S4E8 — Blood Rain — Fatale v Claudia

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Blood Rain pitted Fatale, a terse rogue who rides in on a wind of black rose petals, against Claudia, a university professor of plants who fights with gardening shovels. The fight started on a wooden ship sailing through the clouds and ended on a mountaintop after The Shadow King grew bored and slammed the ship into the ground. Both champions turned out to be there for secret reasons of their own. One wanted information on the hosts, the other wanted a soup recipe, and the recipe had a twist at the bottom.

The Story

A Map of the Void

The evening began with lava spewing from the volcanoes around The Dread Fortress. The Grandmaster stomped down its old stone hallways and slammed the throne-room door open, or tried to. It only opened partway, and she had to slide through sideways. The Shadow King had filled the dim throne room with a gigantic table holding a map of The Void. The goblins Harry, Henrietta and Louise were busy placing tiny trees and rivers on it. She asked whether he had picked up a hobby: “Are you into train sets?”

He was, he explained, planning the expansion of the Dread Fortress. The Grandmaster pointed out that only the two of them and the goblins lived there, with at least 200 empty rooms upstairs. Undeterred, he pointed to a spot on the map where he wanted to put a pool, right where a school stood. She accused him of watching Emperor’s New Groove again and reminded him that people lived there.

The Shadow King: “We will kill them. And then they won’t live there anymore and it won’t be a problem.”

The Grandmaster flipped one of the map tables and offered a Deathmatch as a distraction “instead of destroying parts of the void.” She recruited goblins to help. They carried in his throne, slipped a pair of bunny slippers onto his feet and pushed him back to lounge. Then she clenched the amulet at her neck until blood dripped down her arm, and a portal opened.

Petals and Pigtails

Black rose petals swept in on a wind from nowhere, and Fatale stepped out of it. She had long black hair, a one-handed crossbow held like a pistol and a whip in her other hand. Asked to say a little about herself, she simply looked at her crossbow: “Is there anything else you need to know? Really?”

Claudia was a different sort of champion. She had blonde pigtails with flowers pressed into them and a poofy, rose-embroidered dress “reminiscent of Miss Frizzle.” Her gardening boots tracked dirt everywhere she went. Her weapons were a gardening shovel and a littler gardening shovel, and she announced, “I am ready to do the kicking of the ass.”

The Shadow King was appalled: “You brought a nerd into the arena? A nerd?” The Grandmaster insisted that every nerd who had ever come through could throw a book or two. When he demanded she name five, Fatale cut in to say she read “only to kill somebody.” Her petals swirled again, and the Shadow King decided she was cool. He said he was only there to watch people die, and the Grandmaster muttered that this was “why I should have been the one in charge.” When he asked “Sorry, what?” she answered “Nothing!” Then she bled from her other arm to open the glowing blue portal to the arena.

Eighty Feet Up

The champions stepped onto a magnificent wooden ship eighty feet up in the sky. Mist ran through their fingers and birds flew at eye level. The ship had working cannons, barrels of mysterious contents, raised decks fore and aft, and a crow’s nest high above.

The Grandmaster: “It’s peaceful. It’s gorgeous. And I want you to destroy it!… I want the goblins afterwards to not even know where the poop deck is.”

Above the ship hung the ghostly image of a coliseum, every seat full. There were sticky-faced children with cotton candy, yelling parents, and teenagers “probably skipping school, but it’s fine because apparently the Shadow King’s just gonna destroy the school.”

Fatale moved first. She flattened herself against the crow’s-nest pole, vanished in a puff of petal-smoke, and threw a dagger as a “warning shot” to find her range. It hit Claudia in the shoulder. She held back from a killing strike: “I don’t want to kill you just yet… we work well together.” The Acolytes went wild at first blood in the opening round, which is a rare treat. Claudia yanked the dagger out in a panic, wrapped herself in protective magic and her bladesinger’s grace, and tiptoed around the pole calling “Marco?” Fatale did not answer “Polo.” She was waiting for the right moment.

A Dog, a Deal and a Bag of Cats

The crowd chanted for chaos. In answer, a giant sky puppy floated down. It was “very much like Appa, but slightly older,” fluffy and plainly exhausted. It landed mid-deck, shoved the champions to opposite sides, curled up and fell asleep. Fatale climbed onto it from the back end and scratched an itchy spot on its butt, which “loosened some things.” The sleeping dog farted on her. She climbed on to its head anyway and cracked her whip at Claudia. She was careful to explain that it was only a prop for intimidation. Claudia, rattled, could only shout, “What the fuck is that smell?”

Frightened enough, Claudia changed. A lab accident during her research had left her able to shift into a form like a weeping willow with strong bark. She then froze Fatale in place with a spell: “You just stay right there, okay?” At the end of the round, a gigantic treasure chest fell from the sky like a comet, trailing yellow and pink flames. It was The Box of Chaos.

The box needed a soul. “Hmm, who would it be tonight?” the Shadow King mused. He sent a giant shadowy hand into the stands and seized an Acolyte named Lubofan. He tore off her head with the spine still attached, pulled a black soul out through the neck and slammed it into the box. A shadowy creature with yellow eyes crawled out of the lid. Then he told a goblin to turn Lubofan’s bones into a new set of dice.

