Blood Puppets

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Blood Puppets pitted Basil Herringbone, a self-described “rabbit boy man” in a transitional period, against Befferfoot, a half-orc who had come to kill, to maim, and apparently to destroy grammar. They fought in a waterfall-sealed cave that the Grandmaster could only bring herself to call “my cave of wonders.” Over the next hour and a half there was a self-amputation, an alien abduction, a giant frog, an emotional-support Corgi, and a rain of edible underwear. The Grandmaster summed it up herself: “This is the weirdest fight.”

The Story

The Missing Crown

The night began in the dank, clanking halls of The Dread Fortress, where goblins scurried about their business. The Arbiter found the Grandmaster turning her chambers upside down, with goblins checking under the pillows and under the bed. “I can’t find my crown! Have you seen my crown?” she demanded. She takes it off to sleep, she explained, because “It’s not an appendage that has just grown out of my skull.” When the Arbiter called the crown the symbol of her power, she corrected him.

Grandmaster: “No, I am the symbol of power and authority. The crown is just a pretty jewel.”

The Arbiter blamed the economy (“You just can’t find crowns in this economy”). The Grandmaster asked whether he, Thomas, Nathaniel or any of the goblins had seen it, then decided the problem would solve itself: “I’ll make one from the bones of whoever died.”

Bunny Man and Half-Orc

The Arbiter clapped, tore open a portal, and the two champions strode through laser lights and fog. Basil gently corrected the pronunciation of his name. The Arbiter had assumed he was “some sort of ornamental… food item,” and Basil agreed he was “quite delicious, yes.” Befferfoot announced, “I here to kill, I here to maim, I here to destroy.” He promised he was bigger, stronger and faster than the “puny rabbit.”

Basil explained that he was a rabbit boy man in “a transitional period.” The Grandmaster asked if that meant puberty, and he said yes. The Arbiter scolded her for asking about something so personal. Befferfoot warned that Basil’s “hormonal change will be your undoing,” and Basil said it only made him angrier.

The Cave of Wonders

Another clap carried in the musty smell of cave air, and the champions stepped into a cavern with high, echoing walls and dripping stalactites. Shallow puddles everywhere teemed with tiny tadpoles. The only way out was a tall stone archway hidden behind a roaring waterfall. The Grandmaster welcomed them to her “cave of wonders,” heard herself, and declared the name a work in progress. The Arbiter kept the innuendo going anyway, calling it “very sexual… Nothing but whips and flails… Of pleasure.” Then she shot straight upward. The cave had no ceiling, only a stadium full of The Acolytes tossing down buttery popcorn, and she took her seat beside Doug.

The Acolytes had already triggered chaos before the first blow. “What the frick, Frax? People, keep your panties on!” cried the Grandmaster, as underwear and bras rained onto the champions. Basil asked them to please continue. The Arbiter set the two fighters on opposite sides of the cave, spread his glowing white wings, and sat down still wearing the chains he’d worn all season as punishment for his failed coup. He hinted that he’d been on “really good behavior all season” and could still do magic regardless. The Grandmaster pretended not to hear.

Fire, Ice and the Aliens

Basil opened with a ghostly, chilling hand and fumbled it with a natural 1. The cold froze the stalactites, which cracked overhead; one fell at him and he dodged it easily, but the rest were left hanging as icy threats. Undeterred, he tried again and hit. Icicles formed all over Befferfoot, which prompted the Grandmaster to ask whether he was wearing a shirt or “are your nipples really just showing right now?” Befferfoot assured her they were very sharp, and answered with a bolt of fire. “Game of Thrones be damned,” said the Grandmaster. “This is the song of fire and ice.”

Basil then discovered that he did, in fact, have Hellish Rebuke, and from then on he answered several of Befferfoot’s attacks with blasts of infernal flame. Basil asked what waited beyond the waterfall, and the Grandmaster promised to show the winner. Then the second chaos event arrived. A small silver disc zigzagged down on a prismatic trail and fired a tractor beam. Basil clung to the rocks, but Befferfoot was hauled aboard, where the aliens taught him their ways from books and scrolls. They dropped him back smarter, with a noticeably larger forehead. Asked what he’d read, Befferfoot said, “The thick ones with the little letters.” The Arbiter suspected he was now a Rhodes Scholar. The Grandmaster suspected he’d taken her intelligence.

A Leg for a Leg

In the second round, The Box of Chaos crashed like a comet into the water and sent up a pillar of yellow and pink flame. Befferfoot threw up a magical shield, which the Grandmaster immediately rebranded “the coward spell.” Basil leapt for the box and glided down “like a sugar glider.” Shadowy fingers and two yellow eyes emerged from the lid. Gerald was ready to deal.

Basil asked for “something that I can hit him really fucking hard with,” and offered his left leg from the knee down. Gerald handed him a saw. Befferfoot politely agreed to wait while Basil bit down on his quarterstaff and sawed off his own leg. Gerald admitted he gets queasy at the sight of blood, so Basil held the leg up by the foot and poured blood all over Gerald’s face. “I think you’re low on iron,” Basil told him.

From the box came a longsword. Seeing Basil bleeding, Gerald wrapped it in shadow and reforged it into a metal leg: Dawnbringer, a sun blade whose kicks burned with radiant light. Meanwhile, Basil’s blood had turned the water red and drawn the tadpoles to feed. He tickled them, they decided he was their provider, and he greeted them: “Hello, my children.”

