white wings, lipstick on its beak, nail polish), then a striped dire wolf.
• Heals by brushing her hair (70 HP) and by licking her own blood back in.
• Spells: Moonbeam, Ice Storm, Call Lightning, confusion.
• Promised an eyeball-juice dish. Not proficient with snowballs, but “proficient in chess balls.”
• Killed by Kleen’s action-surged Eldritch Blasts. Last words: “You stinky balls. I don’t want to kiss you.”
• Then carried by her wings to the Arbiter’s laboratory and revived: “I’m not done with you yet. You will kiss again.”

Kleen’s imp: a familiar, sent up to scout.

The Arbiter (Mudcat).

• Coached the GM’s water drinking.
• His friend Larry works at a blood bank (see below).
• Opens portals by clapping. Exits by Gaseous Form (“compelled by his own beans”).
• Placed a small wager on Ivanna and gave her an ice shield.
• Triggered the avalanche. Throws rocks at people who don’t speak Pig Latin.
• Talks with Acolytes at the nacho fountain.
• Must clean the 52 stadium toilets (nat 1; the goblins get the night off).
• Has a laboratory where he revives fallen champions.
• “Some self-esteem and some pride.” The paycheck joke.

Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer (Caustic Phoenix).

• Hates drinking water; prefers Dr. Pepper. “Clearly not a vampire.”
• Has “a chef” and thinks eyeball juice is delicious.
• “Great, great Grandmaster.” Owns Kirken’s Mine now.
• Used the bottled chaos from S1E3 (the opening chaos event).
• Walled the bridge with snowbanks. Pretends to drink water to look hydrated.

Larry: the Arbiter’s friend who works at a blood bank. He came to the Christmas party, spiked the punch and was kicked out early. “He does know blood.”

Kirken: the former owner of Kirken’s Mine. “He never really left, but he doesn’t own it anymore.” Mudcat: a small RP detail to give the place a history; record what Caustic Phoenix said and nothing more.

Mr. Kleen: Kleen’s patron, a genie, who appears in Eldritch Blast form as a bald man with an earring. A real-world brand parody, kept as-is (Mudcat).

Mr. Pepper: in “a legal dispute” with the Deathmatch, which is why there’s no Dr. Pepper (a joke).

The goblins: normally clean the stadium toilets (and are said to run the label, per S1E3).

The Latin pigs: a small herd that runs across the map when the Pig Latin curse lifts.

Chat names in the dodgeball: Pexy (the cookie and teacup), “Mud Cat” (Mudcat’s handle, thrown as an object), and Pickle Rick.

Places

• Kirken’s Mine: an abandoned, snowy mine “hidden far up in the north,” owned by the Grandmaster now. Pillars, ledges, snowdrifts, steps, platforms. The moonlight brings out “hues of diamonds and blues and golds.” Filled with snow by the Arbiter’s avalanche. Probably the same place as Reaper’s Rock from Playtest 2 (Mudcat).
• The rickety bridge over the frozen waterfall, outside the mineshaft door, 80 ft up. Walled with snowbanks by the GM.
• The Arbiter’s laboratory, where he revives champions.
• The stadium’s 52 toilets and the nacho fountain at the concession stands.

Items

• Ice snowballs found in the snow (2d12 ice, bonus action, 30 ft). Kleen and Ivanna each found one.
• The GM’s water glasses; the eyeball-juice dish; chocolate ice cream (no eyeballs).

Lore statements

• Arbiter secret revival #4: Ivanna Kishu (S1E4). The earlier ones are Bromir (P2), Eshrinn (S1E1 Dried Blood) and Amren (S1E2).
• The Grandmaster’s chaos from the previous fight carried over to open this one.
• Arena rules confirmed:
  • A nat 20 does max damage plus the roll.
  • Matching AC exactly is a glancing blow for half damage.
  • Hero points give an action surge, a reroll, or an approved stunt.