The Grandmaster added her own gift: a shoe box for each champion. Fatale, frozen, couldn’t open hers. Claudia was “a curious kid” and opened hers at once. The shoes appeared laced tight on her feet, and they were squeaky shoes.

Held in place, Fatale talked instead. She asked why Claudia even wanted to die. Claudia said she didn’t, which was why she had frozen her, and when Fatale reminded her this was a deathmatch, she admitted she might have missed that part of the memo. Then Fatale whispered a plan, so quietly that neither host heard it. She would fake throwing Claudia overboard, or wake the puppy and let it fly Claudia away. Between themselves they revealed their missions. Fatale was infiltrating the Deathmatch for information on the Shadow King and the Grandmaster. Claudia had come for the Shadow King’s grandmother’s secret soup recipe, the one with the cilantro. Fatale promised to bring her the recipe if she lived: “Cuz if I kill you, then you’ll never get the soup recipe.” Claudia said she would think about it, but Fatale had to stay over there, because she had stabbed her in the shoulder.

The Acolytes could hear none of this and saw no action, so they started throwing things. They threw cotton candy, keys, fish, hot dogs, “cans of shut the fuck up”, an Ikea piano complete with Allen key, potatoes, an angry toy robot and a bag of cats. A cat landed on Claudia and nicked her. The Acolytes Garamond and Gator had thrown dog toys and hot dogs, and the puppy woke up. It tipped Fatale off its head and bounded into the stands to tackle them with kisses and eat the food.

Still frozen and falling over stiff as a Barbie, Fatale sent her petals into the box as an offering. Out came a real, finely enchanted whip. “A functional whip!” Claudia marvelled. Jealous, she threw her little trowel at the box. The creature clawed out to complain, “Why are you throwing shit at me?”, and then handed back a potion of invisibility with pointed politeness: “See, this is how you hand something to someone.”

Squeak, Squeak

Claudia went invisible, but her shoes kept squeaking. The Grandmaster then decided that “Claudia’s a ventriloquist, everyone,” so her squeaks and grumbling bounced all over the deck. Claudia said it was her side hobby. With a snap of her fingers, the Grandmaster freed Fatale.

After a break for blue raspberry slushies, Tim’s peanuts and Kevin’s deep-fried butterfly wings, the hosts bickered. The Shadow King asked whether Vythorn had been in charge of the talking, “because it seems like that is not your strong suit.” A goblin first-aid crew parachuted onto the deck. Fatale had no visible wounds, but they wrapped gauze round her forehead and stuck My Little Pony band-aids on her anyway. She felt they went well with her cut-out latex bra and underwear suit.

Claudia couldn’t untie the magic shoes, so she stabbed each squeaker with her little shovel. (“This is not Saw.”) Then she flailed blindly around the deck hunting for Fatale. Her invisibility gave out mid-flail. “Oh shit,” she said, looking at her own arm.

Down to the Mountain

The Shadow King had seen enough: “This is boring. Let me change things.” He reached out as if to grab the ship. It tipped nose-down and plummeted, with barrels rolling past and sacks of grain floating in the air. The first drop did too little damage, and someone reminded him that he was the Shadow King. “You know what? I like the sound of that. Let’s do it again.” He slammed the ship into a mountaintop, where it broke apart and threw both champions out. A tiny squirrel with binoculars and a bag of peanuts watched from a rock.

Fatale’s shoe box had followed her, so she opened it. Her squeaks came out as a sharp, deliberate click “like razor sharp Louboutins,” which the Grandmaster called “like a knife on glass.” Claudia tracked her by her crossbow shot and found her nerve: “I am not going to be scared of you anymore. But you have to stay right there.” She tried to freeze Fatale again, and this time Fatale rolled a natural 20 and shook it off. Claudia dove into the bushes.

The squirrel bravely brought Fatale “a peanut of encouragement.” She speared it on her shoe heel. Claudia cast a spell to slip past her and swung a booming blow with her shovel, but missed. The two rogues kept hiding from each other, and the Grandmaster lost patience. She told them to face each other and threw down her spear, flattening the middle of the mountaintop “flat as a pancake.” Fatale’s rapier and crossbow bolts still found nothing but Claudia’s magical defenses and shield. The squirrel, now firmly on Fatale’s side, ran up and kicked Claudia in the heel.

Blood Is Given

“This is all bullshit. They’re not doing anything,” the Shadow King declared. He snapped his fingers, and both champions’ armor, magic included, turned brittle and dissolved. Every blade grew sharper and every spell more potent. From then on, every wound would cut twice as deep.

The Grandmaster: “We beg for blood and so it shall be given. The sacrifices you make today will be witnessed by our acolytes, told in song in the taverns every evening.”

Claudia screamed at the top of her lungs and brought the big shovel down on Fatale, then the little one. With the doubled damage, the blows were devastating. She called on the plants, “Protect me, I’m so good to you,” and vines and roots seized Fatale’s ankles. Fatale protested that changing the rules on someone else’s turn was “a little rigged.” The Grandmaster let her act before the blow landed. Fatale didn’t try to cheat death. She lashed her whip round Claudia’s leg and dragged her into the vines, binding the two of them face to face. “I want you stuck with me as I die.” Claudia slapped her, trying to wake her up.

