A lovestruck centaur paladin named Witch Hunter faced Grickle, a four-armed, eyelid-free thri-kreen, on a stretch of ice the Grandmaster couldn’t be bothered to name creatively. What began as a parade of flirting, stray nipples and a naked man named Bruce turned into one of the more unexpectedly tender endings in the arena. The bug tried to save the centaur from drowning, and the centaur left the bug his family’s glaive. Then The Shadow King stepped in and ended things the way he ends everything.
The Story
Goblin Bowling
As The Acolytes took their seats through portals across The Void, the Grandmaster walked the halls of The Dread Fortress. She was Grandmaster “but only a name” now, and her heels were no longer the loudest sound in the building. A cackling scream drew her to the Shadow King’s throne room. She kicked down its dusty old doors and found him rolling a large bowling ball down a long rug into a row of small, shaking goblins. He knocked half of them over. “I need to practice,” he explained. “I have a big tournament this weekend.”
Elusia scrambled to set Henry, Lucy and the others back on their feet. She pointed out that they weren’t even the right color for bowling pins, so he snapped his fingers and a goblin walked in carrying a bucket of paint. She had needed those goblins hours ago to bring the Acolytes in and prepare the arena, so she clapped her hands, and the goblins scattered “as if they were holding their breath.” The Shadow King shrugged: “Their weight was all off anyways.”
The strain was showing on her. Her hair had begun falling out in little patches, and her left eye twitched a little more each time she had to deal with him. When he grumbled that there were “only 10 of them. I figured you could spare a few,” she shot back that, fortunately, he was bad at bowling and hadn’t gotten any spares. She told him to “be a good, lazy king” and promised him two champions he could throw bowling balls at if he liked. He settled onto his throne. “Next time, lead with the good part.”
Then she gripped the amulet at her neck. Its sharp edges cut into palms already scarred from summoning this way, and as her blood trickled down, a bright orange portal opened.
The Champions Arrive
Witch Hunter trotted through first. “Good to see everyone. Is this the bathroom?” Exiled to a corner, he complained that it was her fault the building lacked centaur accessibility. The Shadow King agreed he’d been telling her that, and Elusia directed the complaint to the feedback form, to be filed with HR. “And I definitely didn’t kill HR last week,” the Shadow King added.
Grickle followed. “Where am I? Is this the thing? This is the thing.” Witch Hunter took one look at him and declared, “Oh my god, you have a dump truck for a thorax.” He then offered Grickle a pamphlet about “our lord and savior, Maliki.” Grickle snapped, “Get that out of my face!” Witch Hunter was unbothered: “It’s fine, I have more.” Grickle answered with a display of his own: his shiny carapace faded to a dull gray, a cape billowed from his shell, and his wings spread for a moment.
That was enough for Witch Hunter. “When I find someone attractive, flowers bloom on me,” he warned, “and flowers are blooming.” Elusia called it a perfect match: one ready to fight and hating the other, the other loving the one who hated him. She plucked a marigold off the centaur, sniffed it, and handed it to Henry the goblin, whose shins were still bruised from the bowling. A blue portal opened, and Witch Hunter led the way: “Centaurs first.”
The Frozen Lake
The arena was an icy tundra miles from anything. The wind cut across their skin, or in Grickle’s case his carapace, which, Elusia noted, doesn’t get goosebumps. With no eyelids to protect them, his eyes streamed in the wind, and he wept as though something awful had happened while still standing proudly. “I welcome you,” said Elusia, “to the frozen lake. It’s not creatively named.” Something moved deep beneath the ice. When she spread her wings, the gust was strong enough that Witch Hunter had to stake his spear into the ground. Overhead, where the sky should have been, the Acolytes roared from a coliseum.
Before a blow was struck, chaos handed each champion a magical horse that could take the shape of any beast. Witch Hunter observed that “technically this is my cousin.” Elusia warned, “You should not be riding your cousin,” but the Shadow King waved it off: “It’s okay, there’s no state laws here.” Witch Hunter then chose a human instead: a naked, friendly-looking 43-year-old with a dad bod and a very bushy mustache, big enough on all fours to keep the centaur’s hooves off the ground. He named him Bruce. Grickle rode a giant rhinoceros beetle named Gricklebackackack, which was nearly his own name with a few more clicks on the end. “So foreign and exotic, I love it,” Witch Hunter swooned. “I don’t see a ring.”
First Blood and the Ledger of Deaths
Grickle struck first. “Now you see me?” He hid behind his beetle’s fluttering wings and vanished from Witch Hunter’s sight entirely. The paladin, it turned out, “didn’t bring his glasses.” Then the wings parted, two scimitars came flying out of them, and Grickle hopped back aboard and skittered across the ice. Witch Hunter, who claimed an unhealthy amount of World of Warcraft had taught him how to fight a rogue, slapped Bruce’s butt cheeks to give chase. On his first swing his glaive caught in the ice, flipping centaur and mount alike, and Bruce sprawled naked in the snow with his “Ding-a-ling” splayed out. “I prefer Ding-a-ling, actually,” the Shadow King noted. “The scientific term.” Witch Hunter recovered and called on his god (“May Maliki be with me”) for a holy strike that hit hard, though Grickle parried away some of the blow.
When Grickle admitted he didn’t do math (“I’m a bug. I don’t do math. I kill people”), the Shadow King held up a blood-smeared journal: the master logbook of deaths, “a log of everything for everyone.” It credited Grickle with exactly one half of a kill. “That book is lying!” Witch Hunter’s count was 69, “but most of that’s an orphanage.”
When Elusia sassed her uncle, the Shadow King tightened the shadowy chains he kept on her and dragged her toward the ground. “Just because you’re my niece doesn’t mean I’m going to let you speak to me this way in front of all the Acolytes,” he said, and then: “It’s because I love you.” Witch Hunter asked if this was generational trauma. It was.
Pets, Nipples and the Box of Chaos
Grickle’s next slash took off Witch Hunter’s nipple “like a pepperoni.” It sailed into the stands, where the Acolyte Divinity D&D caught it in their mouth. “Food for the Acolytes!” Then Grickle retreated, slipped on the ice, and fired an arrow straight up. It came whistling back down and killed his own beetle. The logbook updated to 1.5. “It do be like that sometimes,” Witch Hunter offered. Furious, Grickle fired again (“That was clearly your fault!”), missed, and hit the Acolyte Glass Flippers in the arm, which turned the crowd against him.