Underwear, Corgis and Bees

More underwear fell, and Befferfoot ate it (“Anything is edible if you can digest… Half-orc things”). The Grandmaster told the Acolytes to throw something edible, and down came vegan, free-range edible underwear, beer and pineapple pizza. Befferfoot teleported out of the bloody water and shot Basil in the back with a fire bolt. Basil rebuked him anyway. He explained that his rabbit ears point out the back of his head “like a tuning fork.” Befferfoot then walked along the water’s edge, refusing to “poop in the gross water… It’s got its blood on it.”

Then the Boggarts came, two shadows that slipped out of the dark and took the shape of each champion’s greatest fear. Basil’s became “a really big garden snake,” the kind that bites your fingies and hangs on too long, only big enough to eat him. Befferfoot’s fear was “Bees. But only like two at a time.” He was, it emerged, highly allergic.

Basil bounded forty feet onto the north wall, readied his “glowy sword leg thing,” and sent his tadpoles to charge the snake. Unfortunately, they were tadpoles. Befferfoot paused to pet Rolando, his Corgi emotional-support animal, whose tail wags and panting soothed his wounds (“Le Woof”). Then he spotted the bees making a beeline for him and screamed until he ran out of air. At the end of the round the Arbiter rolled a 9, and Doug threw his own squeaky die and matched it. “Suck it! You tied with a dog!” crowed the Grandmaster.

Bigger Problems

Befferfoot spent the Acolytes’ favor to teleport up onto Basil’s wall and stab him in the gut. Basil spent his on another rebuke, which the Grandmaster christened “the Heroic Rebuke.” Both champions snacked on a fresh delivery of artisan edible underwear, which the Arbiter figured they “probably bought from an OnlyFans account.” Their stomachs roared and both grew a full size larger, and the stone gave way beneath them. They slid down, each landing face to face with his own fear. “Now I’m truly a bunny man,” said Basil.

He kicked the snake with Dawnbringer, and the radiant leg burned the false snake doubly. When it tried to swallow him and found him too big, he karate-chopped it open until it “curls backwards like one of those party favors” and vanished in smoke. Befferfoot looked at his bees, looked at Basil, and went for Basil. Basil swatted his crossbow bolt aside. The bees, which the Grandmaster named Henry and Henrietta, struck as he moved, and Henrietta stung him. “And she dies. That’s the kind of B they are,” the Grandmaster observed, as Befferfoot’s allergy kicked in and the poison went to work on him.

The Frog

The Arbiter then rolled a natural 20 and claimed the chaos for himself. With a smirk he closed his raised hand, and the waterfall arch and cave roof began to crumble. Both champions were driven into the deepest, unexplored chamber of the cave. Because of Basil’s bond with the tadpoles, a giant frog lurched out from behind a rock and swallowed him whole to protect him. Basil was perfectly content in there, catching up on Drunken Master Weekly.

Befferfoot tried gently prying the frog’s jaws apart. Then, “while it thinks I’m being gentle,” he drove his short sword up through its chin on a natural 20. The blade burst out the top of its head, and the frog’s face split open in time for Befferfoot to make eye contact with Basil, who flipped him off while reading. The Grandmaster produced a frog hand puppet to illustrate and cut it in half. The Arbiter reassured everyone that she was just upset about her crown.

Befferfoot’s next crossbow shot was another natural 1, and the bolt landed at Rolando’s feet. “I am, how you say, getting the fuck out of here,” said the Corgi. He fled up to the stands to sit beside Doug, where there were plenty of treats and nobody would shoot at him.

Basil poisoned Befferfoot in revenge, but Befferfoot’s body fought back so hard that he was no longer allergic to bees at all. “I shall call upon them one day,” he vowed. “We have Bunny-Man and Bee-Man now,” said the Grandmaster. When Befferfoot shot again, Basil caught the bolt and ate it, “because I have rodent teeth.”

Pet Frogs

To spice things up, the Grandmaster ordered the Arbiter to give each champion a giant frog of his own. Basil whispered sweet things to his and named it Geronimo. The frog barely hopped half a step, so Basil “pulled a Han Solo,” abandoned it, and leapt back up the wall. (“You think these come pre-trained?” asked the Grandmaster.) At the Arbiter’s suggestion, Befferfoot bounced his frog off Basil’s abandoned one to reach Basil’s height. When the Arbiter asked him to prove he could handle the frog, “animal handling” came out sounding like “anal handling.” “We all heard it,” said the Grandmaster, and the Arbiter ruled, “You successfully anal handled this frog.” Befferfoot slashed Basil at the top of the leap. Then he tried to reload mid-air, rolled yet another natural 1, and tumbled off his frog onto his back on a rock. “That’s what you get for doing anal handling,” said the Grandmaster.

The Final Kick

“Look at your opponent in their weird eyeballs,” the Grandmaster commanded. Insults flew. “You’re gonna die, stupid bunny man!” “You’re on your back on a rock, you fucking moron!” “I’m no good with words, but you die!”

Worried for his one remaining knee, Basil jumped another twenty feet and dropped forty with his sun-sword leg out. The first kick crashed into Befferfoot’s shield. The second, against a foe lying helpless on the rock, came up a natural 20. Dawnbringer punched through the shield, which shattered like falling glass, and Befferfoot was dead.