Fatale died furious (“This whole thing is rigged!”), and the Grandmaster honoured the fire in that anger as “a passion to live that is worth respecting.” Her body dissolved into luminous black petals. “As you came in with beauty, so you leave us just the same.” The breeze carried the petals into the stands. A cloaked figure with dark eyes and black lips caught them and whispered, “We will fulfill your mission, sister,” before slipping out of the back of the arena.

The Secret Ingredient

As Claudia sat in the vines among the petals, a soft, well-worn piece of paper floated into her lap. It was the soup recipe. The Shadow King faded out of the shadows of his throne to congratulate her. “I won? Is she dead?” she asked. He hoped she would enjoy his grandmother’s recipe and told her to read closely for the secret ingredient. At the bottom was one word: Incinerate. He snapped his fingers, and the vines around her burst into flame, incinerating her body. Under the Shadow King’s rule, the winner got no victory lap and no promise of a locker room.

Notable Moments

• The Shadow King planned to pave over a school for a pool, in bunny slippers.
• A sleeping sky puppy farted on Fatale, then left mid-match to tackle two hot-dog-throwing Acolytes.
• The Acolytes, bored by whispering, pelted the ship with an Ikea piano and a bag of cats.
• Claudia, invisible and ventriloquist, still couldn’t stop her shoes squeaking until she stabbed them.
• A peanut-eating squirrel took Fatale’s side and kicked Claudia in the heel.
• The winner’s prize recipe ended with the instruction “Incinerate,” and the Shadow King followed it.

Memorable Quotes

• The Grandmaster: “Are you into train sets?”
• The Shadow King: “You brought a nerd into the arena? A nerd?”
• Fatale: “Cuz if I kill you, then you’ll never get the soup recipe.”
• Claudia: “I brought it with in case of emergency gardening… you all must be prepared.”
• The Grandmaster: “I’m the Grandmaster. I don’t need to follow regulations. I am the regulations.”
• Box of Chaos creature: “See, this is how you hand something to someone.”
• Fatale: “I want you stuck with me as I die.”
• The Shadow King: “I hope you enjoy my grandmother’s recipe. If you read closely, you’ll see the secret ingredient.”

Who and What Appears

Characters

Fatale (harlikane). She arrives and leaves on black rose petals carried by a wind she summons at will.

• Look: long black hair; a scantily clad latex outfit (a “cut-out latex bra and underwear suit”).
• Gear: a one-handed crossbow held like a pistol (Crossbow Expert), a rapier, daggers, and a prop whip used only for intimidation. The Box of Chaos replaced the prop with a +3 whip.
• Style: a rogue who hides, uses cunning action and has Lucky. Terse; “let the weapons do the talking.”
• Mission (said in a whisper, unheard by the hosts): infiltrating the D20 Deathmatch for information on the Shadow King and the Grandmaster.
• In this episode: she declined to kill Claudia early and offered to fake her death and fetch her the recipe. Patched up with My Little Pony band-aids. Wore Louboutin-like “knife on glass” squeaky shoes. She died angry and called the match rigged, dragging Claudia into the vines with her.
• After death: a cloaked “sister” took her petals and vowed to finish the mission.

Claudia (ItsBethTheBard). A university professor who studies plants.

• Look: blonde pigtails with pressed flowers; a poofy rose-embroidered dress; dirty gardening boots.
• Gear and powers: a gardening shovel (rapier) and a little shovel (short sword). Bladesong, Mage Armor, Shield, Hold Person, Kinetic Jaunt and Booming Blade. She can call plants to grapple.
• The tree shift: a lab accident during research lets her shift into a weeping-willow-like, bark-skinned form when frightened.
• Ventriloquist (granted by the Grandmaster as “her side hobby”).
• Mission: came for the Shadow King’s grandmother’s secret soup recipe (with cilantro).
• In this episode: panicky and apologetic. She declared she was no longer scared of Fatale, won the match, received the recipe, and was incinerated by the Shadow King through it.

The Shadow King (Mudcat). In power at the Dread Fortress.

• Plans: expanding the Dread Fortress across the Void (a pool where a school is), killing the people who live there.
• In this episode:
  • Wore bunny slippers.
  • Ripped out Lubofan’s head and spine for her soul and wants dice made from her bones.
  • Crashed the ship and doubled all damage while cutting AC.
  • Incinerated the winner with “my grandmother’s recipe.”
• He mocks the Grandmaster’s talking compared with Vythorn’s.

The Grandmaster (Caustic Phoenix). Opens portals by clenching the amulet at her neck until she bleeds.

• In this episode:
  • Opposes the expansion.
  • Mutters that she “should have been the one in charge.”
  • Gives the squeaky shoes and freed Fatale from Hold Person.
  • Grants advantage and the ventriloquist skill.
  • Threw her spear to flatten the arena.
• Says “I am the regulations”; morning affirmations.

Lubofan: an Acolyte killed by the Shadow King to fuel the Box of Chaos. Spelled “Lobofin” at 0:34:03.

The Box of Chaos creature: a shadowy creature with yellow eyes in the box. It resents having things thrown at it.

Harry, Henrietta, Louise: goblins building the Void map.

Goblin first-aid crew: parachuting medics with My Little Pony band-aids.

The sky puppy: a giant, old, Appa-like fluffy dog. It farts, and it ran off into the stands.