“It seems the Acolytes want a taste of chaos,” the Shadow King announced. A box thudded into the middle of the arena. A shadowy hand reached into the stands, lifted the “already damaged goods” Glass Flippers into the air, and a second hand karate-chopped him in half like a log. The Shadow King slammed his black soul into the box, and a column of pink and yellow fire shot skyward. The Box of Chaos was primed: offer it a sacrifice, and it would give back a magic item. Elusia also explained the Acolytes’ gifts to each champion, their energy, hopes and fighting spirit, which could be spent once for a moment of glory.
Witch Hunter healed himself by “caressing myself gently… with oil” pressed from the very flowers that bloomed for Grickle, which left the Acolytes, by Elusia’s account, slightly uncomfortable but also slightly aroused. The Shadow King wanted to know what kind of oil, “because we have a tradition of hibiscus lube in this arena.” He left Bruce, now “Bruce Bruce,” on a break. The mount curled into a ball and kept his face warm in his own butt cheeks. The centaur then struck Grickle with a smite so radiant that a rainbow wrapped around the bug and marigolds bloomed from his wounds, “with all the colors of the wind.”
When the Shadow King bellowed “MOTHERFUCKING SHADOW KING!”, Elusia decided he must be an impostor and pulled off his face like a Scooby-Doo villain’s mask. Behind it was a swirling black void with yellow eyes, shadow teeth and tentacles. She put the face back and covered it with a trash bag. Witch Hunter, meanwhile, found that the Shadow King’s face had turned him on and his one remaining nipple had gone hard, sharp enough, Elusia ruled, to serve as a small piercing dagger.
Bread, a War Pick and a Bad Juggling Act
Grickle beat a “tactical retreat” to the box, past a coward’s corner in the stands waving tiny white flags. Glass Flippers’ shadowy figure clawed out and asked what he had to trade. “I have bread?” It was stale, hard as a rock. “I like bread.” In return the box spat out Iron Fang, a crackling war pick. Grickle raised it with two arms, held his scimitars out with the other two, and hurled it with an awful screech. It only clipped the tip of Witch Hunter’s other nipple and landed behind him, where it stayed.
Grickle then tried juggling his scimitars to impress the crowd. He kept dropping them, and not even the children were impressed, but Witch Hunter was genuinely encouraged (“I liked it… Are you available to be hired as a life coach?”). The centaur chased Grickle down with the reach of his glaive, and Elusia marveled that the two were exactly as hard to hit as each other: “It’s like this was fate bringing the two of you together.” “Love story for the ages,” said Witch Hunter. “Do you feel something?” “Yeah, I feel my carapace breaking.” A twisting stab drew a cry of “the old dick twist!” During a breather, Witch Hunter revealed his real name was Ricardo, a former bounty hunter who rebranded after “an orphanage incident.”
Flashbulbs and a Storm
After a break, the Acolytes unleashed the paparazzi, who mobbed both celebrities and left them blinded, dazed, with little tweety birds circling their heads. Grickle took his chance to flee, ran straight into his opponent (“Did we just kiss?”), and impaled his own eye on the nipple dagger. He then pressed himself flat to the ice like a cockroach and vanished perfectly. Witch Hunter healed again, shielded himself in shimmering light, and sniffed aggressively for “the musk of Grickrick.”
Feeling “a little bit warm,” the Shadow King raised a hand and called down clouds, thunder, sleet and freezing rain. Bruce Bruce, naked and waxed, suffered worst of all: his breath froze his face permanently into his own butt cheeks.
Grickle rose from the snow and landed a massive blow to the centaur’s ankle that dropped him to the ice, breaking his concentration so his shield flickered out. Grickle slipped behind a pillar. Then Bruce Bruce, rolling “in donut form” in search of warmth, tumbled into the Box of Chaos as a sacrifice. The fire launched a half-gallon greater healing potion into Witch Hunter’s hands. He drank it and announced “I’m allergic!” He was, to the red dye. A second trade, his heirloom lucky rabbit’s foot, got him a regular healing potion, the kind he was allergic to, which he wisely left undrunk.
Through the Ice
“That book was a complete lie,” Grickle insisted. “I know what I’m doing.” Reasoning that a centaur is heavy and a bug is light, he spent the Acolytes’ gift on an arrow into the ice at Witch Hunter’s feet. The lake cracked open and swallowed him, with blood pooling in the frigid water.
Then Grickle did something no one expected. “I’m going to play into the story we’ve created,” he said, and ran to pull his enemy out. Four arms and clawed feet weren’t enough on slick ice. “Oh, man, my mom’s gonna kill me,” he fretted. He was, he explained, only two years old, because thri-kreen don’t live long. Witch Hunter spent his own gift trying to climb out. The rescue turned into a messy flail, the two of them knocking each other’s hands away, “like trying to rescue a deer from the black ice.” Elusia broke her composure and cheered: “Oh, Witch Hunter Ricardo! Do not give up this fight tonight! Survive!”
The Final Blow
Witch Hunter looked up at the bug he loved.
Witch Hunter: “This is my grandmother’s glaive. She, like, saved her family from this. Please, I would appreciate it if you could, you know, keep it going. You use it in your future battles, and I wish you all the best. And maybe in the next life, we can do laundry in Texas together.”
Weighed down by his chainmail, he let go and accepted the cold. As he sank, his marigolds broke off at their frozen stems and floated to the surface like little dollops of gold, “almost as a beautiful funeral.” The logbook ticked to 2.5. Grickle fell onto his back and made snow angels in grief, clutching the glaive to his chest with his two small arms while the other two flailed.
The Shadow King melted into the shadows at his throne and reappeared beside him. “It’s okay. Don’t cry. Your pain’s almost over.” He snapped his fingers, and a giant black boot fell from the heavens, crushing Grickle and splattering his guts across the ice. “Welcome, and good night, to D20 Deathmatch!”
Dried Blood
Afterward, Witch Hunter’s player promised to write fanfic about the pair’s relationship, and Grickle’s player wondered aloud why the ending had been so emotional. He said Witch Hunter’s kindness gave Grickle a change of heart mid-fight, and the bug’s youth fed into the rescue. Two more facts about Ricardo came out: he once had celiac disease, which he no longer has since becoming a paladin, and he “has romantic feelings towards bug people.”