Full Round-by-Round

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

Opening — the water challenge

1. 0:00:02 In the throne room, the Grandmaster is chugging glasses of water as fast as she can while the Arbiter cheers her on from the corner: “More! More!” GM: “Why does water taste awful? Why do we have to drink this to stay alive?… I’d rather have a Dr. Pepper.” Arbiter: “We don’t have any. There’s a legal dispute with Mr. Pepper.” The recommended dose is “your entire body weight.” She throws the cups behind her throne, as she did with the coloring book in S1E3: “It’s bland. It’s boring. It’s everywhere… What I need is something beautiful. Like a fight.”
2. 0:01:40 — Blood. Arbiter: “The only thing you’ll be drinking tonight is the blood of the victim.” GM: “I’m clearly not a vampire and I will not be drinking anybody’s blood tonight… That’s not sanitary.” She never went through a Twilight phase.
3. 0:02:23 — Larry. The Arbiter “knows a guy”: his friend Larry works at a blood bank. “He came to the Christmas party.” GM: “That Larry. Who spiked the punch, and we had to kick out early?” “He’s not perfect, but he does know blood.”
4. 0:03:04 The Arbiter claps; the sound ripples through the chamber and splits a portal open, and two champions are pulled through. “Kleen versus Ivanna Kishu.” GM: “Flex for me… I need these on trading cards.”
5. 0:04:21 — Kleen: “My name is Kleen. I am a warlock, Pact of the Genie. And I am here to battle.” “That’s the whole spiel.” He has an imp. His fighting style is “Very [dirty]. So that I can clean up the battlefield… It’s going to get dirty. And then very clean.”
6. 0:05:27 — Ivanna Kishu: “Violence is one way, but there are always other ways. There is Ivanna Kishu ways… I’m a protector, an aasimar, and druid. And I’m definitely not OP at all. I’m gonna beat the shit out of Kleen.” “I’m gonna kiss you.” (Her name is a pun on “I wanna kiss you.” Her running catchphrase is “Me too.”)
7. 0:06:46 — Eyeball juice. Is there anything besides blood? GM: “Bones, gut, spit, hair… whatever juice is in your eyeballs.” Arbiter: “I don’t have an eyeball juice guy. I have a blood guy.” GM: “It’s very greasy… very sticky. Depends on how you cook it.” Prizes: Ivanna is promised “the finest eyeball juice dish” from their chef (“I’m drooling already”). Kleen asks for chocolate ice cream, no eyeballs. GM: “That’s what makes the chocolate ice cream really good, is the eyeballs.” Kleen suggests marshmallows or nuts; GM: “What are these marshmallows you speak of?”

The arena — Kirken’s Mine (0:08:43)

8. The Arbiter claps again. A cold wave of snow and wind blows through the portal into an abandoned mine.
9. 0:09:04 — GM: “This used to be called Kirken’s Mine. Used to. Of course, it’s my mine now. … I enjoy this little jewel hidden far up in the north. You see, Kirken up here, well, I suppose abandoned isn’t the right word here. He never really left, but he doesn’t own it anymore.” Kleen looks queasy. GM: “With all the white around here, you could bleach anything and get away with it.”
10. 0:10:00 — Terrain: heights, levels and rubble; snow to play with (“create a few snowmen… They better look pretty darn impressive”); snowballs and icicles; steps to the north; platforms. It’s icy: “If you slip on the ice here onto your ass, we’ll be laughing at you.” The GM mixes up her 2s and 3s (“It’s all that water got to my head”).
11. 0:12:45 The GM points up at the ring of spectators: “your great, great Grandmaster, not that makes me old or anything.” She has “not yet forgotten the chaotic event that you had summoned so beautifully at the very last moments of our last battle.” (This pays off S1E3’s bottled crowd chaos.) The champion who rolls second in initiative picks the opening chaos event. She leaves in a mini blizzard.
12. 0:14:48 Arbiter: “I want a dirty, dirty fight. I want to see this snow covered in red blood.” He leaves by Gaseous Form. GM: “Is that another way of farting your way up?” “It is.” “He’s compelled by his own beans.”