Garamond and Gator: Acolytes (chat) who threw dog toys and hot dogs and got tackled by the puppy.

The squirrel: binoculars, a bag of peanuts. Gave Fatale a peanut and kicked Claudia’s heel.

Tim (peanut store) and Kevin (deep-fried butterfly wings stall): arena vendors.

The cloaked sister: dark eyes, black lips. She caught Fatale’s petals: “We will fulfill your mission, sister.”

Vythorn: mentioned as having once done “the talking” at the Deathmatch.

Places

• Throne room (Dread Fortress), dimly lit, with the giant Void map table. The Dread Fortress has at least 200 empty rooms “up above”.
• The sky-ship arena: cannons, barrels, crow’s nest, helm.
• The ghostly coliseum hovering above the arena.
• The mountaintop where the ship crashed.
• A school somewhere in the Void, slated for the Shadow King’s pool.

Items

• The Grandmaster’s amulet (a blood portal key).
• The Void map table.
• Bunny slippers.
• The Box of Chaos.
• Fatale’s +3 whip.
• The potion of invisibility.
• Squeaky shoes (magical; can’t be untied off, the box follows its owner).
• The Grandmaster’s non-regulation d20 and spear.
• Planned dice from Lubofan’s bones.
• The Shadow King’s grandmother’s soup recipe, with cilantro and the secret ingredient “Incinerate.”

Lore statements

• The Shadow King plans to expand the Dread Fortress across the Void and kill the residents in the way.
• The Box of Chaos is fed an Acolyte’s soul ripped out by the Shadow King. It grants items for sacrifices of anything of value.
• The Shadow King can tilt and crash the arena, strip armor and double damage at will.
• Deathmatch sacrifices are “told in song in the taverns every evening.”
• Fatale belongs to a group (a “sister”) seeking information on the Shadow King and Grandmaster. Inferred from 0:39:16 and 1:31:23.

Full Round-by-Round

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

Opening — the Dread Fortress throne room and the map table

1. 0:02:14 Volcanoes spew lava around the Dread Fortress. The Grandmaster stomps down the old stone hallways, and her heels echo through the whole building. She slams the throne-room door open, but it only opens partway and she has to slide through.
2. The Shadow King has set up a gigantic table with a map of the Void that fills the dimly lit throne room. She has to scoot along the walls to get past it. She asks whether he picked up a random hobby: “Are you into train sets?”
3. The goblins Harry, Henrietta and Louise are placing small trees and rivers on the map.
4. 0:03:34 — The expansion plan. The Shadow King: “I’m planning for the expansion of the Dread Fortress.”
   • The Grandmaster points out that only the two of them and the goblins live there: “We have at least 200 empty rooms up above.”
   • He wants to stop wasting space across the Void and build “a pool. We’ll go here, where the school is.”
   • She accuses him of watching Emperor’s New Groove again and reminds him that people live there.
   • The Shadow King: “We will kill them. And then they won’t live there anymore and it won’t be a problem.” He adds: “I’m in power here.”
5. 0:04:26 The Grandmaster flips over one of the map tables and offers a deathmatch as a distraction “instead of destroying parts of the void.” She recruits goblins to help her distract him.
6. 0:05:03 — The slippers. Goblins carry in the Shadow King’s throne chair. One slips a pair of bunny slippers onto his feet, and they push him back to lounge.
7. The portal. The Grandmaster clenches the amulet around her neck so tightly that blood drips down her arm, and a portal opens.
8. 0:05:48 — Fatale’s entrance.
   • Black rose petals swoosh in on a wind out of nowhere. She has long black hair flowing around her.
   • She holds a one-handed crossbow like a pistol and a whip in the other hand. “Fatale.”
   • Asked about herself, she looks at her crossbow: “Is there anything else you need to know? Really?” The Grandmaster: “You let the weapons do the talking for you.”
9. 0:06:48 — Claudia’s entrance.
   • She is a university professor who studies plants.
   • Her weapons are her gardening shovel (a rapier) and a littler gardening shovel (a short sword). “I am ready to do the kicking of the ass.”
   • She has blonde hair in little pigtails with flowers pressed into it, a poofy dress “reminiscent of Miss Frizzle” embroidered with roses, and gardening boots that still have dirt on them, which she tracks everywhere.
10. 0:07:48 — “A nerd?” The Shadow King: “you brought a nerd into the arena?”
    • The Grandmaster: “all the nerds that have ever come in here know how to throw a book or two.” He challenges her: “Name five.”
    • Fatale reads “only to kill somebody.” The black roses swirl again. The Shadow King: “See, that’s cool… She’s cool.”
    • Fatale snaps her whip: “I’m here to dominate this deathmatch.”
11. 0:08:45 The Shadow King: “I’m just here to watch people die.” The Grandmaster mutters, “that’s why I should have been the one in charge.” “Sorry, what?” “Nothing!”
12. 0:08:52 She clenches the amulet with her other hand, blood runs down that arm too, and a glowing blue portal opens.

