S5E8 — Graveyard Grudge — Granny Edith v Teddy Oso

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Granny Edith came back to the arena hoping for a rest and got a shotgun-toting zombie hunter instead. In a moonlit graveyard on October 1st, the start of Thea’s thirty days of Halloween, she fought Teddy Oso, a cheerful survivor of the zombie apocalypse who ran on energy drinks and bad decisions. What began as a man kicking an old lady in the butt ended with the floor turning to lava and Granny hurling a loaf of bread the size of a boulder. Along the way she fed the Box of Chaos its first-ever cookie.

The Story

Thirty Days of Halloween

The night began in the empty halls of The Dread Fortress, where the Lord of Fate noticed that the goblins had abandoned their chores. Two small “ghosts” darted across the hallway, one on tiny green feet and the other on tiny pink feet. When one froze and peered out through cut eye holes with big yellow eyes, the Lord of Fate had only one question: “Are those my Egyptian cotton bed sheets?” They were. Under the sheet was Thea, who explained that there weren’t any sheets on his bed anymore, so yes, and that they were really cozy.

He snapped his fingers and one of the stars on Thea’s forehead fizzled away. He added that she was lucky he wasn’t docking her paycheck. Thea had not known she got a paycheck, and she didn’t; it was “the principle of the thing.” She took this to mean she could be a principal, which she reasoned was “like a prince… so I get a crown!” The Lord of Fate gave up, and Thea called herself a principal for the rest of the night.

She had also decorated his room with cobwebs, scattered skeletons and pumpkins “bigger than your head, which is already pretty big if you ask me.” When he pointed out that it was only October 1st, she explained that starting early gets you “30 days of Halloween.” He threatened to rip her wings off, “because that’s how I celebrate Halloween,” and she begged him to wait until he’d seen the fighters. He had one condition: “if it’s another child, I swear to God.”

The Champions

Thea ripped away her sheet and it twirled into a pink portal, delivering “the favorite of all favorites”: Granny Edith. Granny was not thrilled. She had hoped “to rest after the last fight and see Gerald,” her late husband, and she said so while pinching the Lord of Fate’s cheeks very hard. When he asked whether she hadn’t died last time, Thea was cheerful about it: “No one dies forever! Except for when they do.” She mused about wearing bodies as suits, and said that if Granny ever died, she would be Thea’s first Halloween costume choice. Granny was appalled, since in her day they “certainly didn’t make them from the bodies of other people,” and Thea insisted it was “eco-friendly. It’s recycling.”

Through a second portal came Teddy Oso, who announced his plans: “Shoot some faces, punch some bellies, and kick some shins.” On eyeballs, he advised, “No, don’t poke them. Lick them,” and Thea concluded, “We’re going to lick some balls tonight,” before the Lord of Fate cut it off. His shotgun was for shooting zombies in the face. When he was asked whether he’d shoot someone who wasn’t quite a zombie yet, the conversation turned dark: “I shot my grandma in the face because she was a zombie and I had to do it and it was real sad and I don’t know why you’re making me talk about it.” Thea called this the can-do, carefree attitude of the Deathmatch arena.

Thea chose her favorite spooky place, The Midnight Mausoleum. It is an isolated patch of grass ringed with tombstones, with a gigantic mausoleum on the far side, an ominous angel statue keeping watch, and a huge full moon overhead. When she clapped, skeletal hands began clawing up out of the ground. It “came pre-decorated,” she said, which saved on the budget. She flew up through The Acolytes as they chanted “Granny! Granny! Tedioso!” and gave the champions some advice: “If you cry on the ground, they will throw slushies at you. So, fuck up and own it!”

Manners Lessons

Teddy flipped his shotgun around and swung the stock at Granny’s shins like a golf club. She hopped right over it, because she had been a jump rope champion back in her day. His follow-up kick to her butt landed and dropped her to her knees. When she asked him to help her up, he refused, giggling because he liked watching old people fall over. Thea slid underneath Granny like a flat table and lifted her up. Then Granny pulled out a fly swat and smacked Teddy on one ear and then the other.

She tried to learn his full name. It came out as “Mr. Teddy Oso,” then “Junior the third,” then “junior the second,” and Thea asked whether his dad was stupid. A handful of flour from Granny’s apron would have blinded him, but Thea narrated a terrible-smelling breeze, “probably because Thea actually farted,” that blew the flour into both their lungs: “fart flower.” When Granny praised Thea, the Lord of Fate replied that “swift and punishing brutality works the best.” Granny suggested the fly swat instead, and he liked the idea.

The first chaos event blared the Macarena through the arena speakers. Teddy kept up. Granny couldn’t: “Gerald and I used to go out dancing every week, but I can’t dance by myself. I need a partner.”

Energy Drinks and Rolling Pins

Teddy cracked an energy drink, poured it into his shotgun barrel and drank it from there. He was confident about it: “Whatever doesn’t kill me. I’ve survived the zombie apocalypse.” Granny told him how she met Gerald on a train. Teddy accused her of stealing his thunder and fired: “Say hi to Gerald on the other side.” Granny had just bent down to fetch Gerald’s photo from her bag, so the blast sailed over her head and blew apart a zombie rising behind her. Now the dead were climbing out everywhere.

Granny chased him around the graveyard with her rolling pin, missing over and over. She offered to do his laundry, then caught herself: “Wait a minute. I’m not your grandma. You do your own damn laundry.” She finally rolled the pin along the ground and tripped him. When she tried to sit on him with her “granny butt,” she misjudged how far her knees would bend and ended up rolling around on the grass. Thea openly took Granny’s side. When Teddy protested that he thought they were cool, she told him, “I am cold. I run a very low temperature.” The Lord of Fate apologized for her: “I created her out of a worm.”

