S4 Ep3, Swindlers - Griff v Cappin Fodder

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Two silver-tongued swindlers met in a ruined temple under the gaze of a stone Vythorn: Griff, a satyr hustler who wins by letting you think you can, and Cappin Fodder, a halfling pirate with a bandana over his eyes and an insult for every occasion. The trash talk never let up, even as the fight served up a haunted doll, a phoenix made from a rat, and a pirate who threw himself bodily into The Box of Chaos. Then the Shadow King cheated the winner out of his prize, and nobody could stop him.

The Story

Bop-It in the Throne Room

The halls of The Dread Fortress were dark, lit only by candlelight, as the Grandmaster huffed and growled her way to the throne room. Behind the doors she heard a chant: “twist it, flick it, bop it.” The Shadow King sat on his throne surrounded by Bop-Its. Every time the toy called “bop it,” he bopped one of the four goblins standing around him on the head instead. A tower of broken Bop-Its grew steadily beside the throne. “These are all defective,” he declared. “Obviously they’re not working correctly or I would have won.”

The Grandmaster told him to stop breaking the staff along with the toys: “you pop it with your hand, you have two of them, use them.” A terrified goblin named Hagrid, going by his name tag, stumbled out with a fresh Bop-It. The Shadow King fumbled his way to a score of 11. The Grandmaster was not impressed. She had done better as a child, on a Bop-It he had given her for her birthday: “You saw me get to like 52.” She refused to play such a child’s game and told him, to his astonishment, that a Bop-It 2 now existed.

When he asked where his champions were, she agreed to fetch them, “if it means you’ll stop beating on our poor little goblins.” He smacked one more goblin anyway. Two goblins arrived with a small stretcher, clearly well practiced, and carried Hagrid away. The Grandmaster apologized for mispronouncing his name, promised to ask HR for a pronunciation guide, and sent Thomas, one of her favorite goblins, to fetch Hagrid a gift basket.

She gripped her amulet, which cut into her hand until it bled. The ground rose into a circle, and two champions stepped through. Cappin Fodder introduced himself as “a halfling pirate, the bestest pirate in the world,” promised to do in some kneecaps, and sized up Griff as “more than a midnight snack.” Griff pointed out that satyr knees bend the other way, so the kneecapping would be harder than expected. The insults flew from there. Fodder said Griff looked like he’d been “born on the highway, because that’s where most accidents happen,” and Griff replied, “I get that the first 40 years of childhood are the hardest.”

Griff called himself a games player and a bar fly. He was less a pool shark than a man of Stratego, Go and Pente, someone who loves to “convince people that they’ve got a chance of winning when indeed they do not.” Fodder had no patience for liars. He dealt with pirates, rogues and thieves, and his ship carried a pair of scissors called the Monkmaker: “we filled a whole monastery full of them.” The Shadow King was charmed. “My money’s on this one.”

The prize was announced: the survivor would join the hosts for game night. When the entrance music turned out to sound like a rocking wedding intro, the Shadow King blamed a music goblin, grew a shadow blade from his arm and took the top of the goblin’s head off. Undaunted, the Grandmaster joined the two champions “in holy matrimony for a fight of the ages” and tore the amulet in two, splitting time into a portal. “Those who die first shall go first,” said Fodder. “After you then,” said Griff.

A Temple of Doom

The arena was an old, broken temple of uneven stones, cold despite its firelight. The champions found it foreign, but The Acolytes found it oddly familiar. At its heart stood a great statue with palms open, ringed by candles and little artifacts. There was no ceiling. Above it, thousands of Acolytes circled like ghosts, waving flags and slushies, among them Pethel, Master of Squids. Fodder shouted up: “Hey, you up there. Top row. Jump.” Someone did, and the goblins hurried to clean up the mess. Griff had a reply ready: “If they really wanted to kill themselves, they’d climb up your ego and jump off your intelligence.”

Fodder won the staredown that decided who would strike first. The Shadow King admired the décor, especially “the large statue of Vythorn there. It’s very gauche,” and set the champions face to face. The Grandmaster corrected him: stomach to face.

Fodder opened with his whip, a weapon as long as he was, and snatched Griff’s staff right out of his hand. “You gonna give that back?” “Nope!” He ran off, yelled “This is for you!” to the crowd, and hurled it pointy end first into the stands. It struck an Acolyte named Harvey Hesko in the temple and stayed there. “Pay attention!” the Grandmaster scolded. “It’s a new hat.”

Fodder then performed a satyr’s dance, and he did it so well that Griff was almost ashamed. It was, Griff explained, “the dance we do when we hunt for truffles in the Fae realm,” and no, he would not demonstrate. He marched up to the pirate instead: “My eyes are down here. I have not yet begun to piss you off.” He snatched up a passing temple rat, and it burst into flame and became a burning phoenix, a wildfire spirit that hovered at his side. The two vanished in a burst of fire and reappeared out of reach. Fodder insisted that “Cappin Fodder never runs from a fight,” then admitted that maybe he should.

Will You Be My Friend?

The Acolytes called for chaos, and the Grandmaster got to choose her favorite. The tiles rumbled as if a gopher were digging underneath, and small laughter leaked out. One tile rose to reveal a hole, and from it peered two glassy, unblinking eyes with long lashes. It was Dolly, the haunted doll, holding out her hands. “Will you be my…”

“He will,” said Griff, pointing at Fodder. Fodder turned and, very seriously, apologized to Griff for everything he’d said. Then he pulled out a blunderbuss and shot the doll. Three of Dolly’s porcelain fingers shattered. Without moving her shoulders, she turned her head toward him, and her eyes began to glow. He tried to punt her toward Griff and missed. She floated up out of the hole and burned his fingers and toes with unholy fire, “as she had lost hers.” Fodder scuttled thirty feet away like a crab: “Nope, nope, nope.”

Dolly turned to Griff with her hands out. “Please be my friend.” Griff asked if she liked party tricks. She did, but not alone. So he sang her happy birthday, “the non-copyright version,” and blasted her with three rays of fire boosted by his phoenix. Her hair burned away and half her face went with it. Dolly drank in the fire, glowed an unholy green and exploded in a poison cloud that ate at Griff’s throat and lungs. “How’s that ceramic Dutch oven?” asked the Grandmaster. She noted for the history books that this was the first time both champions had attacked Dolly. The Shadow King thought it showed “a couple of psychopaths.”