Notable Moments
- The Shadow King bowled with live goblins, and Henry received a marigold for his bruised shins.
- Grickle’s own arrow fell from the sky and killed his beetle, and his next shot hit an Acolyte.
- Elusia pulled off the Shadow King’s face, found a tentacled void, and covered it with a trash bag.
- Bruce Bruce’s face froze into his own butt cheeks, and he rolled into the Box of Chaos as a sacrifice.
- Grickle tried to pull his drowning rival from the ice, and Witch Hunter left him his grandmother’s glaive.
- The marigold funeral was immediately followed by the giant black boot.
Memorable Quotes
- Witch Hunter: “Good to see everyone. Is this the bathroom?”
- The Shadow King: “Next time, lead with the good part.”
- Grickle: “I’m a bug. I don’t do math. I kill people.”
- Witch Hunter: “But most of that’s an orphanage, so. Not my fault. Didn’t mean to happen. Still counts, unfortunately.”
- The Shadow King: “Just because you’re my niece doesn’t mean I’m going to let you speak to me this way in front of all the Acolytes.”
- Grickle: “Yeah, I feel my carapace breaking.”
- The Grandmaster: “Oh, Witch Hunter Ricardo! Do not give up this fight tonight! Survive!”
- The Shadow King: “It’s okay. Don’t cry. Your pain’s almost over.”
Who and What Appears
Characters
Witch Hunter / Ricardo (D’Angelo). A centaur paladin.
- Faith and origins:
- Worships Maliki and carries pamphlets about him.
- Real name Ricardo. He was a bounty hunter until “an orphanage incident,” then rebranded. He hunts “anyone who doesn’t believe in Maliki and uses magic.”
- His kill count is 69, “most of that’s an orphanage.”
- Body and gear:
- Marigolds bloom on him when he finds someone attractive. He uses their oil for Lay on Hands.
- Wields his grandmother’s glaive and wears heavy chainmail.
- Lost one nipple to Grickle’s scimitar. The other was clipped by Iron Fang, then turned into a piercing “nipple dagger.”
- Quirks:
- Played World of Warcraft (Caustic Phoenix: “canon”).
- Allergic to the red dye in healing potions.
- Once had a gluten intolerance, cured by becoming a paladin.
- Never learned to swim; had no father figure.
- Called “Witch King” after a “battlefield promotion.”
- In this episode: drowned under the Frozen Lake after giving Grickle the glaive.
Grickle (nat1fun). A thri-kreen fighter with rogue-like tricks (sneak attack, Uncanny Dodge, maneuvers, Mobile).
- Body and gear:
- Four arms, a shiny carapace that can shift to dull gray, a cape-like display and wings. No eyelids.
- Only two years old (“we don’t live that long”); “my mom’s gonna kill me.”
- Two scimitars and a longbow; gained Iron Fang.
- In this episode:
- Killed his own beetle and wounded Glass Flippers.
- Lost an eye to Witch Hunter’s nipple dagger.
- His ledger count was ½ → 1.5 → 2.5.
- Tried to rescue Witch Hunter, then was crushed by the Shadow King’s boot.
The Shadow King (Mudcat).
- In the Dread Fortress:
- Bowls with goblins and has “a big tournament this weekend.”
- Calls Elusia “my niece” and tightens the shadowy chains he keeps on her (“It’s because I love you”).
- “Definitely didn’t kill HR last week.”
- His face: behind it is a black void with yellow eyes, shadow teeth and tentacles. Elusia covered it with a trash bag.
- His powers in the arena:
- Keeps the master logbook of deaths, “a log of everything for everyone.”
- Primed the Box of Chaos with Glass Flippers’ soul and summoned the freezing storm.
- Caustic Phoenix: “He used to be the box.”
- The finish: he ended the match by crushing Grickle with a giant black boot.
Elusia, the Grandmaster “but only a name” (Caustic Phoenix).
- Under the Shadow King, she does the real work of running the Deathmatch.
- Her hair is falling out in patches and her left eye twitches.
- She summons portals by cutting her hands on her amulet; her hands are scarred from it.
- Ripped off the Shadow King’s face, and cheered for Witch Hunter at the end.
Bruce / Bruce Bruce. Witch Hunter’s shape-changed chaos mount.
- A naked, waxed, mustached dad-bod human (43, later “45”). His butt cheeks clap when he runs. He says “Bruce, Bruce.”
- His face froze into his own butt cheeks. He rolled into the Box of Chaos as a sacrifice.
Gricklebackackack(ack). Grickle’s giant rhinoceros beetle mount. Shot dead by Grickle’s own arrow.
The goblins: ten workers who prepare the arena and bring the Acolytes. Henry (bruised shins, given the marigold) and Lucy are named.
Glass Flippers (Acolyte): hit by Grickle’s arrow, then split in half by the Shadow King. His soul primed the Box of Chaos and appears as the shadowy figure that trades from it. He likes bread.
Divinity D&D (Acolyte): caught Witch Hunter’s nipple in their mouth.
Places
- The Shadow King’s throne room (Dread Fortress), with dusty old doors and a long rug.
- The Frozen Lake: a tundra “not creatively named.”
- Something moves beneath the ice.
- An archway over a small pond, a pillar and an elevated area.
- The Acolytes’ coliseum hangs in the sky above.
- The “coward’s corner” in the stands.
Items
- The Box of Chaos: primed with a soul, it trades a magic item for a sacrifice, with a pink-and-yellow heatless fire. “Not explosive, but not in that way.”
- Iron Fang: a war pick, +2, extra thunder, with “sparkle/glitter damage” (Grickle to name the effect).
- The greater (“half a gallon”) and regular healing potions, which contain red dye.
- Witch Hunter’s grandmother’s glaive, his heirloom lucky rabbit’s foot keychain, the stale bread, and the master logbook of deaths.
- Elusia’s cutting amulet and the shadowy chains.
Lore statements
- Elusia is the Shadow King’s niece (stated by him).
- The Shadow King “used to be the box” (Caustic Phoenix, in table banter).
- There is a Deathmatch every Sunday evening. The goblins help bring the Acolytes.
- Hero points are the Acolytes’ energy, hopes and fighting spirit, gifted to the champions.
- The arena has “a tradition of hibiscus lube.”
- Thri-kreen have no eyelids and live short lives (Grickle is two).