Fritters

Teddy tackled the already-rolling Granny with a perfect natural 20 and admitted, “I’ve never beat up an old person, but I gotta say, I’m enjoying this.” The Lord of Fate observed that so many elderly champions had come through the arena that it was “becoming kind of a national pastime.” From the ground, Granny explained that she had 69 great great grandchildren and was well used to young whippersnappers. She also tried to count her children, and lost track when she wondered whether she had counted Harry.

Then she made fritters. A magic pan spat hot butter at Teddy, who flubbed his defense completely and got badly burned. She chopped onions so fast that the juice sprayed into his eyes. Granny was wearing goggle glasses, and at Thea’s clap the goblins handed goggles to everyone, zombies and skeletons included, except Teddy. Her giant grater missed him. Granny paused for a cup of tea. Thea hid behind a tombstone and cried because her out-of-turn roll didn’t count, then floated a plan to kill both fighters. The Lord of Fate agreed, as long as she killed Granny first. “Me and Thea got beef now,” Teddy said.

Thrown Imps and Hard Cookies

Teddy poured a sugar-free vegan energy drink over his burn. Thea checked the can for vegans and found none. Then he grabbed Thea’s hands, spun her like a merry-go-round on steroids, and threw her at Granny. Granny caught her perfectly.

That was the end of Granny’s patience. “You messing with this lovely young lady right here, that’s enough.” Her signature move, Granny’s Cookies, sent the rolling pin spinning across the graveyard and missed again. The Lord of Fate noted it hadn’t hit once in two fights, and Thea called it “a signature miss.” Her rock-hard raisin cookies, “the ones I give to people I don’t like,” flew like Frisbees and cracked Teddy’s front teeth. Strays hit the crowd. Harvey lost his eyes, Scrib got a raisin stuck in his ear, and Lady Magdala choked and needed CPR. The crowd loved it.

Thea then scored a natural 20 and declared, “Thea is God! Thea is principal!… Corn dogs for everyone!” She had had the goblins prepare corn dog cannons. A second chaos event slipped a lullaby under the rock music. Teddy resisted, but Granny lay down murmuring, “Oh, my lovely mother,” until a screaming guitar riff woke her and the skeletal hands threw up devil horns.

The Box of Chaos

The Acolytes wanted more chaos, so the Lord of Fate snapped and The Box of Chaos slammed down in a column of heatless pink and yellow fire. A shadowy figure with yellow eyes clawed at the lid. The Lord of Fate refused to be impressed by it: “I created it… It contains part of my soul.” Then he ate a hot dog and a corn dog in front of Thea.

Teddy’s offering was his grandma’s head, which he had carried like a shrunken head ever since. “Take care of her, please.” The box promised to put her “right next to the other ones.” In return it handed him a delicious-looking apple. He ate it and was poisoned. The box remarked, “I would never do this to my grandma,” and the Acolytes pointed out it was a Granny Smith.

Teddy charged with his little axe, and it stuck fast in Granny’s raised rolling pin: “free axe.” Asked how many zombies he had killed, he said, “Lost track, 12,000 maybe… Could be seven.”

Granny took a gentler approach to the box. She offered it fresh chocolate chip cookies with the perfect gooey center. It was suspicious, and explained that nobody had ever given it a cookie because “I’m a piece of a soul trapped in a box.” Granny told it that “even a piece of a soul trapped in a box should try a chocolate chip cookie sometime” and poured it a glass of milk. Its eyes went huge, and feasting sounds came from inside. In return it gave her her great grandma’s bread and butter pudding, which healed her.

Then the Lord of Fate complained that the corn dogs were getting to him. Thea explained, “That’s because I filled them with laxatives… then we’d have a shit storm.” He ran for the bathroom, and on the way out he snapped his fingers and ripped her wings off so she could “duct tape those back on” during the break. After the break, Thea announced, “Our poop holes are free now,” and explained that she had put laxatives in everyone’s corn dogs, because “then we have shared trauma together. It is a bonding experience.”

Dust and Puns

Teddy shouted his signature move, “Leave Him in the Dust,” and a motorcycle appeared from nowhere. He circled Granny in a choking cloud of dust. Thea held a motorcycle-sound contest: Teddy’s rated 7/10, the Lord of Fate’s “has lips,” Granny’s sounded like Popeye, and Thea’s was “an electric European motorcycle” with a lisp. Granny swept at Teddy with a broom and then clotheslined him off the bike. Her rolling pin glowed with runes in a heroic surge but missed, giving “a nice little disco effect through the fog of dust.”

Teddy threw dust in her eyes and shook off the apple’s poison. Then Granny remembered she hadn’t made any puns yet. “You can’t make a cake without breaking a few eggs,” she said, and threw rotten eggs, which Teddy caught and ate. She cleaned her spectacles, rolled her pin at him and said, “They see me rolling, I’m baking.” It hit. “The puns always do it,” she said.

The Floor Is Lava

The last chaos event filled the graveyard with heat and sizzling. The grass withered and lava swallowed everything but the tombstones. It scorched both champions and left them hopping from stone to stone. “I said I needed a hot oven,” Granny complained, “but this is entirely too hot.” Both were so exhausted that one more push could kill either of them, and Teddy’s powered-up shotgun blast fizzled.

Granny toasted bread in the lava until it was rock hard (“Bake me up before you dodo”) and threw it. Then she toasted a far larger loaf, “like a boulder.” It struck Teddy and knocked him off his tombstone into the lava.

As he sank in slow motion, Thea asked what was going through his mind. “I realized that I underestimated the old person, and I shouldn’t have. I learned my lesson.” The last thing anyone saw was his small hand giving a thumbs-up before the heat took it. Granny got the reference, and the Lord of Fate said she was old enough to. A cool breeze swept the field and Thea crowned Granny Edith the winner. “That rolling pin’s no joke,” the Lord of Fate conceded. Granny’s parting words: “I know old Teddy’s probably not feeling so great right now, but at yeast we had fun.”