After a brief existential crisis, Griff named his phoenix Griffy (“It’s counterintuitive, but I like it”) and sent it to scorch the pirate’s shirt for summoning the doll and throwing his stick away. “It’s a deathmatch,” Fodder said. “Read the room.” Up in the stands, Harvey pulled the staff out of his skull and threw it back. He missed, and it landed at Fodder’s feet. Griffy dove for it and lost a tug of war to Fodder (“no chicken nugget”), who flung the bird aside. Griff had stopped playing nice: “I burned that mangy rat to a crisp on purpose to summon him and you will not disrespect my flaming bird.”

Stolen Sticks and Ghost Tattoos

The Acolytes wanted something new, but the box was empty. The Shadow King roused himself, scanned the crowd and chose: “You, Prince Vegeta!” That Acolyte’s soul became the box’s new fuel. “The Box of Chaos is a nifty little trinket,” the Shadow King explained. “I should know, I was it once.” Offer it something valuable or sentimental, and it gives back a magic item.

Fodder offered Griff’s staff. The Grandmaster misheard this as “a statue of myself” and was delighted by the idea of him lugging a commissioned statue of himself around. The Acolytes granted each champion a token of their favor. “Thank you, Harvey. Your aim sucks, though.”

Fodder threw the staff at the box. Griff used the crowd’s gift at once. Griffy caught the staff mid-air, Griff enchanted it, thanked Fodder for giving it back, and tossed it into the box himself. “I literally have hops,” he said. “It’s on my sheet.” The box flipped open in a jet of fire. A shadowy hand crawled up Griff’s body and branded his left forearm with a ghost-step tattoo, a picture of “Drippy,” that could turn him incorporeal for a moment.

Fodder booed. Griff got the whole arena booing along with him. Fodder answered by whipping Griff across the hindquarters (“Booty hit. Booty hit. Whip it good”), cutting deep enough to leave him limping, and then ran. “Coward.” “Words can’t hurt me.” Griff healed himself, turned the limp into a gangster’s strut, and teleported again with Griffy in a blaze that caught Fodder in its wake. “I’d agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong,” he said. Then he touched the tattoo, went ghostly with Griffy on his shoulder, and bit his thumb at the pirate.

Cannon Fodder

Fodder then had his finest idea. He tightened the bandana so he could see even less, crouched like a man about to be fired from a cannon, ran with his arms flung back, and dove head first into the Box of Chaos. Prince Vegeta made room: “It’s very cozy.” The Acolytes’ jaws dropped. “We’ve seen toes and teeth and daggers and honey thrown in, but a whole person?”

Inside, the box’s fire melted away the skin and bone of Fodder’s right arm. A shadow spirit stepped up (“Here, use this”) and jammed a blade into the bone, giving him a short-sword arm that steals life with every hit. The sword, it turned out, had once been Vegeta’s soul, repurposed. Was it permanent? “Unless you have another arm laying around.”

The box tipped over and fired Fodder at Griff like a cannonball, blade first. He passed straight through the ghostly satyr’s chest and hit the floor head first. “Totally worth it.” Griff flipped a Go piece as he watched him go by. “You appear to have an acute case of hey look at me disease, and I will cure you of it.” He backed away, lecturing on gods of fire and deception and how people invite fire into their homes only for it to betray them, and called down a pillar of holy flame. Fodder dove clear of the worst of it. “You look like a before picture,” he said. The icy temple was now sweltering, and Griff admitted he’d come in early to disable the fire extinguishers.

Griff fed his Go set to the box. The shadow creature offered him a game of chance and flipped a soul coin. Griff called tails. It landed heads, and the coin healed Fodder instead. “Do that again, Grandpa Goat.”

Vythorn’s Lesson

Healthier, the self-proclaimed “Cap’n” (the Grandmaster wondered if he was the off-brand kind) announced his plan: “I’m going to run at the goat and kill it.” His sword arm bit once and drank deep. “The ladies love scars,” the Grandmaster said, but his next swings were “just dancing moves.” Griff looked him dead in the eye: “You better run.” “Or what?” “Mess around and find out.”

Fodder grabbed Griff’s leg, reasoning that if he was going to burn, Griff would burn too. Griff stepped one hoof on Fodder’s knee and one on his shoulder and sprang free. The Grandmaster scored the prancing a perfect ten. “You might even call me a prancing pony.” Griff flicked Fodder on the forehead, said “stay there,” and froze him in place with a spell. Fodder’s will failed him completely. The ground half-swallowed him, and Griff and Griffy teleported away in a burst of fire that seared the helpless pirate.

The hosts called up a chaos event of their own. Gazing at the statue, the Shadow King grew nostalgic:

“I’m almost sorry I killed him. Not really sorry, but like a little bit. He was a great student. But maybe now he can teach a lesson for me.” — The Shadow King

The statue of Vythorn, the Endless Scholar, lurched to life and brought both fists down. Against Griff it missed so badly that its whole fist crumbled away around him. Against the frozen Fodder it could not miss, and it hammered him like a nail halfway into the floor before going still again. “Captain Crunched,” Fodder offered. “This is what you get for getting stoned,” said Griff.

Asses to Asses

Still frozen, Fodder could only think nasty thoughts, and he described them: “It involves Cappin Fodder’s teeth and the legs of Griff roasting over a spit with some sriracha sauce and some garlic powder.” Griff walked over slowly and set a copper piece on his head. “Why don’t you go down to the corner and buy yourself a clue?” He stepped back and called the holy fire down one last time. The Grandmaster cut in for one final staring contest, but the flames fell all the same.

Fodder looked up at the goat who was about to fry him and gave his verdict: “Whatever kind of look you were going for, you missed.” As he burned, he stared up at the Acolytes, and mostly without blinking they stared back and saluted as he turned to ash and blew away on the wind. Griff swept the remains into a tricorn hat with Griffy’s burning tail feathers and dumped them into the box. “From whence you came.” The Shadow King objected: “What does this look like, a trash can?” The Grandmaster flew down to deliver the eulogy (“Asses to asses, butts to butts… We will never forget you. Oh, that grand booty”) and slammed the chest shut. He was a pirate, after all. Who doesn’t love booty?

