S3E4, Crypto Monkeys - K-Boom v Ignacio Marchade

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A gnome artificer selling his own cryptocurrency and a red-eyed barbarian with a winged monkey were pulled into The Void to fight at a lonely, freezing lake. K-Boom and Ignacio Marchade spent the match trading insults, javelins and fireballs. Along the way they fell into something like love, and in the end K-Boom cradled his dying rival in his arms. The lake’s own monster had the final word: it dragged both bodies into the deep. It was the night the Grandmaster called “the variety pack.”

The Story

Band Tryouts at the Dread Fortress

The evening began with the Arbiter clacking through the halls in a new pair of Italian leather boots, “awarded to him for good behavior in his prison cell.” His hands were still shackled. He was coming back from grocery shopping, which was now his job, because “going to Walmart is terrifying and no one else wants to do it.” He followed the sound of amazing cowbell down the cracked, still-unrenovated hallways of The Dread Fortress (the kitchen, at least, was finally done). The trail led to a small black room with a stage, a spotlight and a sign reading “band tryouts.”

There sat the Grandmaster on a metal chair, arms crossed, auditioning five goblins: three on cowbell and Kyle, who “already had his guitar.” The cowbells had been found free in the basement. She was convinced that “no one has ever heard of a three goblin cowbell band,” that it would help tourism, and that it should open the next match.

The Arbiter muttered his self-improvement mantra (“I’m letting my anger go. I’m letting the hatred go. I’m going to be a better person”) and pointed out that it was Sunday. He had interrupted Sarah’s solo. “You’re a star, Sarah,” the Grandmaster consoled her. “Don’t quit your day job, Sarah,” said the Arbiter. “Her day job is here,” the Grandmaster replied. The band was postponed to next week, and the Arbiter clapped his chained hands to tear open a portal.

The Gnome and the Man in the Hood

K-Boom stepped through first and greeted “Master Chief and Arbiter.” He was a gnome artificer, “aka Kyle Boomishnow, aka Kaboom,” 3’2” on a good day (“the doctors say I’m like three foot one and a half, but I round up… for the ladies”). He wore a long robe hung with trinkets, vials and gears over plate armor. He loved three things: explosives, cigarettes and cryptocurrency. He had come to win and prove that K-Boom Coin “is gonna be the best cryptocurrency that the realm has ever seen.”

Ignacio Marchade answered in a voice from the bottom of a well. He had “come back from the realms to whip K-Boom’s ass… and when I say ass, I mean die ass,” and he noted that crypto had gone down a lot in the market. When the Grandmaster asked whether he’d brought a friend, he presented Mort, a monkey to whom he had given wings. K-Boom called it “copyright infringement just waiting to happen.” Ignacio insisted Mort was his own creature.

Then someone said “Doug,” so Doug, the Grandmaster’s tiny, very round pug, appeared. He sniffed Mort, they became best friends on the spot, and Doug shared a toy. Mort was allowed into the arena “as long as Mort is potty trained.” “We’ve had worse in the arena,” said the Arbiter. “Well, we’ve had you in the arena,” said the Grandmaster.

The Frozen Lake

There was no portal this time. The room faded, and a cold breeze carried everyone to a quiet lakeside beside a dilapidated cabin, ringed by snow-covered mountains. The lake was shallow except for a deep, dark pit in its middle. Strangely, it wasn’t frozen at all. High above, the Acolytes huddled in an ethereal coliseum in earmuffs and mittens, clutching hot cocoa.

K-Boom produced a microphone, conjured himself a little spotlight and delivered a rousing speech in the style of a famous Independence Day address, adapted to “the 14th of August.” It would “no longer be known as a void holiday,” he declared, but as the day “we will not go quietly into the night… K-Boom coin on sale now.” The Grandmaster wept and blessed both champions. When the Arbiter suggested K-Boom had what it took to be president, the gnome replied: “My dad used to say the same thing before he died tragically from a house fire that I caused accidentally.” He then added a fourth love to his list: arson.

Javelins, Thighs and a Monkey in a Box

K-Boom opened with a bolt of fire that missed entirely. Ignacio claimed it whittled “maybe my pinky toe. I am not fazed.” Before things could heat up, the Acolytes summoned The Box of Chaos. A giant pink and purple box slammed into the water, and Gerald’s shadowy fingers and yellow eyes crept out. Half the crowd chanted “K-Boom! Crypto, crypto, crypto!” and the other half “Ignacio Mort!”

Ignacio dashed straight to the box and offered up his own best friend. “Who are you supposed to be and what the fuck is that?” Gerald asked. “I kinda wanted that thing, whatever it is.” While K-Boom threatened to call animal services, Ignacio explained, “He knows the deal. He signed on for the trip.” Gerald took Mort, and the Grandmaster promised that Mort would be well fed and “even get his own bedroom.” In return, Gerald floated over the Wheel of Stars, a small metal item. Ignacio never got around to using it.

Ignacio’s javelins went less well. The first landed beside K-Boom’s pinky toe, “almost like it’s more of a threat.” The second split the first in half. “You are lucky I forgot my left contact,” Ignacio growled. A fangirl in the stands had apparently stolen it, because his glowing red eyes, glimpsed under his hood, kept making Acolytes faint and wake up fanning themselves. Then he flew into a rage. He tore off his sleeves and hiked his shorts even shorter, and his muscles burst through the seams. K-Boom was less frightened than impressed by the thighs. “I do Pilates,” Ignacio explained.

Meanwhile Mort had turned up on the Grandmaster’s pedestal beside Doug, and he began joining in the Arbiter’s end-of-round dice rolls. “My self-worth is not tied to dice rolls,” the Arbiter told himself.

Magic Missiles and the Locked Box

K-Boom tapped his chest, and a shoulder rocket unfolded, painted laser dots on Ignacio and hammered him with magic missiles. It was “built in my basement after my father died… before I delved into crypto.” Ignacio needed several tries and some pleading from the Grandmaster, but he finally landed a crossbow bolt in K-Boom’s thigh. He then tried to scramble up the snowy rocks for the high ground, but his “thunderous thighs” melted the snow beneath him. He only reached a ledge ten feet up and skinned his knee.