The arena — the sky-ship

13. 0:09:18 The champions step out 80 feet up in the air onto a magnificent wooden ship soaring through the skies. Their fingers run through misty cloud and birds fly at eye level.
    • The Grandmaster: “It’s peaceful. It’s gorgeous. And I want you to destroy it! … I want the goblins afterwards to not even know where the poop deck is.”
14. 0:10:05 — The ship’s features.
    • Functioning cannons.
    • Barrels with mysterious contents.
    • Fore and aft decks raised about 5 ft above the main deck.
    • One crow’s nest, 40 ft higher.
    • “I want you all to give us the battle of the season.”
15. 0:10:53 — The coliseum above. The Grandmaster flies up, and above the ship hangs a ghostly visage of a coliseum, every seat full:
    • small children with cotton candy and sticky faces;
    • parents yelling;
    • teenagers “probably skipping school, but it’s fine because apparently the Shadow King’s just gonna destroy the school.”
    • “We’re a complicated world with lots going on… Make it worth remembering.”
16. 0:11:39 The Shadow King: “Acolytes, are you ready for some blood?”

Round 1

17. 0:12:36 Fatale wins initiative (19 vs 10). The champions start on opposite sides of the ship with the crow’s-nest pole between them.
    • 0:13:07 Claudia: “You can do it. I believe in you.” Fatale: “You believe in me, so you want to die.” Claudia: “They are not mutually exclusive.”
18. 0:13:27 — Fatale’s opening. She hides flat against the pole (stealth 31). Her black-petal wind swirls into a puff of smoke as she vanishes. She throws a dagger as a warning shot to gauge the distance.
    • Claudia’s perception fails: “you don’t see shit.” The Acolytes pull out mini binoculars to find her.
    • The dagger hits Claudia in the shoulder (8). Fatale breathes: “oh, that’s where you are.”
    • 0:17:02 She declines to use her sneak attack: “I don’t want to kill you just yet… we work well together.”
19. 0:17:26 — First blood. The Acolytes go into a frenzy at first blood in round one (“very surprising and doesn’t always happen”) and start filling the champions’ hero points.
20. 0:18:01 — Claudia armors up. In a panic she pulls the dagger out of her shoulder and casts Mage Armor and Bladesong (AC 21). Then she tiptoes around the pole looking for Fatale.
21. 0:18:54 — Hiding. Fatale shimmies around the pole into the crow’s-nest ladder for half cover (stealth 19).
    • Mudcat: “How flat do you think she can get against this pole?” Caustic Phoenix: “Listen, I’m just saying, there are hoes.”
    • Fatale says she wears a very scantily clad latex outfit: “the less clothes you wear, the tighter you can get.”
    • Claudia still has a rough idea of where she is.
22. 0:20:07 — Marco Polo. Claudia: “Where did you go? Marco?” Mudcat has Fatale make a Wisdom save to see whether she is compelled to yell “Polo.” She passes and doesn’t: “I’m waiting for the right moment.”
23. 0:21:21 The end-of-round roll is a 10. The crowd boos (“You suck!”). The Shadow King: “It’s good enough for a death save!”
24. 0:21:38 — Hero points. The Grandmaster explains them: one per Deathmatch, granted by the Acolytes’ cheering. They let a champion “go plus ultra, super saiyan, be over frickin’ 9,000.” “Don’t die with it in your hands.”

Chaos event — Let Sleeping Dogs Lie (0:23:15)

25. The crowd chants “Chaos!”
26. A giant sky puppy floats through the sky, “very much like Appa, but slightly older”: a big fluffy creature with a giant waggy tail, clearly exhausted. It lands in the middle of the ship, pushes the champions to opposite sides, curls up and falls asleep.
27. Out of character, the map token is a “ferocious beast” icon: “We have blink dogs and we have death dogs… there’s no in between.”

Round 2

28. 0:24:44 — The dog’s butt. Fatale, at the dog’s back end, climbs up onto it (animal handling 17).
    • She scratches the itchy spot on its butt, which “loosened some things.”
    • She fails a Constitution save. The sleeping dog farts, and she takes 1 poison damage.
    • She stays on and climbs to the dog’s head, where she can see Claudia, trying not to gag.
29. 0:27:19 — The prop whip. Fatale stresses that her whip “is not an actual weapon… This is just a prop whip,” used for intimidation.
    • She snaps it toward Claudia “like say polo.” The intimidation beats Claudia’s insight, and the crack startles Claudia, who gets a d4 Bane.
    • Claudia: “What the fuck is that smell? What are you doing up there? I thought we were supposed to be fighting! Is it still on me?” Fatale: “You still smell like dog farts.”
30. 0:29:13 — Claudia’s tree shift. She uses a beast-hide shift for temporary HP.
    • Backstory (player-stated): Claudia “was once in a terrible laboratory accident during research.” Since then, when she gets scared enough, her body morphs like a tree, “sort of like a weeping willow… but with like the strong bark.” Her skin changes and she gets droopy.
31. 0:30:19 — Hold Person. “You just stay right there, okay?” She casts Hold Person on Fatale, and Fatale fails (5).
32. 0:31:08 — The chest falls. At the end of round 2, a gigantic treasure chest falls from the sky like a comet in yellow and pink flames and lands up by the helm. Caustic Phoenix and Mudcat can’t agree on the ship-part names: “the steering wheel thing.”