Opening chaos — Acolyte dodgeball (0:15:44)

13. Ivanna rolls last (6), then rolls 16 on the chaos d20. “We’re starting this game off with a bit of dodgeball!” Chat throws whatever they have. Items called out: dragons, Coke bottles, Doritos, frogs, hot dogs, spaghetti, mini cactuses, Pickle Rick, an angry cucumber, “even a Mud Cat”, bananas, skulls, “the bounciest kitty booty,” a hammer, a bomb, a toilet, a picnic basket, tea.
14. 0:19:18 It’s a DC 16 Dex save. Kleen saves (16) and is hit by three items at half damage: a Dorito, a banana and popcorn. “This is the banana. It always is.” Ivanna fails (13) and picks her hits: pasta, a cookie next to a teacup “from Pexy,” a cute pumpkin, each doubled. That’s 13 damage. “I’m already bleeding.” GM: “Perhaps one of those toilets hit you as well.” Arbiter: “There’s already blood on the field.”

Round 1

15. 0:21:47 Kleen sends his imp up to scout (“What are you doing, you idiot?”). Eldritch Blast ×3 hits for 34 (one glancing blow at exactly her AC does half; arena rule). He misty-steps (“bamf”) to the top of a 20-ft pillar: “I am a glass cannon.” GM: “A hit and run?”
16. 0:25:02 Ivanna: “I have blood all over me, but I’m gonna wipe it and lick it… Not so Kleen, I see.” She casts Moonbeam; Kleen fails the save.
17. 0:27:23 — Wild Shape. The GM narrates the moon shining “like the sun into this darkness,” bringing out “the hues of diamonds and blues and golds” of the abandoned mine. Ivanna lets chat pick her form: #20, a hippogriff. Transformation: her hair and dress float as she spins, her arms become white wings, and a beak appears with lipstick on it. Her paws have nail polish. “She is very sexy, sexy Hippogriff.” It has 19 HP: “It’s a pretty Hippogriff, it’s not a strong Hippogriff.” She flies to the far corner, blowing a kiss.
18. 0:32:14 The crowd awards both champions a hero point. GM: “Ask, and we will make a ruling.”

Round 2

19. 0:34:12 Kleen: “With my feat, Spell Sniper… Eldritch Spear. My range on my Eldritch Blast is 600 feet.” Arbiter: “It might as well be 10 kilometers.” His first blast is a nat 20 (arena rule: max damage plus the roll). All three hit the hippogriff (AC 11) for 47 total. The hippogriff drops and the spillover leaves Ivanna at 22. Sylvie: “Never let a DM build a character.” (Kleen was built by a DM.) GM: “I don’t think you’re getting your eyeball dessert later.” Arbiter: “There is blood and eyeballs everywhere.”
20. 0:39:07 Ivanna rolls a nat 20 on her Moonbeam concentration save. The GM rules that the Moonbeam does double damage next turn: “You have tested Ivanna Kishu and her mind has only held on even stronger.” Kleen steps away (Misty Step) and “casually walks 30 feet.”
21. 0:40:46 — The hair brush. “First, I’m gonna brush my hair, and then this is just a flavor action. And while brushing my hair, I’m gonna heal myself… 70 hit points.” GM: “That is a recovery like I have never seen before.” She wild-shapes again. She wanted a lion, which isn’t on her list, so she takes a dire wolf “with stripes,” flavored like a tiger. (“Hamster [in a] ball,” the Arbiter suggests.)
22. 0:43:30 — The howl-off. “Just because she’s a wolf, does she actually have a good howl?” The best howl wins a 1d4 bless, with chat voting in a poll. Ivanna howls; Kleen’s mic cuts out at first (“Discord hates me”), then: “The pain I feel.” The GM googles how to make a poll.
23. 0:46:48 — The Arbiter’s ice shield. “They’ve showed a real tenacity in the face of an unrelenting Eldritch Blast.” On a coin flip, swirling snow and ice form a sheet of ice over the wolf’s fur: resistance to force damage for one round. “It has nothing to do with the fact that I placed a small wager on you. This is totally arbitrary and out of the kindness of my own heart.” Chat gives Ivanna the d4 bless too. “I feel like the gods are with me.”
24. 0:50:23 “I cast confusion on myself.” “It’s super effective.” The wolf leaps a wide gap (Athletics 16) and burrows into a snowdrift to hide (stealth 13 to 14; +2 AC from cover).
25. 0:53:12 — Break. GM: “I’m terribly confused by most things, and I might need a small refresher… recalibrate.” Arbiter: “Make your way to the concession stands.”