Full Round-by-Round
Every beat of the episode, with timestamps (click to expand)
Opening — goblin bowling in the Shadow King’s throne room
- 0:00:44 — Elusia in the hallways. The Acolytes take their seats through portals across the Void. In the Dread Fortress, Elusia, “the Grandmaster, but only a name,” walks the hallways. Her heels are no longer the loudest sound. A loud cackle of a scream comes from the Shadow King’s throne room. She kicks down the dusty old doors.
- 0:01:51 — The bowling. At the far end of a long rug, a row of small, shaking goblins stands perfectly still. The Shadow King rolls a large bowling ball into them and knocks half of them down. Elusia runs in and starts setting Henry and Lucy and the others back up. The Shadow King: “I need to practice. I have a big tournament this weekend.”
- 0:02:17 Elusia says they’re “not even the right color” for bowling pins. He snaps his fingers and a goblin walks in with a bucket of paint. “What are they good for?”
- 0:02:37 She needed the goblins hours ago to get the Acolytes here and to prep the arena. She claps her hands. The goblins, “as if they were holding their breath,” scatter to their jobs. The Shadow King: “Their weight was all off anyways.”
- 0:03:03 — Elusia is fraying. Her hair has begun to fall out in little patches. Her left eye twitches a little more every time she has to deal with the Shadow King. She reminds him there is a Deathmatch every Sunday evening. He: “Well, there’s only 10 of them. I figured you could spare a few.” She: “Fortunately, you’re not very good at bowling and didn’t get any spares.” She tells him to “be a good, lazy king” and promises two champions; he can throw bowling balls at them if he likes. He sits on the throne: “Next time, lead with the good part.”
- 0:04:09 — The blood summoning. Elusia grasps the amulet around her neck. Its sharp edges cut into her hands, which bear many scars from summoning this way. Blood trickles down and a bright orange portal opens.
The champions
- 0:04:44 — Witch Hunter arrives. “Good to see everyone. Is this the bathroom?” Elusia told him to go before; she sends him to a corner. Witch Hunter: “It’s your fault you don’t have centaur accessibility in your building.” The Shadow King: “I’ve been telling her.” Elusia tells him to put it on his feedback form, which will be “filed along with HR, as with all paperwork, definitely read and never burned.” Shadow King: “And I definitely didn’t kill HR last week.”
- 0:05:31 — Grickle arrives. “Where am I? Is this the thing? This is the thing.” Witch Hunter: “Oh my god, you have a dump truck for a thorax.” Grickle: “You will live to regret that” (he fumbles it: “You will have to regret that… Well, I said won’t”).
- 0:06:03 — Maliki. Witch Hunter: “Has anyone ever took a moment to talk to you about our lord and savior, Maliki?” He pulls out a pamphlet. Grickle: “Get that out of my face!” “It’s fine, I have more.”
- 0:06:15 — Grickle’s display. His shiny carapace turns dull gray as his surroundings shift. A cape billows out from his shell and his wings spread for a moment.
- 0:06:38 — The marigolds. Witch Hunter: “When I find someone attractive, flowers bloom on me, and flowers are blooming.” Grickle: “I don’t understand what you talk about.” Elusia calls it a perfect match: “One who is ready to fight and hates the other, and the other loving the one who hates them.”
- 0:07:17 Elusia plucks a flower off Witch Hunter. It’s a marigold. She sniffs it and hands it to Henry the goblin, whose legs and shins are bruised from the bowling ball. Both champions give the Shadow King a thumbs up.
- 0:08:17 — To the arena. Elusia grips the amulet again. A blue portal opens. Witch Hunter: “Centaurs first.” He trots in.
The arena — the Frozen Lake
- 0:08:24 It is a tundra miles from anything else. The cold wind rips across their skin, and Grickle’s “outer shell. Carapace!” (Mudcat: “Carapace is a simple word.”) Elusia: “Carapaces don’t have… goosebumps.”
- 0:09:04 Elusia asks whether thri-kreen have eyelids. Grickle: “No.” So the wind pulls the moisture from his eyes and he cries as if something sad and awful has happened, yet stands bold.
- 0:09:21 Elusia: “I welcome you. To the frozen lake. It’s not creatively named, you know, after a while we just got tired with things.” Something is moving deep beneath the ice. “I want you to make sure that this landscape is painted in red.”
- 0:09:33 She opens her wings. The gust is so fierce that Witch Hunter has to stake his spear into the ground. She flies up, and where the sky should be, the Acolytes sit high above in a coliseum, cheering and screaming.
Chaos event 1 — “a cool ride, bruh” (0:10:25)
- A magical horse appears beneath each champion and attunes to them. It can shape into any beast they choose. Witch Hunter: “Technically this is my cousin.” Elusia: “You should not be riding your cousin.” Shadow King: “It’s okay, there’s no state laws here.”
- 0:11:35 — Bruce. Witch Hunter chooses a human: a naked 43-year-old with a dad bod and a very bushy mustache, friendly-looking, and big enough on all fours that the centaur’s hooves don’t touch the ground. He’s “like the people on TikTok that train to walk on all fours.” He names him Bruce.
- 0:12:28 — The beetle. Grickle rides a giant rhinoceros beetle, “the one with a giant nose.” It is not a dung beetle, though Elusia defends dung beetles: “They have jobs.” He names it Gricklebackackack(ack). The Shadow King: “That’s your name… Three gecks.” Witch Hunter: “So foreign and exotic, I love it… I don’t see a ring.”
- 0:14:05 Shadow King: “Interesting start before the match has even begun… Acolytes, are you ready to see some blood?” The crowd spills beers and punches each other.
Round 1
- 0:14:41 — Initiative. Witch Hunter rolls 18. Grickle rolls a natural 20. Caustic Phoenix: “Wait, aren’t you nat1fun? … This is not on brand. You have to roll again.” He still goes first.
- 0:15:16 Grickle: “Now you see me?” He makes the beetle’s wings open and flutter and hides behind them. His stealth is 26. Witch Hunter’s perception is 8: “He didn’t bring his glasses.” Elusia: he’s entranced by Grickle’s jaw. Witch Hunter: “His wings are so strong.” Grickle vanishes behind the wings “like a magician.”
- 0:17:51 — Scimitars from the wings. The beetle closes to 5 ft. The first scimitar misses Witch Hunter’s AC 18. Then the wings part and two scimitars come flying straight out of them: a hit with sneak attack (Mudcat counts the mount as an ally), 21 damage. Grickle has the Mobile feat, so he hops back onto the beetle and scatters 35 ft across the ice without an opportunity attack.