The crowd turned into a mob and started pelting the arena: swords, spaghetti, raccoons, raw chicken, holiday presents and an anchor (“Who keeps an anchor?”). Ignacio danced through all of it with the luckiest dodge of his life. He caught 48 pennies and ate a passing fish. K-Boom, floundering in the water, was hit by a cake with a hundred burning candles and pecked by a seagull.

Battered, K-Boom went to the box and offered one K-Boom coin, “one of the first in existence,” worth 50,000 gold. Gerald was keen: “I’ve only got 200,000 in my savings account. I’ll take four.” K-Boom wanted an item, not gold, so Gerald went back inside to think about it. Then, after K-Boom’s truly abysmal attempt at persuasion, someone inside slid a deadbolt across the lid.

Ignacio gloated, then pleaded: “Whatever you’re doing, please don’t throw it.” K-Boom threw it. He hurled a vial and flicked his cigarette after it, and the two met midair in a fireball. He was standing far too close and roasted himself worse than Ignacio, losing his eyebrows (he kept the mustache “because it grows back faster”). “Fire bad,” said the Grandmaster. K-Boom dunked himself in the lake and discovered the water was magical and healed his burns. “Oh God, the water, it burns,” he lied. Ignacio could see the wounds closing.

No More Mr. Nice Kaboom

Ignacio waded in, squatted to reach the gnome’s throat and announced a “five finger death punch.” K-Boom answered with his best trick. He flicked a switch on his chest, his pauldrons sprang open, and a swarm of daggers whirled around him. Ignacio ducked underwater to wash the blood off his face and rose “almost in a beautiful mermaid form.” The Grandmaster came down with hiccups.

“No more Mr. Nice Kaboom,” K-Boom declared, crying on the inside. He chugged an energy drink and smashed the can on his forehead. He blinked away and charged back so the dagger cloud sliced Ignacio again, then grabbed Ignacio’s thighs underwater and sent lightning through the lake. Both of them were wearing metal. “My middle name is Pain,” K-Boom said. It was actually Michael. Ignacio’s frenzied lance jabs at “right arm, left leg, and left earlobe” all missed so badly that a slot-machine jingle rang out and gold coins rained into the water. He finally struck home on another try.

When K-Boom insisted on calling the Grandmaster “Master Chief” again, she corrected him: “I am the Grandmaster. Get my name right. And it’s Dogecoin with Doug’s face on it that rules the day here.” “That is Doug coin,” K-Boom shot back. “Doge coin is completely different.” The crowd booed him.

Return to Monkey

“When in doubt,” K-Boom’s father once told him, “return to monkey.” K-Boom drank a brown vial and became a giant ape, “K-Konga, the Crypto Monkey,” and smashed Ignacio’s right pinky toe so hard the lakebed cracked. Ignacio pulled two javelins from the water and drove them into the ape’s chest. K-Boom lost his grip on the spell and shed the ape “almost like skin,” revealing “your typical, now eyebrowless, K-Boom.” Ignacio then aimed his lance at the gnome’s sack. “That’s a low blow given his height,” said the Arbiter. With a nudge from the Grandmaster’s blessing, it landed as a glancing blow to the nuts.

The Arbiter had already had enough (“This place is fucking stupid. If I wasn’t imprisoned, I would quit”). “I think it’s time we encounter some of the local wildlife,” he said. A water weird shot up out of the pit behind Ignacio and lashed at him with its tail. Ignacio wrenched free.

Enemies, Friends, Fireball

The champions declared a truce on the spot. “Let’s both fuck off. Let’s run together, man,” said Ignacio. “Enemy of my enemy is my friend,” said K-Boom. “Until we kill each other, but that’ll be later,” said Ignacio. He carefully pulled away and raced for the rowboat, but the weird swam sixty feet and caught right up with him. Even the round card guy, who “can only count to seven,” ran out of cards.

K-Boom gave his new friend “a half-ass thumbs up” (“You got this, man!”), ran, lit a cigarette, and tossed two vials over his shoulder. They met in a fireball centered on Ignacio. The weird shrugged it off. Ignacio did not.

“I wish you all the cryptocurrency non-luck. I hope you lose all your stock… But I do wish you a long and healthy life, brother… at least I’ll be with Mort now. I love you, and I always have, even though you killed me.” (Ignacio Marchade)

“Wait! Don’t go into the light yet!” K-Boom slid down the rocks and cradled the burning barbarian. They could have been friends, he said, and Ignacio would be remembered, because K-Boom had a new line of cryptocurrency coming out called “NF trinkets.” He showed Ignacio a card he had drawn: a stick figure of Ignacio as an NFT, with the stats “Internalized rage, really depressed, probably has daddy issues.” “Oh god, fucking kill me now, please,” said Ignacio. His last words renamed his killer “K-Boom Marchand.”

K-Boom dropped him back in the water and launched into a sales pitch, and the weird’s tail whipped up mid-spiel. It wrapped around both of them and dragged both champions into the black pit. There was no winner. It was believed to be the first time both champions had ever died. Once before, with two champions on the brink, the Grandmaster had fused them into one body instead.

Memory Keepers

Up on the pedestal, Mort shed a small tear. “It’s okay, Mort. You’ll be reunited one day,” the Grandmaster soothed. Then she kicked over the NFT trinkets and stomped all over them. “Arbiter. Clean up this mess.” He soared up on glowing wings and dove headfirst into the lake to recover the bodies. The Grandmaster rose over the water with Mort on her shoulder and held him up to the crowd Simba-style. She told the Acolytes to be the memory keepers of the night and to “tell them the story of K-Boom and Ignacio and Mort.” Mort spread his wings and spiraled into the sky, throwing confetti.