The Reward

The Shadow King melted into the shadow of his throne and rose out of the floor in front of Griff, pleased with the finish. Griff had heard he granted winners their heart’s desire, and he asked for “the go set. The original. The platonic ideal.” The Shadow King promised to make something happen, put an arm around him and walked him to the ledge before the statue. “Hey, acolytes! Gaze down upon your champion and witness his rewards.” Then he shoved Griff off (“You’ll find your set down there!”) and turned away without looking back. The moment he was out of sight, Griff teleported to safety with Griffy.

“Acolytes, everyone can go home. We’re done here,” the Shadow King announced. The Grandmaster began to protest. “I’m sorry, what can’t I do?” The choker around her neck tightened until her throat collapsed and she could not speak. “Speak up if you have something to say. No? Well then, welcome and good night to D20 Deathmatch!”

Dried Blood

Cappin Fodder was not quite finished. His ashes pulled themselves together into a pair of eyeballs and a rough mouth to share one last philosophy: “Alright, just as long as you’re chaotic and you’re having fun, screw the rules.” The Grandmaster agreed: “Who needs rules? Overthrow the system!” Griff, meanwhile, was said to be lying low, watching how the Void’s chaos works and hoping to get out alive. The emptied temple might just suit a squatting satyr.

Notable Moments

• The Shadow King played Bop-It by bopping goblins, and the Grandmaster revealed he once gave her one for her birthday.
• Harvey Hesko took Griff’s staff to the head, wore it as a “new hat,” and later threw it back and missed.
• Dolly was attacked by both champions for the first time, lost half her face to a birthday song, and exploded in poison.
• Cappin Fodder dove into the Box of Chaos himself, lost his arm, came out with a sword made from an Acolyte’s soul, and was fired straight through a ghostly Griff.
• The statue of Vythorn came to life and hammered the frozen pirate halfway into the floor.
• The Shadow King “rewarded” the winner by shoving him off a ledge, then silenced the Grandmaster with her choker.

Memorable Quotes

• Griff: “I get that the first 40 years of childhood are the hardest, but it doesn’t mean that you have to just say the first thing that comes to your mind.”
• Cappin Fodder: “Hey, you up there. Top row. Jump.”
• The Shadow King: “The Box of Chaos is a nifty little trinket. I should know, I was it once.”
• Cappin Fodder: “It’s a deathmatch. Read the room.”
• Griff: “You appear to have an acute case of hey look at me disease, and I will cure you of it.”
• Griff: “Why don’t you go down to the corner and buy yourself a clue?”
• Cappin Fodder: “Whatever kind of look you were going for, you missed.”
• The Grandmaster: “Asses to asses, butts to butts.”

Who and What Appears

Characters

Griff (Critical_Dice). A medium-sized satyr with backwards knees, beaded and baubled horns, a braid, brown leathers and a green tunic.

• Background: a games player and bar fly, a hustler at Stratego, Go and Pente who lets people think they can win.
• Powers and gear:
  • A simple staff, and later a Go set; both were sacrificed to the box.
  • Wildfire Spirit Griffy, a phoenix made from a rat.
  • Spells: Scorching Ray, Produce Flame, Cure Wounds, Shillelagh, Flame Strike, Hold Person.
• What he says about himself: satyrs do a truffle-hunting dance in the Fae realm. “I literally have hops.” He claims to have disabled the temple’s fire extinguishers.
• Ghost step tattoo (a picture of “Drippy”) on his left forearm.
• Winner. The Shadow King shoved him off the ledge instead of rewarding him, and he teleported to safety. Per Dried Blood, he is now in hiding.

Cappin Fodder (QuincysTavern). A halfling pirate, “the bestest pirate in the world,” with Intelligence 9.

• Gear:
  • A bandana over his eyes with slits.
  • A 10-ft whip his own length, a blunderbuss, a dagger and a hand axe.
• Lore: his ship has “the Monkmaker” scissors (“filled a whole monastery”). He hates liars. He is a slasher fighter with Indomitable and Action Surge.
• Box of Chaos: jumped into the box himself. His right arm was melted off and replaced with a short-sword arm of life stealing, made from Vegeta’s repurposed soul.
• Death: crushed into the floor by the Vythorn statue, then burned to ash by Flame Strike. His ashes were swept into the Box of Chaos.

Griffy. Griff’s phoenix Wildfire Spirit, transmuted from a temple rat. He has a Southern accent (“he’s an extension of me”), is called “chicken nugget,” and lost a tug of war over the staff to Fodder.

The Shadow King (Mudcat). Rules from the Dread Fortress throne.

• Obsessed with Bop-It: he bops goblins instead of the toy and claims the toys are defective. He once gave Elusia a Bop-It for her birthday.
• Killed a music goblin with a shadow blade.
• “I was it once” (the Box of Chaos).
• Says he killed Vythorn: “almost sorry… He was a great student.” He animated Vythorn’s statue.
• Cheated Griff out of his reward and dismissed the Acolytes.

Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer (Caustic Phoenix). She is summoning champions for the Shadow King.

• Summons champions with an amulet that cuts blood into her hand; ripping it in two opens the arena portal.
• Wears a choker that tightens and silences her when she defies the Shadow King.
• Protective of the goblins (Thomas, Hagrid). Got to 52 on Bop-It “when I was 12.”

Dolly. “Our favorite haunted doll,” with porcelain skin, glassy eyes and long lashes. Asks “Will you be my friend?” Casts unholy fire, has “a mind of her own,” and explodes in a poison bomb. Attacked by both players for the first time.

Goblins:

• Hagrid/Hagrad, a bop victim carried out on a stretcher.
• Thomas, one of the Grandmaster’s favorite goblins.
• An unnamed music goblin, killed.
• The cleanup crew.

Acolytes named:

• Harvey Hesko: hit in the temple by the staff, threw it back and missed.
• Prince Vegeta: soul ripped out to power the Box of Chaos, later repurposed as Fodder’s sword arm.
• Pethel, Master of Squids; Oddthority; Crystid; Ombad; Scrib; Gator; Night Garriant.
• An unnamed top-row Acolyte who jumped on Fodder’s command.