Dried Blood

After the fight, the Arbiter congratulated Granny on actually not dying this time. Everyone agreed the dice seemed to turn once the baking puns started. Teddy’s player confessed he wasn’t an energy drinker, a motorcyclist or a gun owner, and had never beaten up an old person: “I’m just a really good actor.” The Arbiter’s verdict: “Well, now I just feel fucking lied to.” The table also declared two numbers official lore. Teddy has killed somewhere between seven and 12,000 zombies, and Granny has 69 great great grandchildren. Granny’s last words were “Good things come to those who bake.”

Notable Moments

• Thea and a second small “ghost” played in the Lord of Fate’s Egyptian cotton sheets, and Thea promoted herself to “principal” for the rest of the night.
• Teddy drank an energy drink out of his own shotgun barrel, and his missed shot blew apart a rising zombie.
• Teddy threw Thea at Granny, who caught her and finally lost her temper.
• Teddy sacrificed his grandma’s head to the Box and got a poisoned Granny Smith apple. Granny gave the Box its first cookie and got pudding.
• Thea laced everyone’s corn dogs with laxatives, and the Lord of Fate ripped her wings off on his way to the bathroom.
• A boulder-sized loaf of lava-toasted bread sent Teddy into the lava, thumbs-up and all.

Memorable Quotes

• Thea: “No one dies forever! Except for when they do.”
• Teddy Oso: “I shot my grandma in the face because she was a zombie and I had to do it and it was real sad and I don’t know why you’re making me talk about it.”
• Granny Edith: “Wait a minute. I’m not your grandma. You do your own damn laundry.”
• The Lord of Fate: “We’ve had so many elderly people in the arena that it’s becoming kind of a national pastime.”
• The shadowy figure in the Box of Chaos: “No, I’m a piece of a soul trapped in a box.”

Granny Edith: “Well, even a piece of a soul trapped in a box should try a chocolate chip cookie sometime.”

• Granny Edith: “They see me rolling, I’m baking.”

Teddy Oso: “I realized that I underestimated the old person, and I shouldn’t have. I learned my lesson.”

Who and What Appears

Characters

Granny Edith (Luboffin). A returning champion, called “the favorite of all favorites.”

• History:
  • She expected to “rest after the last fight and see Gerald.” The Lord of Fate says she died last time. Her signature move hasn’t hit “once in two fights.”
  • Her late husband Gerald died “many years ago.” They met on a train, went dancing every week, and had “a long and lovely life together.” She carries a photo of him.
  • 69 great great grandchildren (canon per Dried Blood). About eight children, unless she forgot Harry.
  • Her great grandma’s bread and butter pudding is her favorite snack. Her mother sang her a lullaby as a child.
  • She was a jump rope champion in her youth. She uses puns her great great granddaughter taught her.
• Kit: apron of baking tools.
  • Fly swat.
  • Magical rolling pin that glows with runes.
  • Magic frying pan, knife, goggle glasses, giant grater.
  • Hard raisin cookies “for people I don’t like” and chocolate chip cookies.
  • Bladed hand mixer, broom, spectacles, rotten eggs, bread.
• Signature move: “Granny’s Cookies” (flatten like a cookie). It missed twice.
• Personality: kind to everyone, especially Thea and even the Box, until her temper breaks.
• In this episode: won by knocking Teddy into the lava with a boulder loaf.

Teddy Oso (Chunk / PerceptionStudio). “Mr. Teddy Oso” (Jr. “the third” or “the second”; his father named him).

• Background:
  • A survivor of the zombie apocalypse who has killed “12,000 maybe” zombies (canon range 7–12,000).
  • He shot his own zombified grandma in the face and carried her head as a shrunken-head memento, until he sacrificed it to the Box.
• Kit:
  • A shotgun he calls “17”-round; he uses the stock as a golf club and the barrel to drink from. “Not an expert on guns.”
  • A little axe, lost stuck in Granny’s rolling pin.
  • Endless sugar-free vegan energy drinks. His blood is “like 90% energy drink.”
  • Takes blood pressure medication.
• Signature move: “Leave Him in the Dust.” A motorcycle appears from nowhere.
• Weakness: can’t refuse delicious-looking food (the Granny Smith apple).
• Has “beef” with Thea. Enjoyed beating up an old person.
• In this episode: died in the lava with a thumbs-up.

The Lord of Fate (Mudcat).

• Has white wings and keeps Egyptian cotton sheets on his bed. Thea decorated his room for Halloween.
• Says he created the Box of Chaos and that “it contains part of my soul.”
• Says he created Thea out of a worm. He removes stars from her forehead and threatens her paycheck.
• Rips Thea’s wings off after the laxative corn dogs.
• Wants Thea to do the taxes. Has Thea roll dice “for no reason at all” (he says).

Thea (Caustic Phoenix). An imp the Lord of Fate “created out of a worm.”

• Body:
  • Has wings, pink feet, a very low body temperature (icy hands) and stars on her forehead.
  • Says she trained as a small worm lifting d4s up to d20s.
• Role: the “portal girl.” She opens pink portals with claps and pink pixie dust, introduces the champions and picks the arena.
• The principal: calls herself “principal” (a prince, so she gets a crown).
• Habits:
  • Wants to wear dead bodies as Halloween costumes.
  • Farted during the flour attack.
  • Ordered corn dog cannons and laced everyone’s corn dogs with laxatives as “a bonding experience.”
• Allegiances: sided openly with Granny; was thrown at her by Teddy.
• After the break: lost teeth (her lisp, she says) and her wings, which she had to duct tape back on.