Dried Blood

After the match, K-Boom explained that he never had much love as a child and lost his family young “due to an arson accident that is definitely not my fault legally.” He makes up for it by getting people to fall in love with him and buy his merchandise. His sack, he reported, was “non-existent right now… I’m still trying to pull out the pieces.” Ignacio announced, “I have died, but my soul lives on.” K-Boom gave one final pitch: coins at $4,000 apiece, “currently worth… twice that,” with “Ignacio NFTs” coming soon. He did admit the value had tanked “because… K-Boom died in the match.” Ignacio’s only request: “Send my percentage to my family.”

Notable Moments

• Ignacio sacrificed his own winged monkey, Mort, to the Box of Chaos. Mort spent the rest of the night hanging out with Doug and rolling dice for the Arbiter.
• K-Boom became the first champion to haggle a price with Gerald, who promptly deadbolted the box from the inside.
• K-Boom blew off his own eyebrows with his first fireball, then faked agony while the lake’s magical water healed him.
• Ignacio’s three straight misses triggered a slot-machine jingle and a shower of gold coins.
• “Return to monkey”: K-Boom turned into K-Konga, the Crypto Monkey, and lost the form to a pair of javelins in the chest.
• Both champions died together: one by fireball, then both dragged into the pit by the water weird mid-sales-pitch.

Memorable Quotes

• K-Boom: “There’s also three things in life that I love. That’s explosives, cigarettes, and cryptocurrency.”
• Gerald: “I’ve only got 200,000 in my savings account. I’ll take four.”
• Ignacio Marchade: “He knows the deal. He signed on for the trip.”
• Ignacio Marchade: “I do Pilates.”
• The Arbiter: “This place is fucking stupid. If I wasn’t imprisoned, I would quit.”
• Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: “Master Chief does not rule in this domain. I am the Grandmaster. Get my name right.”
• K-Boom: “When in doubt… return to monkey.”
• Ignacio Marchade: “From now on, K-Boom, your name is K-Boom Marchand.”

Who and What Appears

Characters

K-Boom (BrandontheDM). Gnome artificer, aka Kyle Boomishnow, aka Kaboom; his real middle name is “Michael” (“K-Michael-Boom”).

• About 3’2” (“doctors say 3’1.5”). Long robe of trinkets, vials and gears over plate armor. Smokes constantly. Loses his eyebrows to his own fireball and keeps his mustache.
• Loves explosives, cigarettes, cryptocurrency and arson. He founded K-Boom Coin, claimed to be worth 50,000 gold each, and is launching “NF trinkets”, with an Ignacio NFT. A self-described sleazy salesman and shill.
• His father died in a house fire K-Boom accidentally caused, and he lost his family young to an arson accident. His father’s sayings: “when in doubt… return to monkey.”
• His gadgetry was “built in my basement after my father died”:
  • a chest switch that opens pauldrons of daggers (Cloud of Daggers);
  • a Predator-style shoulder rocket (magic missile);
  • vial-plus-cigarette fireballs;
  • a brown vial for Polymorph (giant ape, “K-Konga, the Crypto Monkey”).
• Has War Caster. Keeps calling the Grandmaster “Master Chief.”
• The Box of Chaos locked itself against him.

Ignacio Marchade (Karim Cheese). Raging barbarian.

• Deep voice, deep-set hood, cloth mask, glowing red eyes that make Acolytes swoon. Wears contact lenses; one was stolen by a fangirl.
• Fights with javelins, a lance and a crossbow. Does Pilates. His dad called him “Pain.”
• Mort’s owner; sacrificed Mort to the Box and got the Wheel of Stars.
• At death he declared his love for K-Boom and renamed him “K-Boom Marchand.” Died “but my soul lives on” (Dried Blood).

Mort. A monkey with wings that Ignacio gave him (taken by K-Boom to be a Wizard of Oz monkey; Ignacio denies it). Found in the Appalachian Mountains.

• Sacrificed to the Box of Chaos. He then hangs out with Doug on the Grandmaster’s pedestal and rolls the plush D20 for the Arbiter’s end-of-round rolls.
• Promised his own bedroom. Wept at the double death, was held up Simba-style, and flew off throwing confetti.

Doug. The Grandmaster’s tiny round pug, who appears when his name is said.

• Befriends Mort and shares a toy with him. Rolls a 17 on his own. “Doug rolls when he wants to roll.”
• The Arbiter threatens him (“One day, Doug”).

Gerald / the Box of Chaos (Mudcat). Pink and purple, with shadowy fingers and yellow eyes.

• Took Mort (“I kinda wanted that thing”).
• Has “200,000 in my savings account.” Offered to buy four K-Boom coins, then deadbolted the box from inside after K-Boom’s nat 1.

The water weird. Rises from the lake’s deep pit as the Arbiter’s special chaos event. Speed 60 in water. Dragged both champions’ bodies into the pit.

The Arbiter (Mudcat).

• Currently imprisoned. His hands are shackled, and he wears Italian leather boots awarded for good behavior in his prison cell.
• Now does the grocery shopping. Running anger-management mantras (“I am centered… I am the best me”; “My self-worth is not tied to dice rolls”).
• Has memorized Independence Day (“he also has it memorized,” Dried Blood).
• Recovered the bodies from the lake.

Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer (Caustic Phoenix).

• Runs goblin band tryouts. Gave both champions a d4 inspiration. “I am the law!”
• Claims “Dogecoin with Doug’s face on it” rules here (Doug coin). Stomped the NFT trinkets.
• Had hiccups after the break.

Goblin band: five goblins, three on cowbell and a guitarist. Kyle (guitarist, his own guitar) and Sarah (cowbell solo, “a star”; her day job is at the Dread Fortress).

The round card guy: can only count to seven (an unseen arena helper, as stated).

Places

• The Dread Fortress: cracked hallways still need renovating, the kitchen is finally done, there’s a small black room with a stage, and a basement holds free cowbells.
• The frozen lake arena: a dilapidated ~20 ft cabin, a holed rowboat, a dock, snowy rocks with a 10 ft ledge, sheer mountain faces at the edges. The lake is unfrozen despite the cold, and its water heals wounds, with a deep dark pit that’s home to the water weird. An ethereal coliseum of Acolytes floats above.
• The Appalachian Mountains (Mort’s origin).