Vythorn (the Arbiter, the Endless Scholar). Not present. Represented by the statue. The Shadow King says he killed him.

Places

• The Dread Fortress throne room (the Shadow King’s seat). Dark, candlelit halls lead to it.
• The temple arena: old, broken and cold, with a statue of Vythorn with palms open, candles and artifacts. “Our acolytes find it quite familiar.” It has no ceiling, and Acolytes circle ethereally above. Per Dried Blood it sits empty afterward.
• The Fae realm, where satyrs hunt truffles (Griff).
• Fodder’s ship (unnamed).

Items

• Bop-Its (including a broken tower of them) and the rumored Bop-It 2.
• The Grandmaster’s blood amulet.
• The Box of Chaos: powered by Vegeta’s soul. Past offerings include “toes and teeth and daggers and honey.” It now holds Griff’s staff, his Go set and Fodder’s ashes.
• Ghost step tattoo, the sword arm of life stealing, and the soul coin.
• The Monkmaker scissors.
• Elusia’s choker.

Lore statements

• The Shadow King says he was once the Box of Chaos.
• The Shadow King says he killed Vythorn, his former “great student.”
• The Box of Chaos runs on an Acolyte soul and trades a sacrifice for a magic item.
• The Grandmaster is under the Shadow King’s control by a choker.

Full Round-by-Round

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

Opening: the throne room of the Dread Fortress

1. 0:01:26 Caustic Phoenix narrates. The Dread Fortress halls are dark and eerie, lit only by candlelight. The Grandmaster huffs and growls her way to the throne room. When she pushes open the doors she hears “twist it, flick it, bop it.” The Shadow King sits on his throne surrounded by Bop-Its, playing one. Whenever it calls “bop it,” he bops the four goblins standing around him on the head instead. The goblins are bruised and “clearly… the subject of abuse once again.” Broken Bop-Its are stacked in a tower that keeps growing along the side of the throne.
2. 0:02:50 The Shadow King: “These are all defective. Obviously they’re not working correctly or I would have won.” The Grandmaster tells him to stop hitting the staff, who are breaking along with the toys: “you pop it with your hand, you have two of them, use them.” The Shadow King demands another Bop-It. A goblin named Hagrid (“Hagrad”), according to his name tag, stumbles out in fear and tosses him a new one.
3. 0:03:34 The Shadow King fumbles through it and scores an 11. The Grandmaster: “That’s not even impressive… I got more when I was 12. You gave me a Bop-It as my freaking birthday present one year. You saw me get to like 52.” She refuses to play (“That is a child’s game”) and informs him that a Bop-It 2 now exists. “Bop-It 2?”
4. 0:04:13 The Shadow King: “Shouldn’t you have champions for me?” She agrees, “if it means you’ll stop beating on our poor little goblins.” He smacks one more goblin. Two goblins arrive with a small stretcher, clearly used to this, and carry Hagrid out. The Grandmaster apologizes for mispronouncing his name, promises to talk to HR about a pronunciation guide, and Hagrid gives a small wave of thanks. She tells Thomas, “one of her favorite goblins,” to get Hagrid a gift basket or fruit basket for his bedside (heard as “possible debt”).
5. 0:05:04 The summoning. “I brought for you two champions… we’ll demonstrate to you the worthiness of our realm.” She grips the amulet, which cuts blood into her hand as it drips. The ground rises into a circle, and two opponents step through: “I give you Griff and Cappin Fodder.”
6. 0:05:39 Cappin Fodder’s introduction. “I can’t believe I’m finally here. I am Cappin Fodder.” He’d been having a snack to get pumped up. He is “a halfling pirate, the bestest pirate in the world,” and anyone who stumbles on him gets their kneecaps [done in]. He calls Griff “a scrawny looking satyr… You are more than a midnight snack.”
7. 0:06:26 The insult exchange.
   • Griff: “There’s a lot of people who call me a snack.” He adds that his kneecaps go the other direction, so the kneecapping will be harder than Fodder imagined.
   • Fodder: “Your kneecaps go backwards?… That’s unnatural.” Griff: “we don’t need your prejudices in here.” Fodder “does not know the meaning of the word.” Griff: “Yeah, that’s apparent.”
   • Fodder: “You look like you must have been born on the highway, because that’s where most accidents happen.”
   • Griff: “I get that the first 40 years of childhood are the hardest, but it doesn’t mean that you have to just say the first thing that comes to your mind.”
8. 0:07:40 Griff’s introduction. “My name is Griff and I am… a games player, a bar fly.” Some would call him a pool shark, “but my game is more like Stratego or Go or Pente. And I love to hustle… and convince people that they’ve got a chance of winning when indeed they do not.”
9. 0:08:21 The Monkmaker. Fodder: “You a fibber. I don’t deal with liars… I deal with pirates, rogues, and thieves.” On his ship is “the Monkmaker. It’s a pair of scissors. Snip, snip… we filled a whole monastery full of them.” The Shadow King: “Well, I like the sound of that. My money’s on this one.” Fodder: “I better be getting a cut of that.”
10. 0:09:11 Griff starts a height joke (“He does have to aim high with his, never mind”). Fodder (inferred speaker): “I don’t wanna hurt you, old man… It’s the last thing on my list, but it’s still on my list.” Griff (inferred speaker): “Do you have a shortlist?”
11. 0:09:26 The prize. The Grandmaster: whoever survives “will get to join us for game night,” either Bop-It (“a little fist hitting back and forth”) or Stratego.
12. 0:09:58 The music goblin. The Grandmaster says the music “sounds like a rocking wedding intro.” The Shadow King: “One of the music goblins must have taken it upon himself. Don’t worry, I’ll kill him.” A shadow blade comes out of his arm and chops the top off the music goblin’s head.
13. 0:10:18 The Grandmaster: “we bring you two together in holy matrimony for a fight of the ages.” She rips the amulet into two pieces, splitting a space in time into a portal. Fodder: “Those who die first shall go first.” Griff: “After you then.” Fodder walks through.