The shadowy figure in the Box of Chaos (Mudcat). Yellow eyes, grasping hands (“gimme, gimme, gimme”).

• Keeps sacrificed heads on a shelf “next to the other ones.”
• “I would never do this to my grandma.”
• Had never been given a cookie: “I’m a piece of a soul trapped in a box.” It feasted on Granny’s cookies and milk.

Gerald (mentioned). Granny’s late husband. This is not the Box of Chaos.

Teddy’s grandma (mentioned). Zombified, shot by Teddy; her shrunken head was given to the Box.

Teddy’s father (mentioned). Thea asks if he’s “stupid.” “Mr. Tedio,” Junior or Senior, is unclear.

Harry (mentioned). Possibly one of Granny’s children.

Acolytes:

• Harvey: eyes knocked out by a raisin cookie.
• Scrib: raisin stuck in her ear.
• Lady Magdala: choked on a cookie and broke teeth; she was given CPR.

Goblins. Absent from chores at the start. They hand out goggles and prepared the corn dog cannons.

Zombies and skeletons of the Midnight Mausoleum. They rise from the graves. One was blown apart by Teddy’s missed shot. They wore goggles and threw devil horns to the rock music.

Places

• The Dread Fortress: empty halls, and the Lord of Fate’s room (Halloween decorations).
• The Midnight Mausoleum: a moonlit graveyard of tombstones with a giant mausoleum, an angel statue and a full moon. Skeletal hands rise from the ground. Thea’s favorite spooky place, with no echo; “came pre-decorated.” It was flooded with lava in round 8, then cooled.

Items

• The Box of Chaos. Its fire is pink and yellow and gives no heat. Lord of Fate: “contains part of my soul.”
  • Granted Teddy a poisoned Granny Smith apple.
  • Granted Granny a healing bread and butter pudding.
• Granny’s magical rolling pin (runes, disco glow), with Teddy’s axe stuck in it.
• Teddy’s motorcycle (appears on command).
• Corn dog cannons. Laxative corn dogs.
• The Lord of Fate’s Egyptian cotton sheets (used as ghost costumes).

Lore statements

• “No one dies forever! Except for when they do” (Thea), on Granny’s return after dying last fight.
• Elderly champions are now so common in the arena it’s “kind of a national pastime” (Lord of Fate).
• The in-world date is October 1st. Thea celebrates “30 days of Halloween.”
• The Acolytes throw slushies at champions who cry.

Full Round-by-Round

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

Opening: Halloween at the Dread Fortress

1. 0:06:41 The Lord of Fate walks through the empty halls of the Dread Fortress. Laughter and giggles echo in the distance. The goblins are missing from their chores.
2. 0:07:11 Two small “ghosts” dash from one door to another across the hallway. One is a small sheet with tiny green feet. The other follows it with tiny pink feet: “I’m gonna get you!”
   • One ghost freezes. Through two cut eye holes it shows big bright yellow eyes: “Nothing.”
3. 0:07:47 The Lord of Fate asks: “Are those my Egyptian cotton bed sheets?”
   • The ghost twirls and flies up, and Thea can be seen under the sheet.
   • “Well, there aren’t sheets on your bed, so yes.” “They’re really cozy.”
4. 0:08:10 — The star. He snaps his fingers. Under the sheet, one of the stars on Thea’s forehead heals and fizzles away. Thea: “Oh, come on!”
   • He tells her she’s lucky he isn’t taking it out of her paycheck.
   • “I get a paycheck?” “No, but it’s the principle of the thing.”
5. 0:08:32 — The principal gag.
   • Thea: “I thought you were the Lord, not a principle.” She asks if she can be “the principle,” since a principal is “like a prince… so I get a crown!”
   • He gives up: “Just knock yourself out. Whatever. I don’t care.”
   • Thea keeps calling herself a principal for the rest of the night.
6. 0:09:04 — His room. Thea opens the door to the Lord of Fate’s room. It is decked out in cobwebs, scattered skeletons and massive pumpkins “bigger than your head, which is already pretty big if you ask me.” She does a lap under her sheet: “Boo!”
7. 0:09:45 — The date.
   • Lord of Fate: “It’s October 1st. It’s not Halloween yet.”
   • Thea: “You celebrate at the start of the month, so that way you get 30 days of Halloween.”
   • He threatens to rip her wings off, “because that’s how I celebrate Halloween.” She begs him to wait until he sees tonight’s fighters.
8. 0:10:17 Lord of Fate: “If it’s another child, I swear to God.” Thea: not this time, “but maybe again in the future.” She promises blood, scares and intensity: “a fan favorite… and somebody new too.”
9. 0:10:45 — Granny Edith returns.
   • Thea rips off the sheet. It twirls into a pink portal with a puff of pink pixie dust: “the favorite of all favorites, your lovely Grandma Eden [sic]!”
   • Granny: “I thought I was finally gonna get to rest after the last fight and see Gerald.” She pinches the Lord of Fate’s cheeks extremely hard.
10. 0:11:25 — Dead, but back.
    • Lord of Fate: “Didn’t she die last time?”
    • Thea: “No one dies forever! Except for when they do.” She muses about wearing bodies as suits, and says that if Granny ever dies she’ll be Thea’s “first Halloween costume choice.”
    • Granny: in her day they made their own costumes, “and we certainly didn’t make them from the bodies of other people.”
    • Thea: “It’s eco-friendly. It’s recycling.” If Granny does well, she can wear her opponent’s body as a Halloween costume.
11. 0:12:27 — Teddy Oso arrives through a second pink portal (“Tenioso, get in!”).
    • Teddy: “Shoot some faces, punch some bellies, and kick some shins.”
    • On eyeballs: “No, don’t poke them. Lick them.” Thea: “We’re going to lick some balls tonight.” The Lord of Fate cuts this off.
12. 0:13:03 — The shotgun and his grandma.
    • Teddy brings the shotgun “to shoot zombies in the face… You have to blow their brains out.”
    • Asked if he’ll shoot someone “not quite a zombie yet”: “I can’t shoot grandma in the face. I shot my grandma in the face because she was a zombie and I had to do it and it was real sad and I don’t know why you’re making me talk about it.”
    • Thea: “That’s the can-do, carefree attitude of the Deathmatch Arena.”
    • The shotgun holds “17” rounds: “an old model… I’m not an expert on guns. I just shoot them.”
13. 0:14:10 — The arena.
    • Thea picks her “favorite spooky place,” the Midnight Mausoleum. It “doesn’t echo there,” so she’ll do the echo effect herself, “only on the big shouting parts.”
    • The Lord of Fate snaps and merges the portals. Thea objects: “I was the portal girl though.” She marches through: “Get your asses in here!”
14. 0:14:50 — The Midnight Mausoleum.
    • An isolated patch of grass, surrounded by tombstones.
    • A gigantic mausoleum on the far side, with an ominous angel statue keeping watch.
    • A huge full moon casts deep, dark hues (“I almost said playground”).
    • Thea claps, and skeletal hands start poking out of the ground, trying to dig their way up.
    • “It came pre-decorated, so… it saved me money on the budget.”
15. 0:15:51 — Taxes. Lord of Fate: “We got to start thinking about tax time. You’re going to do the taxes this year, right?” Thea: “I know numbers and Excel sheets.” “That’s okay. We’ll figure it out.”
16. 0:16:08 — The Acolytes.
    • Thea rockets up, wings tucked, leaving a trail of pink pixie dust. It lights up the Acolytes chanting “Granny! Granny! Tedioso!” (“Tedioso’s very hard to chant”).
    • “Break each other’s bones and they will love you more. If you cry on the ground, they will throw slushies at you. So, fuck up and own it!”
17. 0:16:56 The Lord of Fate flares his white wings: “Acolytes, you’ve come for death, so let’s see some.” Granny wins initiative: “I’m feeling a little slow today… My hips are hurting.” (speaker 02, likely Luboffin’s line mis-assigned)