Items

• Wheel of Stars (Ignacio, from the Box).
• K-Boom Coin, the Ignacio NFT / NF trinket card (stamped on by the GM), the K-Boom Coin website.
• The GM’s plush D20, the cowbells.
• Thrown arena debris: 48 pennies, the fish, the hundred-candle cake, the anchor and so on. The gold coins that rained on Ignacio’s triple 2s.

Lore statements

• The Arbiter is imprisoned at this point and serving a sentence the Grandmaster can extend.
• “A void holiday” is invoked in K-Boom’s speech (14th of August).
• Animals “in our kingdom are very well fed.”
• Things sacrificed to the Box of Chaos can reappear: Mort visits the GM’s pedestal afterward.
• Per the Dried Blood creator note, this is the first double death in the series.

Full Round-by-Round

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

Opening: the Dread Fortress and the goblin band

1. 0:00:01 The Arbiter “clack[s] his way” into the halls of the Grandmaster in Italian leather boots “awarded to him for good behavior in his prison cell.” Voices at the table insist they’re “not real Italian” (“We’re truthers”). He begs the Grandmaster: “Just give me one fucking night.”
2. 0:00:57 The Arbiter is coming back from grocery shopping, which is now his job (“going to Walmart is terrifying and no one else wants to do it”). He offers the excuse that “it’s a pandemic.”
3. 0:01:16 He follows the sound of amazing cowbell backed by rock and metal guitars down the cracked hallways of the Dread Fortress that still need renovating (“The kitchen, though, finally is done.”). The trail leads to a small black room with a lifted stage and a spotlight on a group of five goblins: three on cowbell and one guitarist in the back, under a sign reading “band tryouts.”
4. 0:02:04 The Grandmaster sits against the wall on a metal chair, arms crossed. She explains that these are band tryouts, an extracurricular activity for the goblins (“you can’t invite everyone”). The cowbells were free, found in the basement, and “Kyle over there already had his guitar.” She predicts that “no one has ever heard of a three goblin cowbell band,” says it will help tourism, and wants them as the opening act before the next match. She listens for applause from the Acolytes above, hoping they’ll back her wish for more cowbell.
5. 0:03:37 The Arbiter repeats his self-improvement mantra: “I’m letting my anger go. I’m letting the hatred go. I’m going to be a better person.” He points out that it is Sunday.
6. 0:03:56 The goblins freeze mid-cowbell, crestfallen. The Arbiter has interrupted Sarah’s solo. The Grandmaster: “You’re a star, Sarah.” The Arbiter: “Don’t quit your day job, Sarah.” The GM: “Her day job is here.” The band is put off until next week.
7. 0:04:53 The Arbiter claps his still-shackled hands, chains clanking. Thunder ripples through the Dread Fortress and a portal tears open in time and space.

The champions

8. 0:05:35 K-Boom greets “Master Chief and Arbiter.” He goes by K-Boom, “aka Kyle Boomishnow, aka Kaboom,” names known “across the different realms.” He is a gnome artificer, 3’2” on a good day (“the doctors say I’m like three foot one and a half, but I round up… for the ladies”). He wears a long robe covered in trinkets, vials and gears over plate armor. He loves three things: explosives, cigarettes and cryptocurrency. He is here to prove that K-Boom Coin “is gonna be the best cryptocurrency that the realm has ever seen” by winning.
9. 0:06:28 Ignacio Marchade, speaking in a deep voice, has “come back from the realms to whip K-Boom’s ass… and when I say ass, I mean die ass.” He adds that crypto “went down a lot in the market.” K-Boom asks whether he needs to cough or see a physician (an aside about a Lego in someone’s cereal is spoken here; the speaker is unclear). Ignacio: “I might need to see one kind of like how you might need to after this match.” K-Boom: “Wow, you are very, very dark.”
10. 0:07:21 Mort. The Grandmaster kneels and asks whether Ignacio brought a friend. He has: Mort, a monkey to whom Ignacio “gave… wings.” K-Boom: “Did you get him from Oz?… That looks like copyright infringement just waiting to happen.” Ignacio insists Mort is his own creature.
11. 0:08:11 Doug arrives. K-Boom says “she came down in a bubble, Doug,” and because someone said “Doug,” a tiny, very round pug appears. He sniffs Mort, and Mort becomes his best friend. Doug shares one of his toys. The GM allows Mort in the arena “as long as Mort is potty trained.” The Arbiter: “We’ve had worse in the arena.” The GM: “Well, we’ve had you in the arena.” The Arbiter: “I am centered. I am focused. I am the best me.”

The arena: the frozen lake

12. 0:09:36 The Arbiter claps again. There is no portal this time: the room fades and a cold breeze whisks everyone to a quiet lakeside by a dilapidated old cabin, surrounded by snow-covered mountains. The lake is shallow except for a large deeper area in the middle. “Some would say a good place to die.” “I would say it was a good place to watch people die.”
13. 0:10:27 The Grandmaster stands at the edge of the dock with Doug at her feet and welcomes them to “our frozen little getaway cabin.” High above, the ethereal Acolytes in a coliseum-style arena do “the stomp and clap… the song that we can’t mention because we don’t own the rights to it.” They wear earmuffs and mittens, hold hot cocoa, and huddle together against the cold. “May every step in the snow, every splash in the water, be a remembrance of the actions you have taken tonight.”
14. 0:11:13 Arena features:
    • The cabin is about 20 ft tall, with many boards missing.
    • A tiny rowboat with a hole in it sits on the dirt.
    • The lake is not frozen over despite the cold (“If any of you know science, most of you know that water freezes, so take that for what you will”).
    • The Grandmaster walks through crunching leaves, opens her wings to scatter them, and flies to her throne seat holding Doug.
15. 0:13:05 K-Boom’s speech. He pulls a microphone from his satchel and casts prestidigitation to make a small spotlight. Reading from scrap paper, he delivers an Independence Day-style speech adapted to “the 14th of August”: “We can’t be consumed by our petty differences anymore.” He winks at Ignacio. “The 14th of August will no longer be known as a void holiday, but the day we… declare in one voice, we will not go quietly into the night… Today, we celebrate our independence day. K-Boom coin on sale now.”
16. 0:14:22 With tears streaming down her face, the Grandmaster gives both champions a d4 inspiration die. K-Boom: “Totally original. Didn’t watch a movie last night.” The Arbiter: “I think you have what it takes to be president.” K-Boom: “My dad used to say the same thing before he died tragically from a house fire that I caused accidentally.” The Arbiter advises him to “use that fire as more fire to fuel you… otherwise his dad died for nothing.” K-Boom adds a fourth love: arson.
17. 0:15:39 Placement. K-Boom rolls a 3 and starts in the upper quadrant. Ignacio starts facing him next to the dark water, which looks like a significant drop-off. They are knee-to-chin deep in water (waist deep for the gnome, who is “hydrodynamic”) and about 65 ft apart. The Arbiter asks K-Boom for the coin’s market cap (“I got a little spiel planned out later”). Initiative: K-Boom 17, Ignacio 14.