The arena: the temple

14. 0:11:01 A temple, old and broken, with uneven stones. It’s “foreign and cold” to the champions, but the Acolytes find it “quite familiar.” The fire gives off a light glow, yet it’s cold all around. A large statue of “a great acolyte” stands with palms open, surrounded by candles and small artifacts, in “an unearthly and unholy place.” It’s “a temple of doom of our own… There’s no rolling balls that we know of.” Fodder: “It won’t be if it’s the one that I know.” Rats scurry by.
15. 0:12:06 There is no ceiling. Above, in an ethereal, ghostly way, thousands of Acolytes circle, cheering, with slushies, flags and lit sigils. Named in the crowd: Pethel, Master of Squids; Oddthority; Crystid; Ombad; Scrib; Gator; Harvey; Night Garriant.
16. 0:12:57 The jumper. Fodder: “Hey, you up there. Top row. Jump.” Someone does. The goblins hurry out to clean up the mess: “It’s supposed to be one of your two blood first, not another one.” Fodder: “I’m just that influential.”
17. 0:13:24 Griff: “If they really wanted to kill themselves, they’d climb up your ego and jump off your intelligence.” Fodder: “Are you reading from the same list of insults that I am?” Griff: “I don’t need a list. I just need to look at you.” “Bring it on, old goat man.”
18. 0:13:44 An intimidation contest decides initiative. Fodder wins, 22 to 19.
19. 0:14:18 The statue is Vythorn. The Shadow King: “I’m enjoying the atmosphere here with the large statue of Vythorn there. It’s very gauche.” He has them start face to face. The Grandmaster: “It’s actually like stomach to face.” “Oh yes, he’s very short.”

Round 1

20. 0:15:02 Griff described. A medium-sized satyr with goat legs and backwards knees, and breeches ending just above the knee. Hooves clamp to the cobblestones. Brown leathers over a green tunic. His horns are decorated with beads and baubles of different sizes along their length, and the hair between them is pulled back in a tight braid. He carries a simple staff and has “a gleam in his eye.”
21. 0:15:51 Fodder described. A typical halfling pirate in brown leathers. He wears a bandana wrapped over his eyes with little slits cut in it so he can see, a “weird intimidation factor” that doesn’t really work. His whip is about his own length but reaches 10 feet.
22. 0:16:25 Disarm. Fodder whips the staff out of Griff’s hand and takes it. “Is this yours?” “You gonna give that back?” “Nope!” He runs 25 ft, shouts to the audience “This is for you!” and hurls the staff, pointy end first. Griff declines the opportunity attack: “I don’t need to be timey-wimey to beat him.”
23. 0:19:40 Harvey’s new hat. The staff hits Acolyte Harvey Hesko in the temple. Fodder: “That’s what he gets for not keeping his eye on the fight.” The Grandmaster: “Pay attention!… It’s a new hat. It’s all the rage these days.” The staff stays in Harvey’s head.
24. 0:20:12 The satyr dance. Fodder mimics a satyr’s dance (performance 16). Griff rolls history to judge it. The Grandmaster narrates that Griff is “almost a little ashamed” that Fodder does a satyr dance better than he does. Griff: “is that a truffle shuffle?… It’s the dance we do when we hunt for truffles in the Fae realm.” He declines to demonstrate.
25. 0:22:02 The staff is about 45 ft up in the first level of the stands. Griff walks up to Fodder and looks him in the eye: “that kind of pissed me off… My eyes are down here. I have not yet begun to piss you off.”
26. 0:22:22 Griffy is born. Griff snatches up one of the passing rats, and it transmutes in flames into his Wildfire Spirit, a burning phoenix hovering beside him. Fodder makes the save. Griff: “I assume rats aren’t cute… You should have seen this one.” Caustic Phoenix: “It looked like your mother.” Fodder: “Don’t you just love nature despite what it did to your face?”
27. 0:23:41 Griff and the phoenix teleport 15 ft back in a burst of flame. Fodder saves again. Griff flips away, winks, and says, “bring it on.” Fodder: “Cappin Fodder never runs from a fight.… He really should. There was that one time where she was very big.” The Shadow King: “Talk about your mama.”

Chaos event: Dolly (0:26:02)

28. The Shadow King rolls 18 (“Bow down before me”). The Grandmaster: “We’re not gonna bow down before you because you figured out how to roll a dice.” She has Griff roll instead. The Acolytes summon a chaotic event, and a nat 20 lets the Grandmaster “pick my favorite one.”
29. 0:26:58 A rumble under their feet. Tiles shift as if a gopher were rummaging beneath them, and small laughter escapes. One tile slowly and magically rises to reveal a hole. Two glassy, unblinking eyes with long lashes look out. “Will you be my…” “It’s Dolly, our favorite haunted doll,” holding out her hands to both of them.
30. 0:28:38 Griff points at Fodder: “He will. He’ll do it.” Fodder turns to Griff and “very, very seriously” apologizes for his earlier words. Then he rummages and pulls out a blunderbuss: “I was not there before, but thank you.” “I don’t know how to shoot the doll.”