- 0:19:51 — “Grickle the Gek Gek Gek.” Caustic Phoenix keeps mangling the mount’s name. Mudcat: “It’s Grickle the Gek Gek Gek, I don’t understand why you’re so, why is it so difficult for you?”
- 0:20:33 Witch Hunter: “You got blood all over my mouth.” Grickle: “Naked Bruce.” Witch Hunter: “Blood all in his butt cheeks.”
- 0:20:39 — The paladin and the rogue. Witch Hunter “did play an unhealthy amount of World of Warcraft. So I, as a paladin, know very well how it is to fight a rogue.” Elusia: “I’m also imagining this is canon that your character played WoW.” Witch Hunter: “We play humans in households.” Elusia: “Wait, that’s called Sims.”
- 0:21:36 — Bruce away! “Oh, you slippery devil, you, try this on for size.” Witch Hunter slaps Bruce’s butt cheeks. They “shake and jiggle”; “every time he runs, those cheeks be clapping.”
- 0:22:54 — The natural 1. The glaive goes into the ground. Witch Hunter and Bruce flip over. He is dismounted, Bruce is prone, and Bruce’s “Ding-a-ling” is splayed out in the snow. The Shadow King: “I prefer Ding-a-ling, actually. The scientific term.”
- 0:23:24 — The smite. “May Maliki be with me.” His second attack hits (19). He adds a Divine Smite (“Smite his ass”), 25 more. Elusia: “Paladin abilities? Did you learn that in WoW?” “Exactly.” Elusia: “WoW leveling up levels is up in real life. I believe this firmly.” Grickle parries with a superiority die and knocks off part of the smite.
- 0:26:01 — The ledger of deaths. Mudcat: “Don’t shame him. The public school system here sucks.” Grickle: “I’m a bug. I don’t do math. I kill people.”
- Elusia asks how he keeps count. The Shadow King holds up a blood-smeared journal, “the master logbook of deaths… a log of everything for everyone.”
- It says Grickle has killed “one half.” Grickle: “That book is lying!” Elusia: “I thought you were an experienced killer.” Grickle: “I’ve read a few books.” Witch Hunter: “I think you’re doing great.”
- 0:27:30 Witch Hunter pulls his glaive from Grickle’s abdomen. Elusia asks Witch Hunter’s count: 69 (“Nice!”). “But most of that’s an orphanage, so. Not my fault. Didn’t mean to happen. Still counts, unfortunately.”
- 0:28:15 — The chains. The Shadow King’s end-of-round roll is 18. Elusia: “This is above average for you and not normal.” Shadow King: “Just because you’re my niece doesn’t mean I’m going to let you speak to me this way in front of all the Acolytes.” She: “What are you going to do? Kill me?” “Maybe. I’m thinking about it.”
- He tightens the shadowy chains around her and pulls her toward the ground. “Listen, this is for your own good. It’s because I love you.”
- Witch Hunter: “Is this generational trauma?” “Absolutely.” The chains keep tightening, then he finally lets go.
Round 2
- 0:29:41 Grickle attacks; Elusia notes “Grickleback” refers to himself in the third person. “What are pronouns?” The hit (26) slices Witch Hunter’s nipple right off “like a pepperoni.” Grickle: “I’m so sorry about that.” Witch Hunter: “It’s fine. It happens.”
- 0:30:22 — Food for the Acolytes. The nipple flies into the stands and the Acolyte Divinity D&D snatches it in their mouth. Elusia: “Food for the Acolytes!” Witch Hunter: “It’s refreshing, frankly.” Elusia: “You’ve been sweating, so it’s a little salty too.”
- 0:30:47 Grickle runs away again (“You’ll bravely run away”) and digs through his “carapace pockets” for his bow.
- 0:31:34 — The beetle dies. Grickle slips on the ice. His arrow goes straight up with a comical whistle and comes down to kill his own rhinoceros beetle (nat 1). The ledger updates to 1.5 deaths. Witch Hunter: “It do be like that sometimes.” Elusia: “No sadness, no regret as you murder your pet.” Mudcat suggests hiding inside the corpse “like a Tauntaun.”
- 0:32:48 Grickle action-surges and angrily shoots again: “That was clearly your fault!” The shot misses and hits the Acolyte Glass Flippers in the left arm. The Acolytes are now angry at him.
- 0:33:26 Witch Hunter: “Swiggity-swoogity, I’m coming for the booty.”
Chaos event 2 — the Box of Chaos and Glass Flippers (0:33:45)
- 0:33:50 The Shadow King stands: “It seems the Acolytes want a taste of chaos.” He snaps his fingers and a box falls into the middle of the arena with a thud.
- The death of Glass Flippers. A shadowy hand reaches into the crowd: “Well, he’s already damaged goods.”
- He rips Glass Flippers into the air. A second shadowy hand karate-chops him and splits his whole body in two like a log. The Shadow King tosses the halves aside.
- He grabs the floating black soul and slams it into the box. A column of pink and yellow fire shoots into the sky.
- 0:34:46 Shadow King: “The Box of Chaos is primed with a soul. You can make a sacrifice to it as a free action. And in exchange, you’ll get a magic item of some unknown rarity.” Elusia: the rarity “will be known once you get it.”
- 0:35:12 — Hero points. Elusia: “These are gifts from the Acolytes. Their energy, their hopes, their fighting spirit is poured within these hero points… so that at one point in time, you can go super saiyan… But the one thing you absolutely should not do is forget to frickin’ use it, man!”
- Shadow King: “Something like Super Saiyan, but legally distinct. Our lawyers are having a field day.”
- Grickle: “I will go super geck geck.” Witch Hunter: “Super geck geck times 10.” Mudcat: “See you in five weeks.”
- 0:36:35 — Lay on Hands. Witch Hunter heals 50 by “caressing myself gently… with oil.” Elusia: it makes the Acolytes “slightly uncomfortable, but also slightly aroused.”
- Shadow King: “What kind of oil? Because we have a tradition of hibiscus lube in this arena.”
- Witch Hunter: “Natural… organic. It’s from the flowers that bloom for me… It’s a recycle process.” Grickle: “So you use your own fluids. That’s great. We do that too.”
- 0:37:44 — The terrain. An archway arches over a small pond, breaking the ice, and gives cover. There is an elevated area he can climb.