Round 1

18. 0:18:07 Cold in the waist-high water, K-Boom decides to “heat the place up.” “Hey, Mr. Deep Voice with the monkey… You like fire?” “I do not.” His fire bolt misses. Ignacio: “I see it whittle and hit maybe my pinky toe. I am not fazed… I will end you at no cost.” K-Boom: “God, he’s from the DC universe.” Ignacio: “I lost the rights.” K-Boom retreats 15 ft. The GM notes that in water this deep “you could probably pee in the water and no one would know.”
19. 0:19:42 The Box of Chaos. The Acolytes trigger it. The Arbiter: “This is already getting boring.” A giant pink and purple box slams down between them, splashing water. Pink, purple and yellow flames shoot up in a column, the lid flies open, and shadowy fingers and yellow eyes, Gerald, creep out. Sacrificing anything, as a free action, earns a chance at a magic item.
20. 0:20:49 Hero points. Each champion gets one from the Acolytes. The Grandmaster cuts in to announce it, ruining the Arbiter’s flow. One half of the crowd chants “K-Boom! Crypto, crypto, crypto!” and the other “Ignacio Mort!” Their souls are on fire, but their bodies aren’t (“no one will take fire damage on this”). The Arbiter: “We’d say go plus ultra, but you’d probably get sued.”
21. 0:22:21 Ignacio sacrifices Mort. He dashes to the box. Gerald: “Who are you supposed to be and what the fuck is that?” (pointing at the monkey). Ignacio: “I’m the man, the myth, the legend, Ignacio. And I offer you tribute… my own best friend.” Gerald: “I kinda wanted that thing, whatever it is. I’ll definitely take it.” Ignacio: “He knows the deal. He signed on for the trip.” K-Boom: “I’m calling animal services!” Gerald grabs Mort (“It’s okay, come with me. You’re gonna really like it in here”), and the lid closes.
22. 0:24:10 The Grandmaster promises Mort will be well cared for: “All animals in our kingdom are very well fed… Mort will even get his own bedroom.” Ignacio: “This won’t be the last I see of Mort.” Mort’s backstory: Ignacio found him “strolling through… the Appalachian Mountains” (“Because he can fly”), cleaned him and fed him. The GM: “Mort needs to settle… Play with Doug.”
23. 0:25:11 The Wheel of Stars. The box rumbles and magical fire with no heat shoots up. Gerald floats Ignacio a small metal item, the Wheel of Stars. It gives +1 to Wisdom saves and lets him cast dancing lights, guidance and message. Once, as a reaction, Portent of Stars subtracts a d10 from any roll within 60 ft. Once, he can alter gravity to cast Fly or Levitate. The GM thinks dancing lights is “the one that distracts kitty cats.” (He never uses the item on camera.)
24. 0:27:10 Ignacio throws a javelin at K-Boom’s left pinky toe. It misses and lands right beside his foot “almost like it’s more of a threat.” K-Boom coaches him: “You’re like three inches off… a little more arc.” The second javelin hits the first one and splits it in half, again missing. K-Boom fakes “oh my God, you almost got me.” Ignacio: “You are lucky I forgot my left contact.” K-Boom: “I couldn’t tell… how dark your face is… can you even see out of that thing?… I just don’t think you have eyes.”
25. 0:29:22 The red eyes. Ignacio wears a deep-set hood with a cloth over his face; only glimpses of glowing red eyes show. A few Acolytes catch the shimmer and faint in the stands, then wake fanning themselves, like the three women fawning over Gaston. Ignacio: “Ladies, don’t worry. This Deathmatch will be over in a sitch. And I know one of you guys have my contact lens.” The GM: one of them stole it before the battle.
26. 0:31:00 Rage. Ignacio keeps the hood and mask on but tears off his long sleeves and pulls his shorts even shorter, and his muscles burst through the seams. His intimidation roll is a 2. Instead of being scared, K-Boom admires the thighs (“do you do quads?… I tell myself I’m gonna work out starting Monday”). Ignacio: “I do Pilates.”
27. 0:33:09 End of round. The Arbiter rolls a 4. Mort, now visiting the Grandmaster’s pedestal with Doug (Gerald presumably allowed it: “You’re the boss… Thanks, Gerald”), gets the plush D20 and rolls a 14. The Arbiter: “My self-worth is not tied to dice rolls.… I can’t control Mort. I can only control who I am.”