Round 2

31. 0:29:21 Fodder: “This thing needs to die.” His blunderbuss shot hits (16), and three of Dolly’s fingers shatter on the ground. Without moving her shoulders, her head turns toward him and her eyes glow. The Grandmaster: “your blunderbuss knows better than you… A haunted porcelain doll. It’s smarter than Fodder is.”
32. 0:30:58 Fodder tries to punt Dolly toward Griff and misses (12). She rises from the hole, floating on her own. As a reaction she casts unholy fire on Fodder. He fails, and she burns his toes and fingers “as she had lost hers.” Griff: “it’s all fun and games when you’re rolling against me, but get the little doll and you just freak out.”
33. 0:32:16 Dolly turns to Griff with both hands out: “Will you be my friend?” Griff: “I didn’t do nothing to you. Yeah, let’s be friends.”
34. 0:32:53 Fodder “boot scoot boogie”s 30 ft away in a crab scuttle: “Nope, nope, nope.” The Grandmaster: “as you skedaddle-daddle away.”
35. 0:33:26 Dolly: “Please be my friend.” Griff: “You like party tricks?” Dolly: “Yes, but I don’t like it alone.” She keeps coming closer with her hands out.
36. 0:33:54 The party trick. Griff: “just imagine this is a birthday party.” He starts singing happy birthday, “the non-copyright version,” and casts Scorching Ray. All three rays hit, the last a glancing blow, boosted by the phoenix. Dolly’s hair singes off, one ray takes off the whole right side of her face, and another hits her core. Griff, to Fodder: “could have been you.”
37. 0:35:46 The explosion. Dolly soaks in the fire, her cracks rumble, she glows an unholy green, and she explodes in a poison bomb. Both must save, Griff at a higher DC because he’s closer. The stench is foul, and Griff takes poison damage that eats at his throat and lungs. The Grandmaster: “How’s that ceramic Dutch oven?” Reply (speaker uncertain, probably Griff): “It’s like Thanksgiving with grandpappy. Chainsmoker.”
38. 0:37:27 “Dolly is no more.” The Grandmaster notes for D20 history: “this is the first time Dolly has been attacked by both players.” The Shadow King: “It really shows a couple of psychopaths here, attacking a doll.” Fodder: “You’re the one who resurrected that thing from the ground.” The Shadow King: “Don’t look at me, I didn’t create the doll, this is all hers thing.” The Grandmaster: “Dolly has a mind of her own.” Her shattered pieces are gone.
39. 0:38:13 Griff takes “an existential crisis” as a free action. He names the phoenix Griffy (“It’s counterintuitive, but I like it”). Griffy attacks Fodder “who made me waste a spell slot on creepy doll” with fire (a 27 to hit). Fodder’s shirt burns away a little more. Griff: “That’s for getting that doll summoned… you’re throwing my stick away.” Fodder: “It’s a deathmatch. Read the room.”
40. 0:40:34 Harvey returns the staff. Griff asks the crowd who else wants to get banged in the head by a thing Fodder stole. Harvey pulls the staff out of his skull and throws it at Fodder. It misses and lands at Fodder’s feet.
41. 0:41:09 Tug of war. Griffy dives for the stick, and Fodder uses his reaction to fight for it. Griffy talks in a Southern accent (“y’all”; Griff: “he’s an extension of me”). Fodder wins easily (23 vs 14): “no chicken nugget.” He wrenches it free and launches Griffy away. The following exchange is speaker uncertain (06/02):
    • “Hey, don’t you hurt my bird.”
    • “It’s the value pack. It comes with fire sauce.”
    • “You belong in a big bag.”
    Griff: “I was gonna play nice, but mm-mm… I burned that mangy rat to a crisp on purpose to summon him and you will not disrespect my flaming bird.” Fodder (inferred): “Oh, spicy chicken nugget, I’m sorry.”

The Box of Chaos (0:43:06)

42. The Acolytes beg for something new, but the Shadow King’s box is empty. He has slumped over: “I’m awake. Box, box, oh no… Who looks good? One, two, three. You, Prince Vegeta!”
43. 0:44:40 The Shadow King: “The Box of Chaos is a nifty little trinket. I should know, I was it once. You may make a sacrifice of any value or personal sentimental-ness to it, and in return you shall receive one magic item.” It’s a free action.
44. 0:45:04 Fodder offers “this very valuable and much emotionally attached staff of me.” The Grandmaster mishears “statue of myself” and is delighted by the idea of him carrying around a commissioned statue of himself: “I’m deaf, but it creates the best stories.”
45. 0:45:49 The Shadow King rolls a 3 to match the coming round 3. The Acolytes gift each champion a hero point: “if you die with it in your hand, we will be very angry and we’ll remember that forever. Thank you, Harvey. Your aim sucks, though.”

Round 3

47. 0:46:39 Fodder throws Griff’s staff into the box, hoping for a Vorpal Sword or “a cannon that can fit me inside it.”
48. 0:47:06 The steal. Griff spends his hero point. Griffy grabs the staff mid-air, Griff casts Shillelagh on it (“thanks for giving that back to me”), and then he throws it into the box himself: “Here you go, box, my staff.” The Grandmaster: “You swiped the gift back and gifted yourself.” Fodder: “the goat man’s got some moves.” Griff: “I literally have hops. It’s on my sheet.”
49. 0:49:02 The ghost step tattoo. The box rumbles and flips open, and fire shoots skyward. The shadow’s empty hand stretches across the floor, crawls up Griff’s body and brands a tattoo on his left forearm: a picture of “Drippy.” It’s the ghost step tattoo, with one charge that makes him incorporeal (resistant to bludgeoning, piercing, slashing) until his next turn. Griff to Fodder: “Hey, suck it, you.”
50. 0:50:13 Boo. Fodder boos. Griff: “feed your own ego. I’m busy.” The Grandmaster: “you’re a ghost, so boo’s the appropriate response.” Griff tries to get the whole arena booing for him, and they all boo (“Boo, you suck!”). Fodder: “it’s not that you suck… I get it.”
51. 0:51:10 Whip it. Fodder closes in and whips Griff’s hindquarters: “Booty hit. Booty hit. Whip it good.” The whip lands twice. As a slasher, he cuts deeper and slows Griff (“You walking with a limp”). Then he runs. Griff: “Coward.” Fodder: “Words can’t hurt me.”
52. 0:53:02 Griff (satyr speed 35) casts Cure Wounds at 2nd level, boosted by the spirit, for big healing, “undoing all his hard work.” He turns the limp into “a nice walk like a gangster I saw in a movie once,” gets close, and Griffy teleports them both away in flame. Fodder burns his Indomitable reroll on the save, still takes the fire, and admits, “that was not worth my indomitable at all.” Griff: “I’m so glad you could accommodate me.” Fodder: “You stop using those big boys, Goat Grandpa.” Griff: “I’d agree with you, but then we’d both be wrong.”
53. 0:55:30 Ghost mode. Griffy lands on Griff’s shoulder, Griff says “boo” and hits the tattoo, and both go incorporeal (the Grandmaster allows it). He bites his thumb at Fodder: “So you have fun playing with yourself.” Fodder: “Never give Cappin Fodder a chance to get ready.”
54. 0:56:19 Break: “take your popcorn break.” It’s cut. On return the Shadow King jokes about the commercial budget (table talk: the “Dice Daddy” ad wins again).