- 0:38:38 — Bruce on break. Witch Hunter leaves him: “Take five, Bruce.” Bruce: “Bruce, Bruce” (“like a Pokemon”). Elusia calls him “Bruce Bruce” from here on, a 45-year-old. He curls into a ball and keeps his face warm in his own butt cheeks. Witch Hunter: Bruce is having an existential crisis. Shadow King: “Bruce is still figuring himself out.”
- 0:39:49 — Colors of the Wind. The glaive hits (25). Witch Hunter adds a 3rd-level Divine Smite: “I think Colors of the Wind from Pocahontas actually plays… I will stab you with my glaive with all the colors of the wind.”
- The glaive leaves a gorgeous rainbow that wraps around Grickle, and marigolds bloom from his wounds. “It’s Disney, but it murders you.”
- Shadow King: “We like seeing him get hurt, so it doesn’t matter.” Elusia: “I don’t trust him at all! Says the one who murdered his own steed.”
- 0:41:52 Glass Flippers’ hand reaches out of the Box of Chaos and motions both champions closer.
- 0:42:15 — The Shadow King’s face. He rolls a 19: “MOTHERFUCKING SHADOW KING!” Elusia decides he’s been replaced. Like the Scooby-Doo gang unmasking an impostor, she rips off his face.
- Behind it is a black void of swirling shadow, with yellow eyes, teeth formed of shadow, and tentacles.
- Horrified, she puts the face back, then puts a trash bag over it.
- 0:43:17 — The nipple dagger. Witch Hunter to Grickle: “Is it weird that my singular nipple is hard?” “Yes, that’s weird!”
- Elusia rules that it is now sharp enough to pierce: “a small piercing nipple dagger,” because the Shadow King’s face turned him on.
- Mudcat: “Some people are into Cthulhu face… I’m judging a little bit… King shame is my king shame.”
Round 3
- 0:44:23 Grickle runs again (“Go, go, Gadget Legs”; “a tactical retreat”). The crowd has a “coward’s corner” of little white-flag wavers. He takes an opportunity hit on the way to the box.
- 0:45:43 — The bread trade. The shadowy figure claws out of the box, confused: “What do you want? What do you have to trade?” Grickle: “I have bread?” “I like bread.” A d2 makes it stale bread, “hard as a rock”; Grickle “use[s] it as a bludgeoning weapon.” “I’m not picky.”
- The figure takes it and slams the lid. Grickle hopes for “23 wolves.” Elusia: “There needs to be, because that’s chaos. Noted.”
- 0:47:31 — Iron Fang. The pink-and-yellow column fires again, a magical fire with no heat. A war pick floats out to him: the Iron Fang (+2 to hit, an extra d8 thunder). It’s two-handed, “but you can wield something else in your other two hands,” since he has four arms.
- Elusia: when it hits, “sparkle damage” comes out. Witch Hunter suggests “glitter damage.” Grickle gets to name the effect himself later. Mudcat: “How about piercing or bludgeoning? What’s wrong with that?”
- Elusia: “You can throw anything. You just don’t always get it back.”
- 0:49:22 — The thrown pick. “Yeah, buddy, let’s do this.” He holds his scimitar hands out to the sides, raises Iron Fang overhead with the other two, and throws it with an awful screech (Menacing Attack).
- It’s a glancing blow and clips “just the tip of his other nipple.”
- Witch Hunter is immune to being frightened. He takes 12. Iron Fang lands 5–10 ft behind him.
- 0:52:38 — The juggling. Grickle’s longbow shot misses. Elusia: he’s had his scimitars out all along “just for show.” Grickle: “I’m trying to impress the people.”
- His performance is a 3. He keeps dropping the scimitars, and “not even the children in the stands are impressed.”
- Witch Hunter: “I liked it.” With the reverse effect, Witch Hunter gets a d4 inspiration. “Are you available to be hired as a life coach?”
- Grickle sprints away 40 ft: “Get me 40 feet away from this thing.”
- 0:54:58 — Spear fishing. “Leave me alone.” Witch Hunter: “I regret to inform you that I am a centaur.” He follows; his glaive has reach (“like spear fishing”). He leaves Iron Fang (great weapon fighting). Grickle: “That box was looking pretty tantalizing.” Elusia: “You should have thrown Iron Fang… in the box.”
- 0:56:17 — Matching ACs. He hits Grickle’s AC 18 exactly: a glancing blow. Elusia: “You all are twins. It’s like this was fate bringing the two of you together.” Witch Hunter: “Love story for the ages. Do you feel something?” Grickle: “Yeah, I feel my carapace breaking.”
- 0:56:56 — “Witch King.” Elusia slips and calls him Witch King. Witch Hunter: “I like that name.” Mudcat: “Battlefield promotion. All the way to king… Everyone else died. You’re the last guy.”
- 0:57:18 Searing Smite at 2nd level (“White hot, like your love for him”). Witch Hunter: “Do you think we have an OnlyFans?” Caustic Phoenix: “Excuse me while I make that into an advertisement.”
- His next attack (a “dirty 20”) hits; he stabs and twists. Grickle: “Oh, dick twist! The old dick twist.”
- Grickle can’t use his skirmisher reaction because Witch Hunter ended his turn just outside 5 ft. Witch Hunter: “I do have Misty Step, so if I wanted to.”
- 0:59:47 — Ricardo. Shadow King: “Is your first name Witch?” Witch Hunter: “My actual name is Ricardo.”
- “I was a bounty hunter for a while until like an orphanage incident… then I had to rebrand and now it’s Witch Hunter.”
- Shadow King: “It’s probably good you specialize, you kind of niche down to only witches.” Witch Hunter: “Anyone who doesn’t believe in Maliki and uses magic, witch, and I hunt them.”
- Shadow King: “I have a similar mentality about mostly everyone, but, you know, witches be crazy for sure.”
- 1:00:33 Elusia, unsure where to take the conversation, calls a 10-minute break, “and definitely make sure no one here is a witch.”
Chaos event 3 — the paparazzi (after the break)
- 1:00:50 Shadow King: “We’re back. It’s us in the place doing the thing.” Elusia: “Magic trick… David Copperfield is the best out there.”
- 1:01:30 The Acolytes summon another chaos event. The fight is so big that “everyone is going to want to write about it.”
- The paparazzi come out in droves, almost tackling the champions. “No, no, get off of me… Problem with being celebrities.”