The Box of Chaos — Lubofan’s soul

33. 0:32:03 — Lubofan. The Shadow King: “Hmm, who would it be tonight?”
    • He raises an ethereal giant shadowy hand that zooms around the crowd: “You, Lubofan!”
    • It grabs her by the head and drags her through the crowd in a circle. “Yes, your soul will do nice!”
    • He rips her head off with the spine still attached, reaches down the neck hole with another shadowy hand, pulls out a black soul and throws the body to the ground.
    • He slams the soul into the box. Pink and yellow flames shoot up, and a shadowy creature with yellow eyes crawls out of the lid.
34. 0:33:00 — How the box works. The Box of Chaos takes a sacrifice in exchange for a magic item. It’s a free action on your turn, and “anything of value to you” counts.
35. 0:33:31 — The dice.
    • The Shadow King rolls a 3: “I rolled a fucking three.” The Grandmaster: “You’re the worst.” She pulls out her own d20 and rolls a 14.
    • Shadow King: “Yours is not regulation, obviously.” Grandmaster: “I’m the Grandmaster. I don’t need to follow regulations. I am the regulations.”
    • 0:34:03 The Shadow King orders a goblin: “grab those bones… Make me a new set of dice out of that”, meaning Lubofan’s spine and head. The goblin scurries off with them.

The Grandmaster’s gift — squeaky shoes

36. 0:34:17 As she did at the last deathmatch with shoes, the Grandmaster tosses each champion a shoe box.
    • Fatale is held and can’t open hers, so it stays closed at her feet.
    • Claudia, “a curious kid,” opens hers. The shoes appear magically on her feet with the laces tied tight. They are squeaky shoes.
    • While she wears them she can’t sneak attack, and she must make the squeak sound whenever she moves.
37. 0:35:44 Fatale asks whether the dog hears squeaks. Caustic Phoenix: “I didn’t think about how these two would combine.” Mudcat: the dog has +5 perception.
38. Getting them off. The shoes are magical, so simply untying them may not work; the squeaker is visible on the heel. Mudcat: “Don’t assume” how many legs a player has. Caustic Phoenix: “Some players have four legs… then you have two pairs of shoes.”

Round 3 — the whispered deal

39. 0:37:23 — The talk. Held, Fatale talks. “Why do you even want to die?” Claudia: “I don’t want to die, that’s why I froze you.”
    • “You know this is a deathmatch, right?” “I might have missed that part of the memo.”
    • Claudia brought her shovel “in case of emergency gardening… you all must be prepared.”
40. 0:38:04 — The plan. Fatale whispers a plan: pretend to throw Claudia off the ship while she holds on and looks dead, so Fatale wins. Or put her on the fluffy puppy, wake it and have it fly her away.
    • The whisper rolls 27 and the Shadow King’s perception gets 26, so neither the Shadow King nor the Grandmaster hears it.
41. 0:39:16 — The secret missions (in character, unheard by the hosts).
    • Fatale: “I’m here infiltrating the D20 Deathmatch. For information on the Shadow King and Grandmaster. And if I win the Deathmatch, I will be able to get precious information out of them.”
    • Claudia: she too came for information: “the Shadow King’s grandmother’s secret soup recipe with the cilantro.”
    • Fatale offers to bring her the recipe later if the puppy carries her away: “Cuz if I kill you, then you’ll never get the soup recipe.” She insists she is serious.
    • Claudia: “I will think about your thing, but you have to stay over there because you stabbed me in the shoulder.”
42. 0:41:11 — The crowd throws things. The Acolytes can’t hear the talk and see no action, so they start throwing:
    • cotton candy, keys, fish, fish balls;
    • an Ikea piano with an Allen key (“mid price range”; no one threw a grand, “Steinways aren’t really throwing pianos”);
    • hot dogs, “cans of shut the fuck up”, dog toys, potatoes;
    • a cat, an angry toy robot, and a bag of cats that land on their feet.
43. The damage. Fatale passes her Dex save (26). Claudia fails (12): a cat lands on her and nicks her with its claws (1). “You helped them land safely.”
44. 0:43:22 — The dog wakes. The sleeping dog fails too. Garamond threw dog toys and Gator threw hot dogs, and the puppy wakes with a big yawn.
    • Fatale falls off it.
    • The dog jumps off the ship into the stands, tackles Garamond and Gator, gives them puppy kisses and devours the food.
45. 0:44:16 Fatale fails her save against Hold Person: “I am a doll!” (inferred Fatale). She falls over like a stiff Barbie.
46. 0:44:57 — Fatale’s offering. Unable to move, she sends her black petals dancing on the wind into the chest as an offering. They tuck “deep within the soul of Lubofan.”
    • The box gives a +3 weapon, which Mudcat makes a whip. It falls on top of her.
    • Claudia: “A functional whip! How?” Mudcat: “Gotta have a good whip.”
47. 0:47:29 — Claudia’s offering. “I am very afraid of you right now, but also very jealous.” She throws one of her daggers (really a small gardening trowel) at the box.
    • The shadowy creature claws out: “Why are you throwing shit at me?”
    • Claudia: “Not for you! You can now start like a kitchen garden… I am so sorry… I regret everything.”
    • The creature slams the lid. The box rumbles, fire shoots up, and the creature emerges holding a small potion: “See, this is how you hand something to someone.” It is a potion of invisibility lasting one round.
48. 0:50:05 — Invisible and squeaking. Claudia drinks it and moves toward Fatale: “squeak, squeak… Oh, God, that’s still me… how do I get this blasted…” Her stealth is 31.
49. 0:51:00 — The ventriloquist. The Grandmaster grants a new skill: “Claudia’s a ventriloquist, everyone.” She throws her squeaks and her whining about the shoes all around. Claudia: “It is her side hobby.”
50. 0:51:45 “Let’s just give everyone a bit of a reset.” With a snap of her fingers, the Grandmaster frees Fatale from Hold Person. Break: blue slushies, and clearing the hot dogs off the ship.