Round 1

18. 0:17:31 — The shin sweep misses. “You going down, Grandma?”
    • Teddy flips his shotgun to hold “the pew-pew part” and swings the wooden stock like a golf club at her shins: “Sweep the leg.”
    • Granny jumps right over it. “I used to be a jump rope champion back in my day.”
    • Teddy: “I’ve been bamboozled.” Thea: “Underused athletic skill that no one ever thought of.”
19. 0:18:43 — The kick lands. He turns and kicks her in the butt (“a big old pumpkin,” Granny admits). It knocks her down to her knees.
    • Granny: “Young man, I hope you’re going to help me up.”
    • Teddy: “Oh, no, I’m not grandma. You get up yourself.” He giggles “because I like watching old people fall to the ground.”
20. 0:20:18 “Well, I never met such a rude young man.” Thea slides under Granny like a flat table and lifts her up. Granny: “You’re so sweet. Lucky I brought some extra cookies.”
21. 0:20:30 — The fly swat lands.
    • Granny: “Seems to me like someone needs to teach you some manners… I’m sure [your grandma] would not like to see you kicking old ladies in the ass.”
    • She pulls out a fly swat (“my nana always had a fly swat in her hand”) and swats him on one ear, then the other.
22. 0:21:38 — Teddy’s name.
    • Granny asks his full name. He insists on “Mr. Teddy Oso,” then “Mr. Teddy Osa Jr. the third,” then “junior the second.” “I didn’t name myself, my dad named me.”
    • Thea: “Is your dad stupid?” Teddy: “You don’t ask people that kind of stuff.”
23. 0:22:46 — The flour. “Time to get cooking.” Granny throws a handful of flour from her apron to blind him. It’s a tie.
    • Thea narrates a terrible-smelling breeze, “probably because Thea actually farted”. It blows the flour into both their lungs: “fart flower.” Both are fatigued.
24. 0:24:00 — Being nicer to Thea.
    • Granny: “You can’t do any wrong.”
    • Lord of Fate: “She does wrong all of the time… I find that swift and punishing brutality works the best.”
    • Granny: “You and I might have to have a talk later… Maybe you just need to use the fly swat. That’s my secret.” The Lord of Fate likes the idea.
25. 0:24:38 Granny blows the flour away: “I’ve been called out with this fatigue business before. I don’t intend to get called again.”
26. 0:24:59 Thea rolls a 7: “a lucky number… It’s on my report card because I’m a principal.” The crowd rips off shirts and spills beers and slushies. Chaos is triggered.

Chaos event: the Macarena (0:25:56)

27. A familiar rhythm blares through the arena speakers, and the crowd starts a synchronized dance: “Hey, Macarena!”
    • Teddy keeps up.
    • Granny can’t: “Gerald and I used to go out dancing every week, but I can’t dance by myself. I need a partner.” Teddy: “And where’s Gerald now?”
    • Granny takes damage, and both are fatigued.