As life slowed, Befferfoot had one regret: “All I wanted was to earn some money so I could buy Mama a birthday present.” He handed Basil a birthday card and begged him to deliver it. Basil shook the blood, guts and brain matter off it and promised he would, though “She gonna be mad.” Rolando came bounding down from the stands. Basil promised not to shoot him, and the Corgi took his place at his new master’s side under a new name, “Bethabitch.” The Grandmaster spread her wings over a roaring crowd and declared that glory had been witnessed “in my stupid cave of wonders,” a place they would never return to.

Dried Blood

Afterward, the champions shared their wisdom. Basil’s advice was simple: “Always bleed out onto tadpoles. You’ll never know when it’s going to come in handy.” Befferfoot had come to a gentler realization: “I realize that Mama would rather have me home than jewelry for birthday.” The Arbiter pointed out that nobody would be able to identify Befferfoot’s body, since he has no teeth. Basil suggested putting him in a frog and hopping him home. The Grandmaster approved of frogs as “perfect transportation” across borders and planes.

Notable Moments

• Basil sawed off his own leg for Gerald, then poured the blood over the squeamish box’s face.
• The aliens abducted Befferfoot and returned him smarter, with a much bigger forehead.
• Doug tied the Arbiter’s roll with his own squeaky die.
• A giant frog swallowed Basil to protect him, and Befferfoot split it open like a frog-gigger.
• Befferfoot went from deathly allergic to bees to “Bee-Man” in one fight.
• A natural-20 kick from Dawnbringer ended it, and Befferfoot’s Corgi switched owners on the spot.

Memorable Quotes

• Grandmaster: “No, I am the symbol of power and authority. The crown is just a pretty jewel.”
• Befferfoot: “I here to kill, I here to maim, I here to destroy.”
• Befferfoot: “The thick ones with the little letters.”
• Basil Herringbone: “I think you’re low on iron.”
• Grandmaster: “We are officially rebranding shield to the coward spell.”
• Rolando: “I am, how you say, getting the fuck out of here.”
• Grandmaster: “We have Bunny-Man and Bee-Man now. This is the weirdest fight.”
• Befferfoot: “All I wanted was to earn some money so I could buy Mama a birthday present. And now she’s not going to have no birthday present.”

Who and What Appears

Characters

Basil Herringbone (Cucumber, Perception Studio). A rabbit-man (“rabbit boy man,” “bunny man”), Medium size until enlarged. He says he’s in a “transitional period,” and “yes” to puberty.

• Lost his left leg below the knee to the Box of Chaos. He sawed it off himself with Gerald’s saw and now has Dawnbringer, a sun-blade longsword reshaped by Gerald into a metal leg that deals radiant damage.
• Abilities: Rabbit Hop, ki (step of the wind, Flurry of Blows), deflect missiles, Feather Fall, Chill Touch, Hellish Rebuke (aimed backwards with his tuning-fork ears), long-range witch bolt, poison spray. Has a pseudodragon “there in spirit” with pom-poms.
• Personality and lore:
  • Greatest fear: a giant garden snake.
  • Reads Drunken Master Weekly. Has rodent teeth and ate an arrow.
  • Adopted the cave’s tadpoles as “my children.”
  • Named a giant frog Geronimo, then abandoned it.
• Gained Rolando (renamed “Bethabitch”) as his emotional-support animal.
• Carries Befferfoot’s birthday card for “Mama,” promising to deliver it.
• Dried Blood: a genie-pact warlock and monk.

Befferfoot (Chunk, Perception Studio). A half-orc with broken grammar (“I here to kill”).

• Has sharp nipples.
• Gained +2 Intelligence and a bigger forehead from an alien abduction.
• Abilities and gear: fire bolt, shield (“the coward spell”), misty step, sneak attack, uncanny dodge, evasion, short sword, short bow, crossbow (crossbow expert).
• Ate the thrown underwear (“Half-orc things”).
• Greatest fear: two bees at a time. He was briefly allergic, then became immune: “Bee-Man.”
• His Corgi Rolando was his emotional-support animal until a stray bolt scared him off.
• Fought to buy Mama a birthday present (jewelry, per Dried Blood).
• Killed by Basil’s nat-20 kick.

Rolando (also said “Ronaldo”). A Corgi emotional-support animal who heals with tail wags and panting and says “Le Woof.” He fled Befferfoot to sit by the Grandmaster and Doug with treats, then came down and chose Basil, who renamed him “Bethabitch.”

Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer (Caustic Phoenix).

• Lost her crown. She takes it off to sleep: “I am the symbol of power and authority.”
• Plans to make a crown from the loser’s bones.
• Names the arena “my cave of wonders” (rename pending), and vows never to return to it.
• Promised to show the winner what’s beyond the waterfall; this wasn’t shown.
• Gave each champion a giant pet frog. Owns a frog hand puppet.

The Arbiter (Mudcat). He is still in chains and asks to have them removed (“good behavior all season… I can still do magic”); the Grandmaster ignores him. His white wings glow. He collapsed the cave into its deeper chamber with a nat-20 chaos event. Doug tied his roll.

Doug the pug. Sits beside the Grandmaster. Throws his own squeaky d20 and barks cheers.