After the break

51. The food stands. “Welcome back, Acolytes!”
    • Tim runs the peanut store.
    • Kevin’s stall sells deep-fried butterfly wings.
    • There are blue raspberry slushies.
    • The Appa-sized dog still bounds across the stands, drooling: “Just don’t go to the bathroom up there.”
52. 0:53:13 — Banter.
    • Shadow King: “You’re not as funny as you think you are.” Grandmaster: “I look at myself in the mirror and I think I am the funniest person alive.”
    • Her morning affirmations: “Put yourself up on the pedestal. Don’t worry. Other people are going to try to knock it down.” The Shadow King (inferred speaker): “I’m gonna say that from now on.”
    • She mangles “the deathmatch of deathest… deathest matches.”
53. 0:54:19 — “Was Vythorn in charge of the talking?” Shadow King: “was Vythorn in charge of the talking because it seems like that is not your strong suit.” Grandmaster: “it was, at one point, the Deathmatch. I’m trying here.” She hands kickoff to him.
54. 0:54:44 — First aid. Fatale lies still on deck. A goblin first-aid crew parachutes onto the ship from “a little vault up in the sky” with splints, Neosporin and band-aids.
    • She has no visible injuries, but they wrap gauze around her forehead and slap My Little Pony band-aids on her like stickers.
    • Fatale: “It looks really good with the, like, cut-out latex bra and underwear suit.” Shadow King: “I don’t know why we’re bandaging them up. They’re just going to kill each other.”

Round 4

55. 0:56:37 Fatale hides again by the pole. She takes her unopened shoe box with her, to open next turn.
56. 0:57:14 Claudia is invisible and still out-stealthing her. Fatale can’t pin her down.
57. 0:58:13 — The squeakers. Claudia can’t just untie the shoes, so she stabs the squeaker in each shoe with her little shovel.
    • Mudcat: “I thought you were going to cut your own feet off.” Claudia: “This is not Saw.”
    • “My shoes are also ventriloquist.”
    • The shoes deflate, and she can move stealthily, though Caustic Phoenix rules they are “slightly less uncomfortable.”
58. 1:01:05 — Flailing. Claudia flails around the deck with her shovel: “Where are you? You’re not going to hit me again.” She misses.
    • Her invisibility drops mid-flail. She sees her arm: “oh shit.”
    • The crowd finally sees them again. Caustic Phoenix compares it to a piñata game where the piñata is invisible.

The Shadow King crashes the ship

59. 1:03:14 End-of-round roll 11. Shadow King: “This is boring. Let me change things.”
    • He reaches out a hand as if to grab the ship.
    • It tilts to 90 degrees and plummets nose-first. Barrels roll past and sacks of grain float in the air.
60. The damage. Both pass Dex saves for half damage. It comes to only 6, and someone (speaker uncertain) demands a reroll: “You are the Shadow King.” Shadow King: “You know what? I like the sound of that. Let’s do it again.” 12 more.
    • Claudia asks, “Aren’t we rogues?” to avoid the damage. Mudcat: “Oh, you’re taking this damage.”
61. 1:04:59 The Shadow King slams the ship ethereally into the ground. It breaks into pieces and both champions are thrown out, still facing each other.

Round 5 — the mountaintop

62. 1:05:22 — The new arena. A mountaintop with rocks, trees and bushes. A tiny squirrel watches from a rock on the south side with his own binoculars, munching a bag of peanuts.
63. 1:05:40 Fatale hides behind a chunk of the helm and fires her crossbow with sneak attack. She misses (15).
64. 1:06:53 — Fatale’s squeaky shoes. The shoe box “will not leave your side,” so she opens it, and squeaky shoes appear on her feet.
    • Fatale: “Cool.” Mudcat: “She’s so excited about this, you can’t tell.”
    • Her squeak is a sharp, intimidating, intentional snapping click, “like razor sharp Louboutins.” Grandmaster: “the harsh plaque, like a knife on glass… piercing and painful to the ears.”
65. 1:08:12 — The second Hold Person. Claudia traces the bolt’s line (perception 28).
    • “You already stabbed me. You tried to… I don’t think you’re a very nice person… I am not going to be scared of you anymore. But you have to stay right there.”
    • She casts Hold Person again: “It is part of the master plan.”
    • The Grandmaster gives Fatale a d4 of inspiration, but Fatale rolls a nat 20 and isn’t held.
66. 1:09:43 Claudia bonus-action hides: “Why are you not staying put?” She runs and jumps into the bushes (stealth 25).
67. 1:10:23 End-of-round roll 4. Grandmaster: “you’re always a disappointment to us. We’re not shocked by that, Shadow King.” She notes “one flat, one sharp” squeaky shoe.