Round 4: Fodder enters the box

56. 0:58:23 The dive. Fodder tightens the bandana over his eyes so he can see even less, crouches as if launching from a cannon, Naruto-runs with arms back, and dives head first into the box. “No thoughts at empty.” Line on 05, speaker uncertain: “I love myself.” Griff: “Doesn’t look it.” Vegeta makes room for him: “It’s very cozy.” Fodder: “Spin pal, spin pal.”
57. 0:59:08 The camera pans to the Acolytes: jaws drop, some visibly stunned. “We’ve seen toes and teeth and daggers and honey thrown in, but a whole person? By themselves? This is a new one.” “Technically a halfling.” “It’s a whole soul though, right?”
58. 1:00:40 The sword arm. Inside the box, shadows wrap around Fodder. The box’s fire melts away the skin and bone of his right arm. The shadow spirit walks up: “Here, use this.” It jams a blade into the bone sticking out of his arm, giving him a short-sword arm: the sword of life stealing, which steals health with every hit. Fodder asks if Vegeta gave it to him. Mudcat: “It was once Vegeta… it’s Vegeta’s soul. It’s been repurposed.” (speaker uncertain, 06): “Thank you. Ouch. No problem.” Is it permanent? The Shadow King: “Unless you have another arm laying around.” “Okay, I’m good, thank you.”
59. 1:02:11 Fodder to Griff: “Mr. Goatman, I’ll make you do me a favor. Run into this multiple times.” Griff: “Come on over.”
60. 1:02:36 Cannon Fodder. Fodder retcons with his hero point: the box tips over and launches him like a cannon, spearheading at Griff with the new blade. But Griff is still incorporeal. Fodder shoots straight through Griff’s chest and hits the ground head first, taking the only damage. “Totally worth it.” On the sound of passing through him (06, speaker uncertain): “It’s kind of gross, but I like it.” Griff flips a Go piece and watches him pass: “I am so sorry for your illness. You appear to have an acute case of hey look at me disease, and I will cure you of it.” Griff: “Best hero point I’ve ever seen.”
61. 1:04:48 Flame Strike. Griff backs out of the splash zone, moving his hands as he lectures: “If you’ve ever studied religions… So often, gods of fire and lies and deception. And that’s because people will bring fire into their houses. They’ll put it in the center of the house and then it betrays them.” Flame Strike, fire and radiant, boosted by the spirit. Fodder saves for half. Fodder: “You look like a before picture.” Griff: “Oh, what? The Fire Marshal General?” Griffy hits him with flame as well. Fodder: “Watch it, chicken nugget.”
62. 1:06:47 The once icy room is now hot, and so are the tiles under Fodder. “There’s no fire extinguishers anywhere. No sprinklers… It’s not safe.” Griff: “I came in early, made sure there’s no fire extinguishers… disable them so they’ll explode instead.”
63. 1:07:43 The Go set. Griff throws his gaming set of Go into the box: “I just take a pen out and write went on it instead.” The shadowy creature claws its way out: “I thought maybe you would like a game of chance.” It flips a soul coin. Griff calls tails and it lands heads, so instead of temporary HP for Griff, the coin heals Cappin Fodder (“those burning scars heal, but your shirt does not”). Fodder: “Do that again, Grandpa Goat. A couple more of those.”

Round 5

64. 1:09:57 The Grandmaster has the Shadow King roll again, and he gets a 2. Old-man jab: “Hey, watch it… You got in my head.”
65. 1:10:32 “Cap’n.” The Grandmaster notices “Cap’n” vs “Captain”: “Are you, like, the off-brand?” (She spells out “C-A-P-P-I-N”; unclear.)
66. 1:10:47 Fodder: “I’m going to run at the goat and kill it.” He attacks with the life-stealing arm. The first roll accidentally comes from a Holy Avenger on his sheet (a table mix-up, redone). The redo hits and he heals from the blade. The Grandmaster: “Zoe, Griff, the ladies love scars.” Griff: “They’re going to love him then.” The second attack misses, and so does an Action Surge swing (“That’s just dancing moves”).
67. 1:12:54 Griff, dead in the eye: “You better run.” Fodder: “Or what?” “Mess around and find out.”
68. 1:13:04 The leg grab. Since Griff’s attacks are all fire and Dex saves, Fodder tries to cling to Griff’s leg (“If I’m gonna burn, you’re gonna burn with me”). Griff escapes acrobatically: he steps a hoof on Fodder’s knee, another on his shoulder, and springs out of his grip. The Grandmaster: “you’re prancing beautifully. 10 out of 10 on the prancing. Your hooves are in great shape.” Griff: “You might even call me a prancing pony.”
69. 1:15:06 Hold Person. Griff flicks Fodder on the forehead, says “stay there,” and casts Hold Person. Fodder rolls a nat 1 on the Wisdom save. The Grandmaster narrates the ground opening to “swallow you a little,” leaving him immobilized. Griff and Griffy teleport away, and the held Fodder takes a critical burst of fire.
70. 1:16:20 Fodder: “I’m sitting pretty at 69 hit points. Now the beloved crowd of Acolytes would never let me go below 69. Right?” “They love that number.” Griff cleans his fingernails.

Chaos event: the statue of Vythorn (1:16:52)

71. The Shadow King rolls a 3, so the Grandmaster rolls for him and gets a 6: “I’m double the person you are.” It’s enough for a chaotic event of their own.
72. 1:17:26 The Shadow King stands: “in this place with the statue of Vythorn here looking upon us, it makes me a little nostalgic… I’m almost sorry I killed him. Not really sorry, but like a little bit. He was a great student. But maybe now he can teach a lesson for me.”
73. 1:17:48 The statue animates, stumbles out and slams both fists down on the champions. It misses Griff horribly with a nat 1, and the whole fist crumbles off around him. Against the held Fodder it’s an automatic crit. “The statue of the Arbiter, Vythorn, the Endless Scholar,” hammers him “like a nail, just like halfway into the ground.” The statue then stands back up and goes motionless.
74. 1:19:23 The cereal. Grandmaster: “We could turn you into a cereal. Captain cereals are popular.” Fodder: “Captain Crunched.” “Get the off-brand Cappin Fodder.” “We have Captain Crunch at home.” Griff: “This is what you get for getting stoned.” Fodder: “Don’t go preach at me, hippie.” The Shadow King: “Well, with that amazing joke, we’re just going to move on to round number six.”