After the break

26. 0:53:58 “I like that you did real screaming and the rest of us just opened our mouths.” Arbiter: “This useless one might be mine.” GM: “Your talents are very few.” “Regardless of what you think, I’m still proud of myself… I have some self-esteem and some pride.” “Well, that won’t be reflected in your paycheck.”
27. 0:54:52 “The Acolytes told me during the break, I was talking to them by the nacho fountain, and they demand a chaos event.”

Chaos event — the Round of the Pig (0:55:36)

28. Kleen rolls 8. For one round, everything the characters say must be in Pig Latin. Anyone who fails gets a small rock thrown at them by the Arbiter (1 bludgeoning). The Arbiter explains: “Igpe Atenle.” “Round three, the Round of the Pig, begins now.”
29. 0:57:42 Kleen garbles (“I aquae ute over a ear-ay… Holy say”). He jumps down a high ledge and fails Athletics (5): a twisted ankle, half movement for a round. He casts Investiture of Flame (“Aim play”): flames race across his body, giving bright light 30 ft and dim light 30 more, and cold resistance.
30. 1:00:51 Ivanna struggles to move the Moonbeam in Pig Latin (“Unmei, Unbei, Ovei…”). Arbiter: “Nope.” She can only move it 60 ft, putting it right in front of him but not on him: “It would be his choice to step into the spotlight.” “Frustration A!” Arbiter: “Grandmaster, are you following any of this?” GM: “Of course!… Force K!” The GM has two rocks thrown at her for answering without Pig Latin.
31. 1:04:22 Ivanna spends her hero point: the GM lets her cast a spell in beast form. She casts Ice Storm. She’s not speaking Pig Latin, so a rock hits her for 1. Her answer is a very long “Ayyyyyy…” She also tried to use metamagic (Distant Spell, sorcery points) to move the Moonbeam: she’s multiclassed. Ice Storm does 2 bludgeoning plus 3 cold (Kleen resists cold; “We round up. We like to see damage here.”), and its area becomes difficult terrain: a quarter movement with his twisted ankle. Arbiter: “If you’re listening to the D20 Deathmatch podcast, I am so sorry. Seriously.”
32. 1:10:38 “The Acolytes are demanding that Kleen take a rock to the face as well.” The Arbiter chucks one for fun: 20 to hit, 1 damage. Kleen holds concentration. GM: “This became very personal all of a sudden.”
33. 1:11:50 — The curse lifts. “The Latin pigs are very happy… a small herd of them… run across the map, giving them your little blessing… no one has to speak Pig Latin ever again for the rest of their life.” Sylvie: “I’ve never thought I would miss speaking normally.”
34. 1:13:15 The Arbiter rolls a 9; the GM makes him reroll (“I was so sad”), and he rolls a 7 (“much better”).