Round 2

28. 0:27:22 — The shotgunned energy drink.
    • Teddy cracks an energy drink, pours it into the shotgun barrel, and drinks it from there. “It’s full of gunpowder… There might be mold in there.”
    • “Whatever doesn’t kill me. I’ve survived the zombie apocalypse.”
29. 0:28:14 — How Granny met Gerald.
    • Teddy confirms Gerald has died. Granny: “He passed many years ago… We had a long and lovely life together.”
    • They met on a train. He asked if the seat was free: “It’s a little risqué for a young man to sit next to a young lady without a chaperone.”
    • Teddy: “You’re stealing a lot of my thunder here, grandma… Say hi to Gerald on the other side.”
30. 0:29:13 — The shot misses. Lord of Fate: “I think it has something to do with you pouring Red Bulls into the barrel.”
    • Granny bends to pull a photo of Gerald from her bag. The shot goes over her head and blows the core out of a zombie rising from the graveyard behind her. Zombies and skeletons are now rising everywhere.
    • Teddy: “It’s called the hustle… later I’m gonna be real good.” A pun follows (speaker 02): “We did the Macarena, not the hustle.”
31. 0:30:46 — Granny chases Teddy.
    • She disapproves of the gun as “not very gentlemanly” and swings her rolling pin to knock it out of his hand. It misses. “Also, you need to clean that out. It’s disgusting.”
    • She offers to do his laundry, then catches herself: “Wait a minute. I’m not your grandma. You do your own damn laundry.”
    • A rolling-pin whack at his head misses. “Come back here, young man.” (Thea: “Granny Edith chasing him around with her rolling pin, constantly missing.”)
32. 0:32:07 — The trip lands. She rolls the rolling pin along the ground and trips him.
    • She then tries to sit on him with her “granny butt” (“you just stay right there until I work out what to do with you”). She misjudges how low her knees will go and rolls around on the floor.
    • Thea does squats on the sidelines.
33. 0:33:38 — Teddy and Thea fall out.
    • Teddy: “Whose side are you on?” Thea: “Hers, obviously. Are you that dense like your dad?”
    • Teddy: “I thought we were cool.” Thea: “I am cold. I run a very low temperature.” Her hand is icy.
34. 0:34:05 Lord of Fate: “That’s my fault. I created her out of a worm.… Honestly, not my best work.” The transcript runs on: “I was born of a worm… Very proud of it.” It’s garbled.
35. 0:34:29 — Thea’s roll. Thea rolls a 19: “I grew up as a small worm lifting small D4s, graduating to D6… until I was strong enough to roll a D20.”
    • The Lord of Fate whispers to a goblin: “Wait till she finds out that I’m having her roll for no reason at all.”

Round 3

36. 0:35:17 — The tackle. Teddy drinks another energy drink straight, drops the can, and tackles the already-rolling Granny with a natural 20.
    • “What’d I say, grandma? You’re going down.”
    • Thea: “She was already down before you started, but you really piled on.”
    • Teddy: “I’ve never beat up an old person, but I gotta say, I’m enjoying this.”
    • Lord of Fate: “We’ve had so many elderly people in the arena that it’s becoming kind of a national pastime.”
37. 0:37:29 — The family.
    • Granny, from the floor: “I got 69 great great grandchildren. I’m well used to dealing with young whippersnappers.”
    • Asked about children, she counts: “I got eight. Wait, did I count Harry?… Let me start again.”
38. 0:38:13 — Fritters: hot butter. “Did I ever make you my fritters last time?”
    • She pulls out a pan that is apparently magic and starts frying hot butter, then flings it at Teddy.
    • Teddy rolls a natural 1 to defend. He is burned and badly hurt.
39. 0:39:52 — Fritters: onions.
    • She chops onions super fast, and the stinging juice sprays into Teddy’s eyes. It hits. She’s wearing big goggle glasses, so it doesn’t affect her.
    • Thea claps, and goblins with armfuls of goggles hand them out to everyone, including the zombies and skeletons, except Teddy.
40. 0:41:00 — Fritters: the grater.
    • Thea: “I’ve never had a fritter before, so you can put anything in.”
    • Granny makes potato fritters with a giant grater, then tries to grate Teddy with it. He dodges.
41. 0:41:44 — Tea break. Granny, out of character: she meant to play “a really mean Granny… I don’t know what’s happened.” She rests and has a little cup of tea while the fritters fry.
42. 0:42:26 — Thea’s rolls.
    • Thea rolls 14. Lord of Fate: “You peaked early.” She blames Teddy’s dancing.
    • Teddy: “Once it’s luck, twice it’s talent.”
    • Thea rolls again out of turn (11). Told it doesn’t count, she hides behind a tombstone and cries, then: “I’m better than both of these fighters!”
43. 0:43:24 — The deal.
    • Thea: “What if I killed them?” Teddy: “Me and Thea got beef now.”
    • Lord of Fate: “You kill Granny first, and then you can kill her.” “You’ll be doing me two favors. Okay, deal.”

Round 4

44. 0:44:08 — Energy drink on the burn. Teddy pours an energy drink over the butter burn.
    • Lord of Fate: in the post-apocalypse, “the only thing that’s survived in terms of food is probably canned energy drinks.”
    • It’s sugar-free vegan, “mostly water. A lot of caffeine.”
    • Thea: is that “free of vegans”? She checks the can: “Are you in there, vegans? They didn’t say anything.”
45. 0:45:27 — Thea thrown. “Can we talk?” Teddy takes Thea’s hands, spins her “merry-go-round on steroids”, and launches her at Granny.
    • Granny rolls a natural 20 and catches her: “Oh, come here, [darlin’].”
    • Thea curls up in her arms: “He tried to throw me.” Teddy: “I threw you gently… We’re having fun.”
46. 0:46:48 — Granny’s rage: the signature move.
    • “I tried to be nice… but you messing with this lovely young lady right here, that’s enough.”
    • She spins her rolling pin and launches it across the graveyard: “Granny’s Cookies,” to flatten him like a cookie. It misses.
    • Lord of Fate: the signature move hasn’t hit once in two fights. Thea: “It’s not a signature hit, it’s a signature miss.”
47. 0:47:54 — The raisin cookies land.
    • She throws hard raisin cookies (“the ones I give to people I don’t like”) like Frisbees. They’re “flavorless, bland… hard as rocks.”
    • Teddy cracks some front teeth.
    • Stray cookies hit the crowd:
      • Harvey gets his eyes knocked out.
      • Scrib gets a raisin stuck in her ear.
      • Lady Magdala catches one in the mouth, breaks teeth and chokes, and the others give her CPR.
    • “The crowd loves it.”
48. 0:49:13 — Rolling pin and hand mixer.
    • Granny, too enraged to care about bystanders, cracks him around the head with the rolling pin. It hits.
    • She then powers up a giant hand mixer with sharpened blades (“pulling out the big guns”). It misses.
49. 0:50:42 — Thea’s natural 20. “Thea is God! Thea is principal!… Corn dogs for everyone!”
    • Lord of Fate: “You don’t have the authority… you’re not people. You don’t get hot dogs.”
    • She has had the goblins prepare the corn dog cannons. He makes her sit beside him.
    • The natural 20 triggers chaos.