Round 6: Fodder’s end

75. 1:20:02 Fodder is still held and can only think. “I think very nasty thoughts at you.” The Grandmaster asks for the action he wishes he could take: “It involves Cappin Fodder’s teeth and the legs of Griff roasting over a spit with some sriracha sauce and some garlic powder.” He fails the save (5).
76. 1:21:48 Griff walks up slowly and puts a copper piece on Fodder’s head: “Why don’t you go down to the corner and buy yourself a clue?” He backs up and casts Flame Strike, which Fodder auto-fails. The DMs rule it maximized as a crit.
77. 1:22:27 The staring contest. The Grandmaster cuts in: Fodder had been doing “the Care Bear Stare,” holding eye contact. She has both of them hold an eye-staring contest, narrating the wind, dry eyes, sawdust and contacts (“if you’re a beholder only you have to keep two of them open”). The result is unclear in the transcript (“I gave you your chance. Brian 8”) and the fire comes down anyway.
78. 1:24:17 Fodder: “I’m dead.” His final moments: he looks up at Griff, “taking in the entirety of this message of this goat person who is about to fry me”: “Whatever kind of look you were going for, you missed.” He dies. Griff: “Into the ash piles of what I didn’t miss you.”
79. 1:25:12 As he burns, he blinks, re-holds the stare and looks up at the Acolytes. Mostly unblinking, they stare back and salute him as he turns to ash and dust and is taken by the wind.
80. 1:25:39 Ashes to asses. Griff wants to scoop up the ashes. Fodder: “No, my ashes fight back.” The Grandmaster says “in the spirit of his asses” and keeps saying it (“All of the asses that he had”). Griff: “we’ve never had the how many butts do you have conversation.” Fodder: “I got one, but double cheeked up on this Tuesday night.” Grandmaster: “on a Sunday night for a Deathmatch.”
81. 1:26:43 With Griffy’s burning tail feathers as a broom, Griff gingerly sweeps the ashes into a tricorn hat and dumps them into the Box of Chaos (“the Vegeta chest”): “From whence you came.” The Shadow King: “What does this look like, a trash can?” The Grandmaster: “Asses to asses, butts to butts.” “Amen.”
82. 1:27:18 The Grandmaster flies down: “We will never forget you. Oh, that grand booty.” She slams the chest shut. Griff: “Booty’s going to chest… he would have wanted it this way.” “He was a pirate. Who doesn’t love booty?”

The reward

83. 1:27:41 The Shadow King melts into the shadow of his throne and appears out of the floor in front of Griff: “I liked the way that you killed him at the end there.” Griff has heard he can reward people with what they want most: “I want the go set. The original. The platonic ideal… The master set.” The Grandmaster: “That’s a collector’s edition.” The Shadow King: “Wouldn’t be very sporting of me to deny you… I’m sure we can make something happen.”
84. 1:28:53 “Maybe we’ll get a set for the entire stands.” He puts an arm around Griff and walks him to the ledge in front of the statue: “Hey, acolytes! Gaze down upon your champion and witness his rewards.” He shoves Griff off (“You’ll find your set down there!”) and turns away without caring. As soon as he’s out of sight, Griff teleports to safety with Griffy.
85. 1:29:42 The Shadow King: “Acolytes, everyone can go home. We’re done here.” The Grandmaster: “That’s not… you can’t just…” “I’m sorry, what can’t I do?” The choker tightens, and Elusia’s throat collapses so she can’t speak. “Speak up if you have something to say. No? Well then, welcome and good night to D20 Deathmatch!”

Full Dried Blood notes (click to expand)

In-character (canon, Dried Blood):

• 1:43:50 Quincy, as Cappin Fodder: his ashes morph together into eyeballs and a rough mouth: “Alright, just as long as you’re chaotic and you’re having fun, screw the rules.” The Grandmaster (inferred): “Who needs rules? Overthrow the system!”
• 1:44:16 Jason: “Sometimes it’s about the booty you find along the way.” It’s unclear whether this is in character as Griff.

Out-of-character, creator notes:

• This was the first Deathmatch for both QuincysTavern and Critical_Dice. Jason credits Quincy with stealing the RP show; Quincy’s dice went cold after “the doll.”
• Dolly rules (Caustic Phoenix): if you befriend her, you take only a d4 of damage and she becomes your familiar, similar to an imp. She bites and casts unholy burns, then explodes in poison at the end. Mudcat and Caustic Phoenix: Dolly was the show’s first-ever chaotic event. “People hate her.”
• Caustic Phoenix praises how both players handled nat 1s and nat 20s. Quincy (a theater major) says about 95% of his D&D has been with Jason. Jason: audience and player enjoyment is “the secret win condition of D&D.” Mudcat: the show rewards creative stories, like the crits on a held target.
• The rat (joke headcanon, Jason/Caustic Phoenix): a mangy “mini Chupacabra” that “wasn’t respectful of his mother.” Once purified through Griffy, the rat is restored and has “a religious experience,” founding “the order of the sacred flame.” It becomes a cleric whose holy symbol is a chest with a butt on it, causing a schism: the Reformed Fireites think it’s boobs, the Orthodox think butts. Logged as table joke, not canon.
• Griff’s next move (Mudcat asks): “so far the Shadow King has murdered two champions and attempted the third, you got away.” Jason (player-stated): Griff will hide and learn more. He’s a strategy-game hustler in taverns, and when he wins a wager he takes inconvenient things, like the sheath to your sword, “but now you’ll remember me forever.” He’s watching how the chaos works, looking for a win and hoping to get out alive.
• Caustic Phoenix: once they’re finished with this temple, it’s pretty much empty and unused, so Griff could live there “like a homeless person.” Squatter’s rights: Griff would insist on 30 days. Lawyer jokes (McConaughey, “my cousin”).
• Plugs: Quincy’s Tavern cookbook (The Traveler’s Guide to the Lucky Griffin: Recipes and Regalings), the Convergence at Evermore Park (Salt Lake City, first week of May), thecriticaldice.com.