Round 6

68. 1:10:58 Fatale gets perception 21 but can’t place Claudia. “You get two rogues together… We’re just hiding.”
69. 1:11:45 — The peanut. The squirrel bravely runs up and offers Fatale “a peanut of encouragement.” It does nothing.
    • Fatale stabs the peanut with her squeaky shoe heel and brings it up to her hand. Caustic Phoenix thought she meant the squirrel: “People don’t often stab peanuts.”
70. 1:12:25 Fatale walks around cracking her whip to intimidate and closes in. Claudia’s insight fails (15 vs 16), so she gets a d4 penalty to attacks.
71. 1:13:31 — The pass. Claudia, “more and more panicked by the second,” casts Kinetic Jaunt and runs past Fatale with a Booming Blade swing of her gardening shovel. Caustic Phoenix: “Blooming Blade… if that fits more of your style.”
    • It misses (10). “I see like the look on your face and I’m like, oh god! And I just start running.” Kinetic Jaunt stops opportunity attacks.
72. 1:15:56 — The spear. End-of-round roll 14.
    • The Grandmaster warns: “the Shadow King has a few other things up his sleeve.”
    • She leans over the railing: “I want you to fight. I want you to face each other… look each other in the eyes.”
    • She throws down her spear, and the ripple flattens a ~40 ft section in the middle “flat as a pancake.” “Don’t make me throw another one!”

Round 7

73. 1:17:35 “Round number seven!” Caustic Phoenix: “I didn’t even know we had this many cards… If we go into round number eight, it’ll be round number one! Because we could only pay for so much.”
74. 1:17:52 — Fatale’s attack. She closes 25 ft and attacks with her rapier (20), which misses Claudia’s AC (Mage Armor, beast hide and Bladesong).
    • Her bonus-action crossbow (Crossbow Expert) misses. The Grandmaster: “An expert loser. I want you to get out there and show them how badass you are.” She grants advantage.
    • Fatale spends her Lucky feat and rolls 26. Claudia reacts with Shield (AC 27), and the bolt still misses. Claudia: “I don’t want to die!”
75. 1:20:44 — The squirrel kick. The squirrel runs up and kicks Claudia in the heel for 1 damage. “That squirrel is currently on Fatale’s side.”
76. 1:21:34 — The Shadow King’s curse. End-of-round roll 13. The Shadow King stands: “This is all bullshit. They’re not doing anything.” Grandmaster: “They’re moving. They’re dying. I’m trying.”
    • He snaps his fingers. Both champions’ armor, even magical armor, turns brittle and dissipates (AC −5 each), and all damage is doubled until the end of the deathmatch, as blades sharpen and magic grows more potent.
    • Grandmaster: “We beg for blood and so it shall be given. The sacrifices you make today will be witnessed by our acolytes, told in song in the taverns every evening.”

The finish

77. 1:22:52 — Claudia’s attack. Claudia “after dodging a whole bunch, real skillfully getting kicked in the shin by a squirrel” pulls the shovel back, screams at the top of her lungs and brings it down on Fatale (AC now 11).
    • The shovel hits, then the “short sword” off-hand hits. 80 damage after doubling.
78. 1:24:44 — Claudia’s hero point: the plants. Blood flying, she calls to the plants: “protect me, I’m so good to you.”
    • Vines and roots sense her gardening abilities, creep up and grapple Fatale’s ankles (spell attack 23).
79. 1:26:16 — “Rigged.” Fatale protests that dropping AC and doubling damage on somebody else’s turn is “a little rigged.” The Grandmaster lets her use her hero point before the damage lands.
80. 1:27:25 — Fatale’s hero point: the whip. She doesn’t try to cheat death. Instead she lashes her whip around Claudia’s leg and drags her across the ground to her feet, so the vines bind them together, face to face. “I want you stuck with me as I die.”
    • Claudia slaps her to try to wake her: “Are you okay?”
81. 1:29:10 — Fatale’s last thoughts. “I’m just mad… goddammit! This whole thing is rigged!”
    • The Grandmaster describes her anger burning “fiery hot… a passion to live that is worth respecting.” Justice was not done, and she didn’t get what she came for.
82. 1:30:25 — Fatale’s death. Her body dissolves into a bunch of black petals. “As you came in with beauty, so you leave us just the same.”
    • The breeze sweeps the luminescent black petals up into the Acolytes, who reach for them.
83. The cloaked sister. A figure hidden in a cloak, with dark eyes and black lips, catches the petals: “We will fulfill your mission, sister.” She sneaks out of the back of the arena.
84. 1:31:23 — The recipe. Claudia sits in the vines among black petals. “A soft, well-worn piece of paper floats onto your lap. It’s the soup recipe that you wanted.”
85. 1:31:55 — The secret ingredient.
    • The Shadow King fades out of the shadows of his throne and appears before her: “Well, seems you’re the winner.” Claudia: “I won? Is she dead?”
    • Shadow King: “I hope you enjoy my grandmother’s recipe. If you read closely, you’ll see the secret ingredient.”
    • At the bottom it says “Incinerate.”
    • He snaps his fingers and the vines around Claudia blaze, incinerating her body.
86. 1:32:53 “Welcome and goodnight to D20 Deathmatch!”