Gerald (the Box of Chaos’s occupant). Shadowy fingers and two yellow eyes. He handed Basil a saw, gets queasy at blood, and got a faceful of it. He forged Dawnbringer into a leg.

Henry and Henrietta. Befferfoot’s two Boggart bees, a couple or siblings. Henrietta stung him and died.

The snake Boggart. Basil’s fear made real: a large green garden snake, chopped apart “like a party favor.”

The giant frog. Drawn by Basil’s tadpole connection, it swallowed him protectively and was killed by Befferfoot’s gig through the chin. Also Geronimo (Basil’s mount) and Befferfoot’s unnamed mount.

Thomas, Nathaniel. Named by the Grandmaster as people who might have seen her crown, alongside the goblins. No further detail.

The goblins of the Dread Fortress. Scurrying about and searching for the crown.

Places

• The Dread Fortress halls and the Grandmaster’s bedchamber (pillows, bed).
• The cave of wonders: high echoing walls, stalactites, ankle-to-knee-deep tadpole puddles, rock stands, and one stone archway exit behind a roaring waterfall. A stadium sits above it in place of a ceiling. Its deeper, unexplored chamber was opened by the collapse.
• What lies beyond the waterfall is unknown.
• Mama’s home: the address on the card, unnamed.

Items

• The Grandmaster’s crown (missing).
• Dawnbringer: a sun blade turned into Basil’s metal leg.
• Gerald’s saw. Basil’s left leg, now in the box.
• Befferfoot’s birthday card for Mama.
• Drunken Master Weekly. The Grandmaster’s frog hand puppet. Doug’s squeaky d20.
• The Acolytes’ vegan, free-range, artisan edible underwear; beer; pineapple pizza.

Lore statements

• The Grandmaster doesn’t wear her crown at all times; she says she herself is the symbol of power.
• The Arbiter remains chained this season, but says he can still do magic.
• The Box of Chaos’s Gerald can reshape a gift around the sacrifice (a sword into a leg).
• Eating chaos-thrown underwear made both champions grow a size.

Full Round-by-Round

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

Opening: the lost crown

1. 0:01:16 “Welcome to D20 Deathmatch!” The Grandmaster thinks the delivery was “a little overdone.” The Arbiter insists it was “perfectly done.”
2. 0:01:40 In the halls of the Dread Fortress, with its dank air and clanking noise, goblins scurry about their business. The Arbiter goes looking for the Grandmaster.
3. 0:02:11 — The crown is missing. The Grandmaster is searching everywhere: “I can’t find my crown! Have you seen my crown?” Goblins are looking under pillows and under the bed. She takes it off to sleep: “It’s not an appendage that has just grown out of my skull.” When the Arbiter calls it the symbol of her power, she answers: “No, I am the symbol of power and authority. The crown is just a pretty jewel.”
4. 0:02:51 The Arbiter: “it’s a recession. You just can’t find crowns in this economy.” She asks whether he, Thomas, Nathaniel or one of the goblins has seen it. He offers to ask around, but warns that a thief won’t be forthcoming.
5. 0:03:17 The Grandmaster gives up for now: “I’ll make one from the bones of whoever died.”
6. 0:03:36 — Introductions. The Arbiter claps, rips open a portal, and the two champions walk through laser lights and fog. He introduces “Basil Herringbone! And… Befferfoot!”
7. 0:04:07 Basil corrects the pronunciation of his name (“with a bath, not a bathe,” as transcribed). The Arbiter thought he was “some sort of ornamental… food item.” Basil: “I am quite delicious, yes.”
8. 0:04:24 Befferfoot, a half-orc: “I here to kill, I here to maim, I here to destroy.” The Arbiter adds: “Destroy grammar, it sounds like.”
9. 0:04:38 The Grandmaster asks “whose bones am I going to use as my next crown?” Befferfoot says he is bigger, stronger and faster, and calls Basil “puny rabbit.”
10. 0:05:11 — Rabbit boy man. Basil calls himself a “rabbit boy man” and explains: “It’s a transitional period for me.” The Grandmaster asks if he’s going through puberty, and he says “Yes!” The Arbiter: “You can’t just ask him about that kind of stuff. It’s very personal.” Befferfoot: “Your hormonal change will be your undoing.” Basil says it only makes him angrier.

The arena: the cave of wonders

11. 0:06:18 The Arbiter claps again. The sound waves ripple visibly, and the portal lets in a smell of dark, musty “cave air” (the Grandmaster heard “cave hair”).
12. 0:06:48 The Grandmaster welcomes them to “my cave of wonders,” realizes it sounds weird, and says she’ll rename it (“Name in progress”). The Arbiter keeps up the innuendo: “very sexual… Nothing but whips and flails… Of pleasure.” She orders: “Look at me when I’m talking to the two of you.”
13. 0:07:39 The cave has high, echoing walls. Its one exit is a tall, man-made stone archway behind a vicious, loud, roaring waterfall. Puddles stand everywhere, dotted with tiny tadpoles. “Do not rush to the kill. Give us a show.”
14. 0:08:42 She rockets straight up. Above the cave there is no ceiling, only a large stadium. The Acolytes cheer and toss down buttery popcorn. She takes her seat next to Doug the pug.
15. 0:09:07 The Acolytes have already triggered a chaos event. The Grandmaster: “What the frick, Frax? People, keep your panties on!” Underwear and bras rain down on the champions. Basil: “Please continue.” The event is set for the end of round 1. “It’s getting hot in here already.”
16. 0:09:49 The Arbiter levitates the champions to opposite sides of the cave, 35 ft apart. He spreads his white wings, which glow even inside the cave, and takes his seat beside her, still wearing his chains. He hints that they should come off (“I’ve been on really good behavior all season… this is a formality, right? I can still do magic”). She pretends not to hear him.