- Both must sneak away (DC 18). Grickle rolls a natural 1 at disadvantage. He asks whether Uncanny Dodge helps (“There’s no damage. You’re just blinded”) and whether he can use skirmisher to run from them.
- Shadow King: “The Acolytes paid good money to see you suffer and you’re going to suffer.”
- 1:03:11 Both are blinded for the round by the flashes, slightly dazed, with little tweety birds floating around their heads. Grickle: “Am I good side?”
Round 4
- 1:04:05 — Running blind. Grickle: “Now’s my opportunity to run! Surprise! Who didn’t see that coming?” A d4 picks his direction, and he runs straight into his opponent. “Did we just kiss?”
- He runs into the nipple dagger and takes 3 piercing. “My eye!” Elusia: “Well, I said a dagger! You chose your eye.” Grickle loses an eye (1:14:23: “Well, now you only have one”).
- 1:05:14 Witch Hunter swings at disadvantage and misses. Grickle scatters 40 ft and uses Second Wind (12 back).
- 1:06:49 Bruce Bruce, still curled in a ball, whimpers.
- 1:07:17 — The cockroach. Grickle: “Like a cockroach, I’m going to lie to the ground and suck myself really close to the ground.” Elusia: “I don’t know how blind people try to stealth.” Mudcat: “How do cockroaches try to stealth?”
- Natural 20 (33). “It turns out being blind is your strength.” He’s completely immersed in the icy lake surface.
- 1:08:18 Witch Hunter turns toward the Shadow King’s voice: “Is this because I’m a centaur?” Shadow King: “That’s really a question for her. I don’t discriminate.”
- 1:08:31 Witch Hunter casts Cure Wounds (11), “as I caress myself once more.” Elusia: “Now you are slick and shiny, ready for a photo shoot yet again.”
- He casts Shield of Faith, a shimmering field. The crowd chants “Do it, do it, do it. Kick his ass, Seabass.”
- 1:10:33 He tries to run where Grickle bumped into him; two d4s don’t match and he heads north. “I take the square root of this. Pythagoras here.”
- 1:12:06 — The musk. He sniffs aggressively for “the musk of Grickrick.” Grickle: “I smell wonderful.” Insight 16: he senses Grickle is near the Box of Chaos.
- 1:13:00 Elusia reminds him Bruce Bruce could be his eyes, “but his face currently is up his butt… He’s trying to keep warm!” Witch Hunter: “Well, he’s on break.” Mudcat: “Bruce is completely waxed.”
- 1:13:27 Witch Hunter throws a spear at triple disadvantage (Grickle, rules-lawyering: “because I’m prone”). Rolls 27, 23, 17; the 17 misses.
- 1:14:23 Elusia: “I don’t know much about the biology of a Thrakeen.” Grickle: he had only two eyes.
Chaos event 4 — the Shadow King’s storm (1:14:53)
- The Shadow King rolls 7, then 12. Elusia: “This is your turn. Make a mess. And I will allow your chaotic event of your own making to take place.”
- 1:15:13 Shadow King: “I’m a little bit warm in this space.” He raises a hand. Clouds roll in, thunder rolls, and freezing rain, sleet and snow begin to fall as the temperature drops. Both take cold damage at the start of every round. The blindness ends.
- 1:15:57 — Bruce Bruce freezes. Elusia: Bruce Bruce takes double cold damage because he is naked (“and clean-shaven, except for that mustache”).
- Mudcat: “The condensation from his breath has now stuck his face in there permanently. I think he’s just stuck… Like licking a flagpole.”
- Witch Hunter: “The job market’s hard nowadays, you know? We gotta get things where we can.”
Round 5
- 1:16:57 — From the snow. Grickle stands, locates his target and attacks with advantage. One die is a 1: “Had I not rolled with advantage, I would have never rolled a one.” Shadow King: “Yes, yes, it’s all my fault now.”
- 1:18:21 — The big hit. The second attack is a critical: “I don’t roll anything but 1s or 20s, baby!” It deals 39 damage plus a Trip Attack.
- Elusia: “Is this like tripping up an AT-AT?” Grickle: “Tingle up the legs a bit.”
- Witch Hunter is knocked prone, shot “right in the freaking ankle.” He takes 44 in all.
- 1:20:13 Grickle moves next to Bruce Bruce (“Is that something I should worry about?”). Witch Hunter fails his concentration save. Shield of Faith drops and his AC goes back to 18. Elusia: “He’s got you all sorts of flustered.”
- 1:21:33 “Sneaky sneak.” Grickle hides behind a big pillar (29).
- 1:22:18 — Bruce Bruce’s sacrifice. At the start of Witch Hunter’s turn, Bruce Bruce, face still frozen to his own butt cheeks, rolls “in donut form” looking for warmth and rolls into the Box of Chaos. He becomes a sacrifice. Elusia: “Poor Bruce Bruce. He’s like, I just need to get out of here.”
- The d100 is a 95 (“95 wolves!”). The fire launches a greater healing potion into Witch Hunter’s hands.
- Elusia: greater potions are just bigger: “You have a half a gallon of it.” Witch Hunter: “It’s great value, store brand.” Grickle: “This is a Sam’s Club healing potion.” Elusia: “Costco. Costco. Come on.”
- 1:24:14 — The allergy. Witch Hunter drinks it: “I’m allergic!” Elusia: “Players should be very careful of what they say… DMs never have to come up with anything if their players just keep talking long enough.”
- He rolls a 10 on medicine, so he is allergic and takes half (6) instead of healing. His throat swells. Elusia: “You’re just actually allergic to the red dye that’s in it.” Shadow King: “Red dye number five.”
- 1:25:49 Witch Hunter casts Cure Wounds again (9). He stands up with half his movement: “I’m a centaur, so I have 40, so that’s 20.” He goes to the box instead of Grickle; Elusia: “Wait, wait, no!”
- 1:27:43 — The lucky charm. The shadowy figure claws out again. Witch Hunter trades his keychain with a lucky rabbit’s foot: “a family heirloom… it got me my family through some wars.” Grickle: “I gave him stale bread.” The figure: “It was delicious.”
- The box gives him a normal healing potion, the same kind he’s allergic to. “Gluten-free? Is it gluten-free? … Is it wheat?” “Not every allergy is celiac.”
- Grickle: “A piece of stale bread comes flying at you from the box. Whack!” He doesn’t drink the potion.