Chaos event: the lullaby (0:52:23)

50. Granny rolls a 3. A quiet lullaby seeps under the rock music: “a song, sung to you long ago when you were a small child.” It tries to lull them to sleep.
    • Teddy resists.
    • Granny fails: “It’s been so long since I heard that song. Oh, my lovely mother.” She lies down. Both are fatigued.
    • Thea: “Wake up, granny!” A screaming guitar riff returns, and the skeletal hands in the ground throw up devil horns.

Round 5: the Box of Chaos

51. 0:54:00 — The Box arrives.
    • The Acolytes demand more chaos. The Lord of Fate snaps, and the Box of Chaos slams down. Pink and yellow magical fire, with no heat, shoots up in a column. A shadowy figure with yellow eyes claws at the lid.
    • Champions may sacrifice to it for a magic item.
52. 0:54:58 — Part of his soul.
    • Thea: “It’s a magical Box of Chaos!”
    • Lord of Fate: “I know what it is. I created it. I’m not going to be impressed by it. It should be impressed by me… It’s a magical box. It contains part of my soul.”
    • He then eats a hot dog and a corn dog in front of Thea.
53. 0:55:41 — Teddy’s sacrifice. The figure reaches out: “Gimme, gimme, gimme.”
    • Teddy has been carrying his grandma’s head like a shrunken head, “a little memento” since he had to kill her. He gives it up: “Take care of her, please.”
    • The box: “This will go great on my shelf… I’m going to put you right next to the other ones.”
54. 0:56:23 — The apple. The box gives a delicious-looking apple. Teddy eats it, is hurt and poisoned.
    • Thea: “Why do you eat random fruit given to you by strangers?” Teddy: “I’m not going to say no to delicious looking food.” “We found out your weakness.”
    • The box: “I would never do this to my grandma,” and shuts its lid.
    • The Acolytes point out it was a Granny Smith apple.
55. 0:57:55 — The axe. Teddy powers up and runs at Granny with his little axe for a shoulder blow.
    • She raises her rolling pin, and the axe sticks in it: “free axe. Well, thank you very much.”
    • Thea, lisping: her articulation suffers because “I might be missing a few teeth.”
56. 0:59:21 — Teddy’s life.
    • Teddy: “I fight zombies and, you know, I almost die a lot.” He has to take blood pressure medication.
    • Zombies killed: “Lost track, 12,000 maybe… Could be seven. Could be 2,000. Definitely more than seven.”
    • Thea is “very grateful for your zombie defense capabilities.”
57. 1:00:35 — Granny and the Box. “Hello?… I heard you have some special things in here.” Box: “Sorry. I was busy. I was doing some stuff.”
    • She offers fresh chocolate chip cookies “with the perfect gooey center.” It suspects a catch: “You’re just giving cookies to people? Are you okay?”
    • Granny: “No one ever gave you a cookie before?” Box: “No, I’m a piece of a soul trapped in a box.”
    • Granny: “Even a piece of a soul trapped in a box should try a chocolate chip cookie sometime.” She pours it a glass of milk.
    • Its eyes go huge. It sneaks the treats in, and feasting monster sounds come from the box.
58. 1:02:04 — The pudding. Thea asks Granny’s favorite snack: “my great grandma’s bread and butter pudding.” (“It’s so cute when she says it! I’m gonna explode!”)
    • The box produces a bread and butter pudding, and it heals her.
59. 1:02:58 — Kindness and threats.
    • Granny to Teddy: “You look a little down in the dumps… I believe in you.” Thea: “I don’t.”
    • Teddy and Thea agree to “talk about this later.” Thea: “Gonna send you to the principal’s office… And we’ll have stickers.”
60. 1:03:45 — Granny’s last actions.
    • She eats more pudding (“just like my great granny always made”).
    • At Thea’s urging she tries Granny’s Cookies again. It’s a tie: no damage, both more fatigued.
    • She goes back to the fly swat (“Slippers also work”), and it misses: “Get back here!”
61. 1:05:18 — The laxative corn dogs. Thea rolls 17.
    • The Lord of Fate: “Those corn dogs are kind of getting to me.” Thea: “That’s because I filled them with laxatives… then we’d have a shit storm.”
    • He runs for the bathroom. As he goes, he snaps his fingers and rips Thea’s wings off her back: “take a break while you duct tape those back on.”

After the break

62. 1:06:20 Thea: “Our poop holes are free now.” She put laxatives in everyone’s corn dogs: “You don’t just do it to one person… then we have shared trauma together. It is a bonding experience… for the Halloween spirit.”