Round 1

17. 0:11:04 — The nat 1. Basil casts Chill Touch and rolls a nat 1. His ghostly skeletal hand chills the cave, and the stalactites freeze and crack. One falls on him, but he dodges it easily. The rest still dangle, threatening to drop, and tiny ice rocks litter his feet.
18. 0:12:12 “If you see what I’ll do to me, just wait till you see what I’ll do to you.” His second Chill Touch hits. Befferfoot: “Tickle, tickle.”
19. 0:12:47 — Nipples. Icicles form on Befferfoot’s body. The Grandmaster: “Are you wearing a shirt or are your nipples really just showing right now?” Befferfoot: “They’re very sharp.” He has two daggers but says he’ll use his nipples, then closes up his vest.
20. 0:13:13 Befferfoot “laughs at your stupid face” and fires back a fire bolt for 16. The Grandmaster: “Game of Thrones be damned. This is the song of fire and ice.”
21. 0:13:56 — Hellish Rebuke. Basil: “I think, I think, I think I have Hellish Rebuke.” Befferfoot: “If you say it enough times, it means you have it.” Befferfoot fails the save and takes a big hit. The Grandmaster: “No touching!… As long as you never hit him, you’ll be fine.” The Arbiter predicts they’ll kill each other right away.
22. 0:15:40 — The waterfall. Basil asks whether the winner goes through the waterfall. The Grandmaster: “When you win… I’ll show you what’s on the other side of the waterfall.”
23. 0:16:14 Basil uses Rabbit Hop (“Boing”) to leap 20 ft up onto a rock stand. The water is ankle- to knee-deep.
24. 0:17:36 — Chaos: the alien abduction. Mudcat rolls by mistake (“I forgot that you mattered”). The Grandmaster lets the underdog, Befferfoot, roll: “Make it a good one. Or I’m just gonna banish you.” A small silver disc zigzags down, leaving a prismatic trail, and fires a tractor beam. Basil grips the rocks and stays put. Befferfoot is pulled up. The aliens teach him their ways with books and scrolls and give him +2 Intelligence. They throw him back down “smarter, but your forehead is noticeably larger now… Big, big head, big brain, very ugly.” The ship zips off to outer space.
25. 0:20:16 Befferfoot: “A lot smarter now than I was before. You should be afraid.” When asked what books he read: “The thick ones with the little letters.” Basil: “They just gave him Excel sheets.” The Arbiter: “I think Befferfoot might be a Rhodes Scholar now.”
26. 0:21:03 The Arbiter: “Grandmaster, what’s in your cup there? Are you drunk?” The Grandmaster: “I think I gave him my plus intelligence. Mine went down somehow.”

Round 2: the Box of Chaos and the leg

27. 0:21:13 The Acolytes award each champion a hero point.
28. 0:21:40 — The Box of Chaos. It falls like a comet into the water, which sizzles and steams. Yellow and pink flames rise in a pillar, yet the cave stays chilly. “Sacrifice something, anything!” The Arbiter: “all you have to do is put something into the box in this cave of wonders.” The Grandmaster: “Stop.”
29. 0:22:48 Basil’s Chill Touch misses, then hits on a second try (“For spite!”). Befferfoot casts shield. The Grandmaster: “We are officially rebranding shield to the coward spell.”
30. 0:23:54 Basil leaps for the box and glides down with Feather Fall “like a sugar glider.” They debate “man boy rabbit” versus “rabbit boy man.”
31. 0:24:22 — Gerald. Shadowy fingers reach out of the box, and two yellow eyes poke out of the lid. Basil asks for “something that I can hit him really fucking hard with.” He offers “my left leg from the knee down.” Gerald hands him a saw.
32. 0:25:04 “I’m kinda squeamish. Hold on there, Befferfoot.” Befferfoot: “You take your time. I wait.” Basil bites down on his quarterstaff and hacks off his own leg. Blood goes everywhere, feeding the tadpoles. Gerald: “Just hand it to me… I get queasy at the sight of blood.” Basil holds it by the foot so the blood pours all over Gerald’s face. “I think you’re low on iron.”
33. 0:25:54 Basil stands bleeding from the stump. The water turns murky red, and the tadpoles come to eat the nutrients from his blood. The Grandmaster asks: “Are they tadpoles or leeches?”
34. 0:28:04 — Dawnbringer. Gerald comes up holding a longsword. Seeing Basil bleeding, he wraps it in shadowy magic and reforms it into a metal leg that Basil attaches. This is Dawnbringer, with the properties of a sun blade. Its kicks deal radiant damage and extra damage to undead. The Grandmaster: “Everyone has a longsword.”
35. 0:29:39 — The tadpoles adopt him. Basil tickles the tadpoles and makes a good animal handling check. They now see him as their feeder and will follow him while he’s in the water. Basil: “Hello, my children.”
36. 0:30:06 — Chaos: more underwear. More underwear falls, and Befferfoot eats it: “I don’t know how underwear work… Anything is edible if you can digest… Half-orc things.” The Grandmaster tells the Acolytes to throw something edible. They throw down vegan, free-range edible underwear, bees(?), beer and pineapple pizza. The next event is set for the end of Befferfoot’s turn.
37. 0:31:43 Befferfoot misty-steps across, out of the bloody water, and fire-bolts Basil from behind “because he’s stupid.” Befferfoot: “Calm down, Homeslice.” Basil: “Guess what? I’m a Hellish Rebuke you again. You son of a bitch! Sucker!” When asked how he aims backwards: “My little rabbit ears… point out the back of my head… like a tuning fork.” Befferfoot saves for half.
38. 0:34:01 Befferfoot walks 30 ft east along the water’s edge, refusing to “poop in the gross water… It’s got its blood on it.” The Grandmaster: “It smells weird, too.”
39. 0:34:33 The Arbiter on the end of the round: “You’re not wearing the crown. It’s easy [to challenge you].”