- 1:30:19 Elusia’s end-of-round roll is a 4. The storm deals more cold.
Round 6 — the ice
- 1:30:41 Grickle: “That book was a complete lie, by the way. That book was a complete lie. I know what I’m doing.” He pops around the pillar with his bow. The box gives no cover (“It’s like at your knees at the best”). One shot misses; another is a glancing blow with a superiority die.
- 1:32:39 Grickle asks whether the box looks explosive. Mudcat: “The box is not explosive.” Elusia: “The Shadow King would know. He used to be the box.” Witch Hunter: “It says not explosive on the side.” Shadow King: “It’s explosive, but not in that way.”
- 1:33:15 — Breaking the ice. Grickle: “He’s a centaur. He’s super heavy on this ice. I’m a little bug.” He spends his hero point to shoot the ice at Witch Hunter’s feet (18 with advantage). The ice cracks all around. Witch Hunter fails his Dex save and falls into the icy water. Misty Step isn’t a reaction.
- 1:35:12 Grickle, with “one good eye,” sees only cracking ice; Witch Hunter is now behind the Box of Chaos. Witch Hunter: “There’s blood pooling around the cold water… that happens sometimes.”
- 1:35:19 — The rescue. Grickle: “I’m going to play into the story we’ve created.” He runs over and tries to pull Witch Hunter out of the ice.
- “I have four arms!” Mudcat: “But you’re standing on ice with no leverage.” “My feet have, like, claws on them.”
- Athletics 16, plus Witch Hunter’s strength save. “Are you wanting to be saved? I’m confused. Like Titanic.”
- Witch Hunter: “He has to grab my kidney, put that back in…” It’s too cold, slippery and wet. He keeps slipping and can’t be pulled out.
- 1:37:15 Grickle looks around: “Oh, man, my mom’s gonna kill me.” Elusia: “She’ll have a higher death count than you.” “Probably because I’m only two years old. If you don’t know anything about Thri-kreen, we don’t live that long.”
- 1:37:56 Witch Hunter’s insight (12): he is confused, but understands Grickle was trying to help and wouldn’t turn him away. Mudcat warns that he’ll take damage if he’s still in the water at the end of his turn.
- 1:39:27 Elusia: “The Acolytes from high above watch intensely, quietly, with breaths held, wondering… who will rise from the icy tundra to claim the title of champion, and who will sink to the bottomless depths below, frozen in time.”
- 1:39:51 — The last hero point. Witch Hunter spends it to climb out. It’s a messy flailing: he tries to help too, and they keep smacking each other’s hands away. Grickle: “It’s like trying to rescue a deer from the black ice.” Elusia: “This is the most awkward thing of a rescue mission.”
- 1:40:53 — Elusia believes. She looks at the Shadow King. “We all believe in him. Let this be to you! Oh, Witch Hunter Ricardo! Do not give up this fight tonight! Survive!” Grickle: “Sounds like a really good song.” She grants advantage.
- 1:41:55 — Witch Hunter’s last words. He looks up at Grickle: “This is my grandmother’s glaive. She, like, saved her family from this. Please, I would appreciate it if you could, you know, keep it going. You use it in your future battles, and I wish you all the best. And maybe in the next life, we can do laundry in Texas together.” In his heavy chainmail, he lets go and accepts the cold.
- 1:42:32 — The marigold funeral. As he sinks, his marigolds break off at their frozen stems and float to the surface “almost as a beautiful funeral,” leaving “little dollops of gold… a beauty to remember you.” The ledger changes to 2.5.
- 1:43:07 — Grickle grieves. He falls on his back on the ice and makes little snow angels, writhing in emotional pain. He holds the glaive close with the two small arms on his chest while the other two flail.
- 1:43:30 — The boot. The Shadow King dissipates into the shadows at his throne and reappears beside Grickle. “It’s okay. Don’t cry. Your pain’s almost over.” - He snaps his fingers and a giant black boot falls from the heavens, crushing Grickle and splattering his guts across the ice.
- 1:44:07 Shadow King: “Welcome, and good night, to D20 Deathmatch!”
Full Dried Blood notes (click to expand)
- D’Angelo: “I’m gonna write fanfic about our relationship.” Dan on the ending: “Why is this emotional? … D’Angelo just has the ability to pull heartstrings from nowhere.” Both are writers; D’Angelo flirted with the character because “if I’m going to play with someone so good looking…”
- Why no Misty Step out of the water: D’Angelo had used all his 2nd-level spell slots. Dan: a hero point could have bought the slot back. Caustic Phoenix: every player wonders “can I ask this?”
- D’Angelo always plays an Oath of the Ancients paladin, usually an orc. This was his first centaur.
- Dan: the mount’s name started as a bug sound, and “I named my animal literally my name, but a little bit longer.” Mudcat: the other mount was “a human named Bruce.”
- Mudcat’s Box of Chaos table: 95+ on the d100 was a potion of greater healing, and 2–50 was a regular potion. Witch Hunter rolled a 1 on the d10 both times and got both potions.
- D’Angelo has played TTRPGs since 2008 and rarely gets to be a player, so he goes weird. Dan picks unusual races; Mudcat notes Dan “was a giff last time”: “you’ve been making your way through the Spelljammer book.”
- Caustic Phoenix on how players’ descriptions (allergies, juggling) give DMs things to play with, and on PvP letting players see their opponent “as a person.”
- Dan: D’Angelo was super nice to his character, so Grickle had a change of heart mid-game. “The fact that he’s super young” fed into the rescue.
- D’Angelo compares it to the WWE/ECW antagonist style. Mudcat mentions the TikTok arm-wrestler who whispers encouragement; Mudcat imitates him: “You’re so strong. You’re a big guy.”
- Casting: Mudcat says they look for guests who know each other. Dan and D’Angelo have played together before. They discuss table cohesion, vetting, the pre-show boundaries form, “lines and veils,” and “good losers.” Caustic Phoenix mentions Reddit horror stories, session zero, and Game of Thrones on uncomfortable content. They joke about pitching a panel on trust.
- Closing advice:
- Dan: content creators are people; “always be your best self.”
- D’Angelo: play flawed characters with depth. He lists Witch Hunter’s traits: “he did have celiac disease and he became a paladin, no longer has that” and “has romantic feelings towards bug people.” Player-stated, so treated as canon for Witch Hunter.