Round 2

28. 0:34:28 K-Boom twangs the javelins sticking out of the water, eyes the box (“fuck it, worth it”), and wades about 20 ft closer. “You know what never misses? Magic missile!” He taps his chest and a Predator-style shoulder rocket appears and lays laser dots on Ignacio. Four darts hit for 10 force. Ignacio: “Oh, you cryptocurrency son of a bitch.” K-Boom: “This was all natural, built in my basement after my father died… before I delved into crypto.” He asks Ignacio to step 10 ft back from the box so he can use it. Ignacio backs off without needing a persuasion roll.
29. 0:37:14 Ignacio drops to one knee: “This attack is nothing compared to when I go pick up my javelins… But for now, when you go to this box, say hi to Mort for me.” He aims his crossbow at K-Boom’s right thigh and rolls an 11, a miss. The Grandmaster begs and grants advantage. A 10, then a 21 that finally hits (9 piercing). K-Boom offers to “T-pose for you… You’re having a rough day.”
30. 0:39:50 Ignacio climbs the snowy rocks for the high ground and rolls an 11 on athletics. His “thunderous thighs” melt the snow and make it slick, so he only reaches a ledge about 10 ft up, scraping his knee. He “do[es] the Peter Griffin for four minutes.” The GM: it may become “a battle scar that many will swoon over.”
31. 0:41:30 The Arbiter rolls a 17: “Suck it Doug, suck it Mort.” The pets hide behind the Grandmaster’s chair. “Doug started this… One day, Doug. As soon as I get free.” The GM: “That’s gonna just extend your sentence… I can imprison you for threatening my cute little animals.” “That’s not how the law works.” “I am the law!”

Round 3: chaos event (dodgeball)

32. 0:42:34 The Acolytes trigger a chaotic event. To make Ignacio “feel better about his boo-boo,” the GM has him roll a d20 and triples it. The crowd grows mob-like, chants “Give us blood!”, and starts pelting the arena. The things thrown:
    • swords, a bag of unpopped microwave popcorn, a fork, sticky spaghetti;
    • snowmen with weird noses, beer, raccoons, an anchor (“Who keeps an anchor?”);
    • hot dogs, pre-chewed gum, Doritos, “whatever that blue cube is”;
    • a whole bag of raw chicken, a frozen quarter-pound brick of ground beef, hot water, a football, and holiday presents (“Christmas has come early”).
33. 0:44:57 Ignacio rolls a nat 20 on the Dex save (“First Nat 20 of Ignacio’s life”). He hops around dodging everything and catches 48 cents in pennies, all 48 of them. Someone throws down a fish, which he eats for 3 HP.
34. 0:45:52 K-Boom flounders in the water. A fiery cake with a hundred candles lands on him (“you do like arson, so it is all yours”), and a seagull dives in and pecks him. “Dodge everything but a ball… absolutely no balls thrown.”
35. 0:46:43 K-Boom v the Box. He pats out the flames and patches the beak bite (“This place sucks”). He offers the box one whole K-Boom coin, “one of the first in existence… currently… worth 50,000 gold.” Gerald: “I’ve only got 200,000 in my savings account. I’ll take four.” Gerald offers 200,000 gold for four coins, but K-Boom says he wants a cool item, not gold. Gerald: “I didn’t realize how the deal was going… I’ll be right back.” K-Boom rolls a nat 1 on persuasion (“It’s actually a zero”). Someone inside locks the box and slides a deadbolt. K-Boom kicks it. (Whether any coin changed hands isn’t stated.)
36. 0:48:41 K-Boom mixes two vials, cigarette in his mouth. Ignacio gloats: “I put the monkey in, and it gave me a wheel of goodness, and you got shit. Eat it.” Then: “Whatever you’re doing, please don’t throw it.” “Oh, you said throw it?” He chucks the vial and flicks the cigarette after it, and they meet in midair as a Fireball. He is only 15 ft away, so he catches himself in the blast. Ignacio saves (21) and takes 16. K-Boom fails and takes 32 fire, losing his eyebrows (“that’s why I keep just the mustache because it grows back faster”). “K-Boom is not a smart man.” GM: “Fire bad.” Arbiter: “Fire very bad, as it turns out.”
37. 0:52:23 The healing water. K-Boom dunks himself. The lake water is magical and heals his burns (7 HP). He fakes it: “Oh God, the water, it burns.” Ignacio’s insight beats his deception, and he can see the wounds closing. K-Boom insists “it’s infection… The skin is closing so fast… Don’t get in the water.”
38. 0:54:37 Ignacio wades right up: “I think I’m going to five finger death punch you in the throat.” K-Boom: “That band sucks, but okay.” He has to squat to reach the gnome’s throat (8 bludgeoning with rage). His Intimidating Presence fails against K-Boom’s Wisdom save. K-Boom: “This ain’t the first time a devil’s beat me down.” Ignacio: “Even though you stand tall…” The GM: “Small correction, he stands short.” Ignacio: “I wanted to be his dad for 2.5 seconds.” The GM: “Now that you’ve lost Mort, you’re now looking for a replacement child.”
39. 0:57:46 Ignacio cartwheels away (athletics 20), so K-Boom’s opportunity attack has disadvantage. K-Boom uses War Caster instead: he flicks a switch on his chest, pauldrons open, and a swarm of daggers flies out as Cloud of Daggers, centered on himself, while Ignacio is still in range. Ignacio takes 6 (resisted while raging): “Thank you so much for the daggers. If they stay in me, I shall use them.” K-Boom: “They’re magical… they just kind of like, poof away.”
40. 1:00:36 Ignacio ducks under the water to wash the blood off his face and heals 2. He emerges “almost in a beautiful mermaid form,” face clear and red eyes burning, still inside the daggers.
41. 1:01:39 The Arbiter rolls a 10 (“It’s average”). Mort adds a 4 to make it 14. “First a pug and now a fucking monkey.” Break.