Chaos: the Boggarts

41. 0:34:55 Basil rolls the chaos. Basil makes his perception check; Befferfoot rolls a nat 1 (“I’m a prey animal,” Basil says). In the dark west side of the cave, two shadows stir and slip into the light.
42. 0:35:49 Basil’s greatest fear is “a really big garden snake. Like, not venomous… the little green ones that bite your fingies and hang on for way too long… big enough to eat me.” His shadow becomes a long, large green snake.
43. 0:36:33 Befferfoot’s fear is “Bees. But only like two at a time.” Basil adds that Befferfoot is highly allergic, and Befferfoot agrees. Two tiny bees sneak up behind him unseen. (Table: Mudcat has no bee tokens.)

Round 3

44. 0:38:14 Basil “loses his freaking mind.” He spends a ki point on step of the wind plus Rabbit Hop and leaps 40 ft onto the north wall across the water. The Grandmaster calls him “Super Bunny.”
45. 0:39:00 He readies his new leg “like a pump action… glowy sword leg thing,” then casts witch bolt from the wall using a long-range feat. Befferfoot shields the second blast.
46. 0:40:22 “My children, feed!” The tadpoles hurl themselves at the snake, swimming backwards for a charge. “Unfortunately, they’re tadpoles, so they don’t really do anything.” Basil: “Are you saying this cave of wonders is full of little swimmers?”
47. 0:41:23 The Arbiter reminds Befferfoot of uncanny dodge and evasion. Befferfoot: “It’s a long game.”
48. 0:41:52 Befferfoot runs to the waterfall and shoots a short bow “because he can’t hellish rebuke that.” It misses.
49. 0:42:33 — Rolando. Befferfoot kneels to pet Rolando, his Corgi emotional-support animal: “Sometimes I get a little overwhelmed at fights, and he’s here to just kind of calm me down.” Rolando’s tail wags and panting heal him. “You’re a good dog, Rolando.” Rolando: “Woof.” “It’s French… Le Woof.”
50. 0:43:49 Befferfoot spots the two bees, which “make a beeline towards you.” He screams at the top of his lungs until he runs out of air, and the bees are drawn to the scream.
51. 0:44:56 — Doug ties. The Arbiter’s end-of-round roll is a 9. “Poor performance.” Doug the pug pops up and throws his own squeaky d20, also a 9. The Grandmaster: “Suck it! You tied with a dog!” The Arbiter: “No, he tied with me!”

Round 4

52. 0:45:47 Basil keeps the witch bolt going. Befferfoot uses uncanny dodge. Basil holds concentration “woozy” from blood loss and creeps along the wall to keep the high ground. The Grandmaster: “You learn from Obi-Wan, your master.”
53. 0:48:13 — The hero-point teleport. Befferfoot spends his hero point to misty-step 20 ft up onto Basil’s wall in a puff of blue and stabs him “right for the gut.” The Arbiter rules it’s a sneak attack because Basil didn’t expect the teleport.
54. 0:49:31 Basil spends his hero point on another Hellish Rebuke. The Grandmaster names it “the Heroic Rebuke.” Befferfoot saves and uncanny-dodges, taking little.
55. 0:51:07 Basil tells him to “take a little hike… Away from the bees. You know bees can fly, right?” Befferfoot: “they’re not very fast.” The snake and bees reach the base of the wall.
56. 0:51:53 — Artisan underwear. More vegan edible underwear falls; it’s “artisan” underwear. Both eat it and heal a little. “Who wouldn’t?”
57. 0:52:46 — Chaos: enlargement. After a number-picking muddle, “as you munch on that underwear, that you probably bought from an OnlyFans account,” both stomachs roar. Both champions grow one size larger: Basil to Large, Befferfoot above Large. The stone gives way under their weight. They slide down on either side, each facing their own Boggart. Their bones strengthen and each heals 13. The Arbiter: “As you both enlarge in this cave of wonders.” The Grandmaster calls a break: “Let’s all go cleanse our mind.”