Round 4–5

35. 1:13:47 Kleen: “I’m singing a song of fire and ice right now.” He rolls a nat 20 perception: “You can literally see the steam rising from that pile of snow.” He finds something shiny in the snow: an ice snowball, fluffy outside with an ice ball at its core. 2d12 ice damage, bonus action, 30-ft range. Arbiter: “That’s a game ender is what I like to call that one.” Kleen: “I will set my balls into my pants.”
36. 1:16:11 Spell Sniper ignores her half cover. GM: “You did a nice little pretty snowdrift and yet you have failed.” The GM laughs so hard that the water she was pretending to drink, to look hydrated, spills all over the Arbiter. He steams his own body dry with magic: “Are you cooking?” “Cooking those pigs that ran through.”
37. 1:16:57 — Mr. Kleen. “My Eldritch Blasts come out, this time in the form of a bald man, with a ring in his ear. I shout, ‘There is no Kleen like Mr. Kleen!’” Three hit the wolf for 37, halved to 18 by the ice shield, and she stays a wolf. Ivanna: “Yo, yo, yo. Stinky balls… I’m biting your balls.”
38. 1:18:44 — Elemental Gift: “I begin to take on the characteristics of my patron, the genie.” He gains a 30-ft fly speed and bludgeoning resistance, and floats 30 ft up, still in his flame (“Burn away the bacteria”). Ivanna holds the Moonbeam (16): “It’s my moon.”
39. 1:21:41 — Ivanna returns. She drops the wolf form: “Ivanna comes back! I am tired of all of this. Let’s end it.” Kleen is 150 ft away. She casts Call Lightning, and he fails (11) for 20 lightning damage. The Moonbeam drops, since she can only hold one concentration spell.
40. 1:25:06 — The avalanche. The Arbiter’s 9 triggers an event: the GM lets him “shake things up in any way that you see please.” “I’ve seen enough of this arena. It’s starting to bore me. They’re very far apart.” He claps; a thunderous boom echoes and the mountaintop snow avalanches down, filling Kirken’s Mine. Both make Dex saves: Ivanna 22, Kleen 4 (3 damage after resistance, “ice… hits you in the head”). They escape out the mineshaft door onto a rickety, swaying bridge 80 ft above a frozen waterfall. Call Lightning stays behind in the mine.

On the bridge

41. 1:28:10 Initiative is rerolled (Kleen 7, Ivanna 5). Kleen’s Eldritch Blasts: 26, a nat 20 and a “dirty 20,” for 52 force. GM: “She’s sweeping up her ashes by the end of this round.” Ivanna: “I am not scared. Okay, hit me.” His ice snowball hits (17) for 18 cold. Arbiter: “With one swift snowball movement, you have brought this fight back to almost dead even.” GM: “A sniper with the spells and sniper with the snow… Clean up the competition.” He flies 30 ft back.
42. 1:32:10 — Blood healing. “When I lick my blood, to put it back inside my body, I heal a little bit more… This is the new way of healing. You drink your blood back.” Arbiter: “Would you like to talk to my guy, Larry?” She casts healing hands for 12 (“Better than zero”). GM: “Ivanna Kishu is clearly just the forerunner [in blood-drinking]… like that weird Skyrim dude who could just eat wheels of cheese and heal.” The two keep backing apart: “like… the same side of magnet.” Kleen: “My character is literally a camper.”
43. 1:34:30 — Ivanna’s prayer. “Ivanna Kishu, Ivanna French Kishu, would like to ask you for a blessing… You’re here for a show, so let me give you a show. Let me spill out some more blood, but not from me this time.” The GM has her roll perception (DC 12), which she barely makes: she finds her own ice snowball. She blows a kiss.
44. 1:36:00 — “Just Kleen.” Arbiter: “Mr. Kleen. It’s time for you to clean this up.” Kleen: “Sir or just Kleen? Mr. Kleen is my patron. I’m just Kleen.” “Is Kleen short for something like Kleenzington?” “Just Kleen.”
45. 1:36:28 Kleen spends his one and only pact slot on confusion. Ivanna saves easily (24, +9 Wis). He tries to fly away.
46. 1:37:15 — The GM boxes them in. “No. I am your Grandmaster.” Snowbanks build up at each end of the bridge. “Quit running away on my map, and you will face and battle each other like champions. You can fly up, but you cannot fly out.” Kleen lands in the middle: “Come at me, Ivanna.”
47. 1:37:51 Ivanna: “You tried to confuse me. I blow my kiss. Now you’re the one who’s confused.” Her confusion fails (Kleen 21). Snowball: “The balls that came out from your pants. Well, I’m throwing mine now… Coming out from my shirt, two balls!” She isn’t proficient with snowballs (“Does your character come from a snowy background?” “No.”), and it lands at Kleen’s feet. “I’m proficient in chess balls.” “You don’t throw those around.”
48. 1:40:27 — Toilets. The Arbiter rolls a nat 1 at round’s end. GM: “That Nat 1 means you have to be the one that cleans up the toilets from the stands after this. The goblins get the night off.” Kleen: “Allow me, Arbiter. I will jump in to help you after I win.”