Round 4 (after the break)

42. 1:02:30 “Welcome back, Acolyte, to the chaos.” The Grandmaster has a bad case of hiccups. The Arbiter calls it round three, and Ignacio corrects him: “Number four!”
43. 1:02:49 K-Boom’s combo. His eyes are red, “not red from anger, red from tears, because he is crying on the inside.” “No more Mr. Nice Kaboom.” He chugs an energy drink and smashes the can on his forehead. He misty-steps 15 ft back, then sprints back in so the dagger cloud around him slices Ignacio again (10). With a “maniacal crying laugh” (“eat shit”), he grabs Ignacio’s thighs underwater and casts Shocking Grasp in the water. Both wear metal. Nature checks: Ignacio rolls a nat 20 and K-Boom a 19, so “Y’all know this is gonna be really painful.” K-Boom: “My middle name is Pain.” Ignacio: “That’s what my dad called me.” (His real middle name: “K-Michael-Boom.”) Both take lightning damage, K-Boom half. Blood flies.
44. 1:07:39 Even so, Ignacio stays “incredibly photogenic.” Fangirls in the stands post story after story on Instagram. Ignacio: “Thank you so much, fans… I’m about to end this crypto, bitch. Love you guys.” He starts his turn in the daggers again (“I was getting the most out of this spell”).
45. 1:08:39 Ignacio moves on top of K-Boom and makes a frenzied attack, three lance jabs at “right arm, left leg, and left earlobe.” All three miss: 2, 2, 2. A slot-machine sound rings from the sky and gold coins rain into the water around him. He spends his hero point to try again and hits with a 25. “K-Boom, you made me do this.” “Fuck you, man. I didn’t make you do shit.” “That’s what you get for using a electric attack.” K-Boom: “You have a very internalized anger you have not resolved yet.… Would you like some K-Boom coin?”
46. 1:11:20 Master Chief and Doug coin. K-Boom calls the GM “Master Chief” again. GM: “Master Chief does not rule in this domain. I am the Grandmaster. Get my name right. And it’s Dogecoin with Doug’s face on it that rules the day here.” K-Boom: “That is Doug coin. Doge coin is completely different. You don’t even know your own crypto… Mario, do you believe this?” The crowd boos him. Ignacio: “We made our mess and now we have to sit in it.”
47. 1:12:11 A javelin does 8 piercing. Ignacio then fires his crossbow point-blank at disadvantage (17 and 20). It’s a glancing blow for 4. “How did you enjoy that crossbow, buddy?” “I didn’t at all, actually.” K-Boom is now full of holes, like a porcupine “on the wrong side.”
48. 1:14:07 The Arbiter rolls a 16: “Fuck you, monkey… Both of them. I got two fingers.” Doug rolls a 17: “He’s not supposed to roll.” “Doug rolls when he wants to roll.”

Round 5: return to monkey

49. 1:14:33 The Arbiter: “This place is fucking stupid. If I wasn’t imprisoned, I would quit.”
50. 1:14:51 K-Boom: “Big old intimidating tough guy that gave you your monkey… I’m going to give you a brand new monkey. There’s something my father once told me… when in doubt… return to monkey.” He drinks a brown vial and casts Polymorph on himself, becoming a giant ape. The dagger cloud dissipates into the water. He spends his hero point for a second action and goes “complete Kong style, Donkey Kong down B.” The first fist misses against Ignacio’s AC. The second smashes down on Ignacio’s right pinky toe for 22 (“ooh, ooh, ooh”). The ground cracks and water seeps through.
51. 1:18:49 Ignacio pulls two javelins out of the water and plunges them into the ape’s chest. Both hit. K-Boom rolls a nat 1 on concentration and reverts, shedding the ape “almost like skin,” as “your typical, now eyebrowless, K-Boom.” “Oh, hey there. I saw you met my friend.” Ignacio: “I told you I was gonna get you.” The ape’s club name was “K-Konga, the Crypto Monkey.”
52. 1:21:27 The sack. Ignacio: “I’m going to take my lance and I’m going to put it right towards your sack.” The GM: “You sounded like a magician… Make this disappear.” The Arbiter: “That’s a low blow given his height.” It misses with a 16, but the GM reminds him of her inspiration die (“How dare you forget”). He adds a 1, which makes it a glancing blow to the nuts.
53. 1:23:07 K-Boom: “You sacrifice your monkey from Oz and you see me as a giant ape and you stab me.… I turned into an ape because you got rid of your ape… I was trying to make you reminisce on your monkey.” Ignacio: “You turn into an ape and beat the shit out of me.” GM: “If you can’t respect yourself, how do you expect your opponent to respect you?”
54. 1:23:44 The Arbiter’s special chaotic event: the water weird. The Arbiter’s roll crosses the threshold. “I think it’s time we encounter some of the local wildlife.” A water weird shoots up out of the deep dark pit behind Ignacio and whips its tail to grapple him. He resists (Strength 19). The weird joins the initiative order.

Round 6: the truce

55. 1:25:28 K-Boom: “I’m going to fuck off, and you can fuck off with me.” Ignacio: “Let’s both fuck off. Let’s run together, man.” K-Boom: “Enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Ignacio: “Until we kill each other, but that’ll be later.”
56. 1:27:29 Ignacio takes the Disengage action and dashes 40 ft toward the rowboat. The water weird swims 60 ft and catches right up to him anyway. Its tail grab misses.
57. 1:30:10 End of the round. “We’re out of [round] cards now… We gotta get a new round card guy, because he can only count to seven.” K-Boom: “How did he manage becoming a god if he can’t ca— This place is so messed up!”