After the break (0:55:13): Round 5

58. 0:55:13 The Arbiter welcomes the Acolytes back, with both champions “enlarged in this cave. Feeling thick and girthy.” Basil: “Now I’m truly a bunny man.”
59. 0:56:32 — Basil kills his fear. He kicks the snake-Boggart with Dawnbringer. The radiant damage does double against it (“It’s not a real snake”). “Kick it a lot. Cuss a lot.” The Grandmaster: “Listen, you’re just a boy. You watch your language.” Basil: “I’m a bunny man!” Flurry of Blows follows, “kick, kick, slap.”
60. 0:59:18 “The snake opens up to try to eat me, but it can’t gomp gomp my arm because I’m too big now. I take my fingers in a chop position… ka-chop… splitting it down until it curls backwards like one of those party favors.” It poofs into black smoke.
61. 1:00:06 Befferfoot looks at the bees, then at Basil, then the bees again, and goes for Basil. He stabs Basil with sneak attack (Basil was fighting the snake) and then, as a crossbow expert, fires his crossbow. Basil deflects the missile on a tied roll-off, taking a quarter.
62. 1:02:36 — Henry and Henrietta. The bees get opportunity attacks. The Grandmaster names them Henry and Henrietta, a couple, or “brother and sister. I don’t know.” Henrietta stings: “Yes, get him, Henrietta!… And she dies. That’s the kind of B they are.” Befferfoot fails his save and becomes allergic, taking poison damage at the start of each turn. The bees die.
63. 1:04:09 Befferfoot pets Rolando again for healing (“He brought his own healing creature… Boo hiss”).
64. 1:04:33 The Grandmaster asks about Basil’s “little dragon… chameleon thing.” It’s his pseudodragon, “just there in spirit” because “I burned up my spell slots too fast.” “He’s got little pom-poms.” The Arbiter: “Would you say you blew your magical load too early?”

The Arbiter’s chaos: the deeper cave and the giant frog

65. 1:05:25 The Arbiter rolls a nat 20 and may trigger his own chaos. He smirks, raises a hand and closes it. The waterfall archway and the cave ceiling begin to crumble. Both champions save, but are forced into the deepest, previously unexplored part of the cave. “They said this cave was impregnable.”
66. 1:07:13 — The frog. “Because you have a connection to the tadpoles, Basil, out of the water from behind this rock… appears a giant frog.” It wraps its tongue around Basil and pulls him into its mouth, where he can’t be hurt. He can’t attack from inside, so Befferfoot must hack through the frog. Basil: “I like being in the frog… He really did take all of me, who knew?” Initiative is rerolled.
67. 1:08:59 Inside, Basil catches up on his magazines: “Drunken Master Weekly. It’s like, well, what are the best gourds to drink out of before you go and punch a bunch of people in the face?”
68. 1:09:40 Befferfoot reads the frog with animal handling: “formidable, but unmoving.” He gently tries to pull its jaw open and fails; the jaws “hold it tight.”
69. 1:11:04 — The gig. “While I’m here and it thinks I’m being gentle.” He stabs his short sword up through its chin on a nat 20. The Grandmaster explains gigging (stabbing frogs in the swamp and eating the legs). “The sword… comes out the top of his head… slicing through its head… the face splits open in half and I make eye contact with Basil inside.” Basil: “I’m flipping him off while kicking my legs and reading my book.”
70. 1:12:45 The Grandmaster produces her own frog hand puppet to visualize it, then cuts it in half: “Can your hand puppets do that? Didn’t think so.” The Arbiter: “Don’t worry, she’s just upset because she can’t find her crown.”
71. 1:13:14 — Rolando runs away. Befferfoot fires his crossbow at Basil and rolls a nat 1. The bolt lands at Rolando’s feet. He whimpers and flees, unhurt but terrified. Befferfoot: “I didn’t mean it, Rolando… I’m gonna have to buy him snacks and stuff.” Rolando, in Mudcat’s voice: “I am, how you say, getting the fuck out of here.” Rolando joins the Grandmaster up top next to Doug the pug with plenty of treats. “He may have found his new home who will not shoot him.” (Out of character, they argue Ronaldo versus Rolando.)

Round 6

72. 1:15:33 As the frog peels away, Basil casts poison spray at Befferfoot “for destroying my protective friend.” Then Chill Touch: “I sit on my spectral hand until I can’t really feel anything, and then I settle it over.” He bunny-hops 20 ft up the wall.
73. 1:17:15 — Bee-Man. Befferfoot takes the poison, then passes his save. His natural immunities kick in and he is no longer allergic to bees. The Grandmaster: “Bees are your friends now!” Befferfoot: “I shall call upon them one day.” The Arbiter: “Your whole genetic code modifies. It’s like a Spider-Man, Morbius-type situation.” The Grandmaster: “We have Bunny-Man and Bee-Man now. This is the weirdest fight.”
74. 1:18:37 — Basil eats an arrow. Befferfoot shoots his crossbow again. Basil wins the deflect roll-off (26 vs 25) and catches it: “You dare? I eat it because I have rodent teeth.” It heals him. The Grandmaster: “You have some fiber in your system now… Vegan candied underpants and arrows.”