The kill

49. 1:41:12 Kleen walks forward with Eldritch Blast (“Shocker”); one hits for 16. He spends his hero point on an action surge. “Standing 15 feet away, Ivanna Kishu… Then let us end this.” He blasts three more times. Ivanna collapses into the snowbank, the breath leaving her body.
50. 1:43:21 GM: “You can say any last words as you feel your own blood draining from your body, unable to drink it up again.” Ivanna: “You stinky balls. I don’t want to kiss you.” Kleen: “Could have ended differently.”
51. 1:43:50 — Victory. The GM glides down between them: “You were timely with your hits, holding back until the very end… I didn’t know if you would run from the fight for every moment, but when push came to shove, you truly showed your colors.” Kleen: “I think it was proven that I am the real Mr. Kleen. And also, how many toilets are we talking about?” “At least 52.” “Someone even pooped in the stands.”
52. 1:45:04 — The shitstorm. Kleen casts Prestidigitation: the filth of all 52 toilets lifts into the clouds, mixes into the atmosphere and rains down on the spectators. GM: “So you’re telling me this is a shitstorm?” Arbiter: “It is a literal shitstorm, Grandmaster.” GM to the Arbiter: “Clean up this mess. This will be one task we will not put Master Kleen to.”
53. 1:46:01 — THE ARBITER REVIVES IVANNA KISHU. “As the Arbiter grabs Ivanna Kishu by her wings, he disappears with her back into his laboratory, where he lays her on the table and revives her back to life. Looking down at her body: ‘I’m not done with you yet. You will kiss again.’” (This is a secret Arbiter revival. Ivanna is an aasimar; “by her wings” refers to her aasimar wings.)
54. 1:46:38 — Crowning. “Tonight you have witnessed the battle of icy storms… a true victor, a true winner, a true Kleener. I give you Master Kleen!” The crowd cheers while shielding their eyes and mouths from the poop rain, then “it turns a bit into a mud poop fight.” “Come, Master Kleen, and we shall get you chocolate ice cream.”

Full Dried Blood notes (click to expand)

• “Definitely the first time and not the third time that we have done this… The recording is 100% on this time.” The intro was re-recorded.
• Kleen’s player was having more fun than usual: “unless I’m DMing… I like to be in the center of attention.”
• Mudcat on the format: “As the DM, you have that urge where you want to kill your players, but you can’t… We don’t have that problem here.”
• Recap of earlier deaths:
  • Nearly everyone died together in a playtest, “like Hunger Games style.” This points to Playtest 1 or 2 (see review).
  • “We even had the Acolytes chat kill somebody” with the dodgeball finishing blow, in an earlier episode.
• Pig Latin: “I’m not American.” Kleen’s player suggests French next time (“How do you say Eldritch Blast in French?”). Mudcat says Pig Latin was Caustic Phoenix “getting back at you for making her speak French.” Caustic Phoenix previously tried French at the table and only remembered “axe” and “cantrip” (she guessed “cantrip” every time).
• Caustic Phoenix to Chris: “Eldritch Blast was your BFF.” Chris was banking on the genie features; “she never walked into my circle of flame.” Sylvie: “I’m never doing whatever you want me to do.”
• Parting words: Sylvie thanks chat for the hero points; Chris: “I’m glad I won.”