Round 7: the double death

59. 1:30:33 K-Boom gives Ignacio “a half-ass thumbs up. You got this, man!” Then he runs away, lights a cigarette (“oh God, oh God”), and tosses two vials behind his back that connect in midair: a 4th-level Fireball centered on Ignacio, catching the water weird too. Ignacio fails his save; the weird saves. The GM: “Have we not played basic Pokémon? Fire is weak to water.” 45 fire takes Ignacio to 0 HP.
60. 1:32:29 Ignacio’s dying testament. “Even though I fall short and Water Weird kind of entered my game, it has been a great battle. I wish you all the cryptocurrency non-luck. I hope you lose all your stock… But I do wish you a long and healthy life, brother… at least I’ll be with Mort now. I love you, and I always have, even though you killed me. I thought our relationship would grow into something so beautiful that neither of us would be able to stop that love or passion.”
61. 1:33:21 K-Boom: “Wait! Don’t go into the light yet!” The GM: “It’s the guy who cast the light.” K-Boom slides down the rocks and holds the burning Ignacio in his arms (“this kind of hurts a little bit”). “Hey, we could have been friends. We really could have… even in your death, you will be remembered. Because I have a new line of cryptocurrency coming out. They’re called NF trinkets.” Ignacio: “Oh god, fucking kill me now, please.” K-Boom shows him a card he drew during the water weird fight: a stick figure of Ignacio as an NFT, with stats: “Internalized rage, really depressed, probably has daddy issues.” “They hit the market tomorrow.”
62. 1:34:29 Ignacio’s last words: “From now on, K-Boom, your name is K-Boom Marchand.” K-Boom drops him back in the water and starts pitching to the crowd: “K-Boom coin on sale now… kboomgetsthatbread at hotmailfirefox.com.”
63. 1:34:50 Mid-spiel, the water weird’s tail whips up out of the water for 19 bludgeoning. As K-Boom tries to shield his cryptocurrency, the tail wraps around both of them and drags both bodies down into the pit. They sink into the blackness. Both champions die. There is no winner.
64. 1:35:25 High above, Mort sheds a small tear and his lower lip trembles. The Grandmaster holds him: “It’s okay, Mort. You’ll be reunited one day.” Then she kicks over the new NFT trinkets and stamps all over them. “Arbiter. Clean up this mess.”
65. 1:35:58 The Arbiter launches into the sky, his wings glowing in the reflection off the snow, and dives headfirst into the deep water to recover the bodies.
66. 1:36:13 The closing. Mort on her shoulder, the Grandmaster rises on the water “as if she’s wearing one of those cool hydro jet packs.” Among the Acolytes she says: “Two champions… not only fought their hardest and not only fought to their death, but both sacrificed their lives in a series of some very smart and some very dumb moves. You got the variety pack tonight.” She holds Mort up Simba-style: “Tell this to your little ones so they may be the memory keepers of tonight… so that way we never be forgotten… tell them the story of K-Boom and Ignacio and Mort.” Mort’s wings open and he spirals into the sky throwing confetti. “Welcome and good night to D20 Deathmatch!”

Full Dried Blood notes (click to expand)

In character (canon, source: Dried Blood)

• 1:38:11 K-Boom’s backstory (Brandon, describing his character): “K-Boom never had a lot of love when he was a child, so he tries to… externalize that love by growing attachments with other people.” He “lost my family when I was very young due to an arson accident that is definitely not my fault legally.” He makes up for it by getting people to fall in love with him and buy his merchandise.
• 1:38:43 The sack (K-Boom, likely in character): “It’s non-existent right now… I’m still trying to pull out the pieces.” Caustic Phoenix: the javelin in it is “ready to toast that like a marshmallow.”
• 1:55:33 Ignacio’s final words: “I have died, but my soul lives on.” Mudcat: “Post-credits scene… the Marvel effect.”
• 1:55:50 K-Boom’s final pitch: KBoomCoin is on sale “at KBoomCoin.com slash… BTS coin, XY47… $4,000 a piece. They’re currently worth… twice that,” and “pretty soon we will have the Ignacio NFTs.” Caustic Phoenix: “This stream is not sponsored by K-Boom coins. I paid 50,000 for them though.” (Unclear whether that’s the Grandmaster in character.) K-Boom: the value has tanked “because… K-Boom died in the match.” Ignacio: “Send my percentage to my family.”

Creator notes (out of character)

• Karim: “K-Boom ended up turning out to be the love of my life.” Caustic Phoenix: “Very soap opera-y.”
• Mudcat: the show proves RP and PvP combat can coexist. The WWE-style theatrics work “because 5e is not balanced.”
• Brandon’s favorite moments: the banter and relationship, the death scene with the NFT, and the Cloud of Daggers → Misty Step → re-enter → Shocking Grasp combo. Mudcat calls the combo “super meta.” Caustic Phoenix: “Total dickish. I loved it… This is chess.”
• Karim’s favorite: bringing Mort, then selling him to the Box of Chaos, then rolling three nat 20s. Chat was shocked; usually brought pets “play a whole big part.” Karim: “I love Mort, but… I need a win here, Box of Chaos.”
• Box of Chaos history (Mudcat): people have sacrificed their opponents, their souls, blood and family heirlooms, and “We’ve seen somebody fall in love with a box of chaos.” This was the first time anyone named their price, and Caustic Phoenix says the first nat 1 on it. Gerald thought about it inside, then just bolted the door. “It’s been three seasons, almost a year of deathmatches.” Caustic Phoenix: “Failures tell such good stories.”
• Brandon “prayed into the void for a nat 1 on that box”: a sleazy shill giving “practically a bitcoin” to the box and getting locked out was poetic.
• This was Karim’s first real D&D game as an adult. His tattoo artist runs D&D on Fridays at a tattoo parlor in Boston. He and Mudcat know each other “since Mixer days.” Mudcat met Brandon when Brandon playtested “your stuff.” Brandon asked to “play a heel… the sleazy asshole.”
• The double death: Mudcat normally unsummons monsters at the end (“Like the perky dragon” is said here; meaning unclear), but with a crypto shill “this is just too perfect.” Mudcat believes it’s the first time both champions died. Before this, once, when both were about to die from a fireball, the Grandmaster merged them into one body instead, and they weren’t happy about it.
• Brandon expected the final fireball to only “fuck them up” and leave the water weird to even things out. Mudcat says it rolled 42 (four 6s, three 5s, a 4, a 2) and calls it a crit roll; the in-episode total was 45. Mudcat enjoyed teaching Karim Disengage, knowing the weird (60 ft speed) would catch him anyway.
• Mudcat has the Independence Day speech memorized and used to do it on stream for tips. Brandon asked what the realm was called so he could swap it in: “The Void.” A tangent of Kung Pao quotes follows. The music is from Epidemic Sound (Mudcat’s folder of “slow jams, death music”). Joke t-shirt line: “I didn’t want to put that lance through your sack, man.”