Pet frogs

75. 1:20:43 The Arbiter rolls a 5: “All good things come to an end.” The Grandmaster spices things up: “Arbiter, give both of these each their own frog.” These are giant frogs like the first, rideable mounts: “I see them as being responsible pet owners.” They can jump 20 ft long or 10 ft high.
76. 1:22:17 Basil witch-bolts Befferfoot in the face. He whispers “sweet, friendly, lovey things” to his frog (“my dear sweet child… Attack!… Devour!”) and kisses it on the head. The Grandmaster tells him to name it, and he names it Geronimo. He fails the animal handling check, and Geronimo “just kind of croaks… pops forward just a half step.”
77. 1:23:55 “I pull a Han Solo.” Basil abandons Geronimo, ki-jumping 40 ft back up the wall: “forget this frog, I need to live.” The Grandmaster: “You think these come pre-trained?… They’re wild frogs from a cave.” He witch-bolts Befferfoot again.
78. 1:25:13 — Frog on frog. Befferfoot can’t reach Basil, so the Arbiter suggests his frog jump off Basil’s abandoned frog to launch him to the height. While asking for the check, Mudcat’s “animal handling” comes out sounding like “anal handling.” The Grandmaster: “We all heard it.” The Arbiter: “You successfully anal handled this frog.”
79. 1:26:35 At the top of the jump, Befferfoot slashes Basil (“Stupid bunny man”). Then he tries to load his crossbow mid-air, rolls another nat 1, and tumbles off the frog onto his back on a rock. The Grandmaster: “That’s what you get for doing anal handling.” Basil: “Don’t want to make peace with your god?” “We’ll see.”

Round 8: the final round

80. 1:27:59 “We don’t even have any more round cards.” The Grandmaster: “Fight to the very death at this moment. Look at your opponent in their weird eyeballs.”
81. 1:28:32 — Insults. Befferfoot: “You’re gonna die, stupid bunny man!” Basil: “You’re on your back on a rock, you fucking moron!” Befferfoot: “I’m no good with words, but you die!”
82. 1:28:56 — The kick from on high. Basil worries about his knees (“I only have one left”). He spends a ki point and jumps up another 20 ft, then drops 40 ft with his Sun Sword leg out. The first kick lands, and Befferfoot shields. Basil takes fall damage: “Ow, my one knee!”
83. 1:31:14 — The kill. Basil kicks again with advantage, since Befferfoot is prone on the rock, and rolls a nat 20 that busts through the shield. “Murder, death, kill.” Befferfoot drops to zero: “I’m dead.”
84. 1:32:17 — Befferfoot’s last thoughts. The shield shatters like falling glass, and life slows for Befferfoot. “All I wanted was to earn some money so I could buy Mama a birthday present. And now she’s not going to have no birthday present.” The Grandmaster: “I thought you were going to buy yourself some teeth.”
85. 1:33:10 — The birthday card. Befferfoot pulls out a birthday card and hands it to Basil: “Please, please deliver this for me.” Basil says “Yoink.” He shakes the blood, guts and brain matter off it. It has an address on the outside. “I’ll make sure to get this. Thank you very much for the win… She gonna be mad.”
86. 1:34:01 — Rolando’s new owner. Rolando rushes down to Basil: “Hello there, puppy! I promise I won’t shoot you!” After a good animal handling check, Rolando takes his place by Basil’s side. Invited to rename him, Basil names him “Bethabitch” (later “Befferbitch”).
87. 1:35:06 — Sign-off. The crowd erupts. Doug barks cheers. The Grandmaster opens her wings: “Acolytes. Today, glory has been witnessed in my stupid cave of wonders. Remember what happened here, for we will never return to these grounds again. Welcome and good night to D20 Deathmatch.”
88. The crown is never found this episode.

Full Dried Blood notes (click to expand)

The Arbiter hosts “Cucumber and Chunk of Perception Studio.”

Possibly in character (canon, Dried Blood; flagged):

• 1:43:23 Basil’s advice: “Always bleed out onto tadpoles. You’ll never know when it’s going to come in handy.”
• 1:43:31 Befferfoot’s advice: “I realize that Mama would rather have me home than jewelry for birthday.” So the birthday present was jewelry (stated here only).
• 1:43:46 The Arbiter: “they’re not gonna be able to identify your body because you don’t have any teeth.” Basil suggests putting him in a frog to hop him home. The Grandmaster: “Perfect transportation… You can really take that body across borders and planes.”

Out of character (creator notes):

• Cucumber: “Nice to win for once.” Chunk: “since I beat him last time so viciously… I gotta let the little guy win once in a while.” This implies an earlier Chunk-over-Cucumber match.
• All the nat 1s came from Chunk’s crossbows. Caustic Phoenix suggests he should have pulled out a new one named “Bianca.”
• Basil’s build: a monk/warlock (“capital M Monk, baby warlock”), level 5/5, with a feat for spells. His patron was a genie. His escape plan was to retreat into his bottle “and float down the river.”
• Chunk hadn’t planned to bring Rolando out and had hoped he’d be a bigger part.
• Favorite moments: Cucumber chose befriending the tadpoles (“They showed me love. They become my children”). Chunk chose the big frogs, being “both a friend of the frog and an enemy of the frog.”
• Mudcat: the frog was already part of the match before the tadpoles were introduced. Caustic Phoenix: “It was the frog before the tadpoles. Science.”
• Chunk would have named his frog Fernando (or Elizabeth).
• Mudcat: Basil had about 12 HP when he jumped 40 ft. Mudcat rolled three 1s and a 2 for the fall damage; an 11 would have killed him.
• Caustic Phoenix: “tonight’s tale reminds us how much the dice tell the story.” Chunk: read your character sheet thoroughly.