Round 6

63. 1:07:26 — “Leave Him in the Dust.” Teddy’s signature move: he steps forward and yells the name.
    • A motorcycle appears from nowhere. He hops on and circles Granny, raising a dust storm.
64. 1:08:09 — The motorcycle sound contest. Thea demands everyone’s best motorcycle sound.
    • Teddy’s gets 7/10: “I ride them for reals.” (He later admits this was a lie; see Dried Blood.)
    • The Lord of Fate’s “has lips”: “a muffler cover that’s got a mouth on it.”
    • Granny has never ridden one, and hers sounds “like Popeye.”
    • Thea’s sounds like “coffee grounds down the garbage disposal”: “an electric European motorcycle… It’s got a lisp.”
65. 1:10:19 — The dust lands. Teddy rolls a natural 20. The dust in Granny’s face, mouth and eyes costs her an action until she clears it.
66. 1:11:21 — Teddy’s heart. He jumps off the motorcycle and clears fatigue with a thumping chest-pump.
    • Thea: “Is that from like Wolf of Wall Street?” Teddy: “That’s my good heart… It takes the beating.”
    • Lord of Fate: “his blood is shifted to being like 90% energy drink.”
67. 1:12:40 — Granny’s broom. “It’s not my house, but…” She pulls out a broom and sweeps at him. It misses: “Motorcycles are so dangerous. I don’t think anyone should be riding one.”
    • She waits for him to come round and clotheslines him off the motorcycle with the broom. It hits.
68. 1:13:40 — The heroic surge. Granny calls a heroic surge. Her magical rolling pin glows with fancy runes, and she slams it down. It misses.
    • Thea: “A lot of show, not a lot of tell.” The glowing pin makes “a nice little disco effect through the fog of dust.”
69. 1:14:50 Thea rolls 9. Teddy keeps bringing up his 20. Thea: “I have a terrible memory!”

Round 7

70. 1:15:27 — Dust in the eyes.
    • Teddy throws a handful of the dust in Granny’s face and blinds her.
    • He then shakes off the apple’s poison.
    • Thea leads self-talk: “Pat yourself on the head and tell you you’re smart.” Teddy: “Smart boy… Self-care.”
71. 1:16:43 — The eggs. Granny realizes she hasn’t made any puns yet: “You can’t make a cake without breaking a few eggs.”
    • She throws rotten eggs. Teddy catches them and eats them: “the energy drink will kill it all… they’re cooked by the time they get to my belly.”
72. 1:18:14 — The spectacles and the pun.
    • Granny cleans her big spectacles to clear the blindness: “That’s why I missed.”
    • Then: “Do you know what my great great granddaughter told me?… They see me rolling, I’m baking.” She rolls her rolling pin at him, and the pun hits.
    • Granny: “The puns always do it.” Thea: “Puns guarantee hit every time.”
73. 1:19:31 Thea rolls 8. The Lord of Fate: “You know what? Fuck it. Let’s trigger a chaotic event!” Thea: he “forgot to do math.”

Chaos event: the floor is lava (1:20:15)

74. A burning smell and loud sizzling: “It’s getting hot in here.”
    • Both fail. Both are fatigued and take heavy damage.
    • The grass withers and lava covers the graveyard. They may only leap from tombstone to tombstone until it cools.
    • Granny: “I said I needed a hot oven, but this is entirely too hot.”

Round 8: the final round

75. 1:21:29 — The last shot. Teddy loads his “extra powerful shotgun things” (power-up) and fires. It’s a tie.
    • Both sit at four fatigue. Thea warns that five fatigue means death. Teddy drinks again to clear one.
76. 1:22:40 — The bread. Granny: “It’s like Jared [Gerald?] always used to say: Bake me up before you dodo.” The Lord of Fate groans.
    • She toasts bread in the lava until it’s rock hard and throws it: “Granny’s not going to be leaping tombstone to tombstone. Are you kidding me?” It hits.
77. 1:23:35 — The kill. She powers up: “an even larger loaf… like a boulder.” Thea: “Boulder holders!”
    • It hits and knocks Teddy off his tombstone into the lava.
78. 1:24:31 — Teddy’s last thought. In slow motion, Thea asks what goes through his mind.
    • Teddy: “I realized that I underestimated the old person, and I shouldn’t have. I learned my lesson.”
    • Thea: “It is the last lesson you’ll ever learn, at least in this Deathmatch.”
    • He sinks. The last thing seen is his small hand and a thumbs-up, before the heat swallows it (inferred Terminator 2 reference; Granny: “I got that reference,” and the Lord of Fate replies “Well, you’re old enough to”).
79. 1:25:29 — Granny wins. A breeze “in sweet surrender of your life now taken” cools the field. Thea: “Now that [Teddy Oso] is gone, I give you our winner, Granny Ed[ith]!”
80. 1:25:56 Lord of Fate: “I thought that he was going to kill you… he did have a shotgun… but that rolling pin’s no joke.”
    • Granny: “I know old Teddy’s probably not feeling so great right now, but at yeast we had fun.”
    • “Oh my God. I’m done… Welcome and good night to D20 Deathmatch!”

Full Dried Blood notes (click to expand)

• Mudcat opens: episode 8 of Season 5, “Granny Edith returning versus our new challenger, Teddy Oso. We got Chunk, we got Lubuffin.” To Luboffin: “You actually didn’t die this time.”
• Luboffin says the tide turned once she remembered the baking puns. Caustic Phoenix suggests making a pun her hero move. Mudcat: the dice “oddly did seem” to shift after the puns started.
• Chunk admits he isn’t an energy drinker, a motorcyclist, or a gun owner, and has never beaten up an old person: “I’m just a really good actor.” Mudcat: “Well, now I just feel fucking lied to.”
• Chunk wanted to be “gentle with Granny” at first, so he went for her kneecaps instead of her face. His favorite moment was the image of flipping the shotgun in the air and catching it backwards. Mudcat: “The execution was a whole different story.”
• Luboffin enjoyed living on the fatigue edge again. Mudcat calls fatigue “the nightmare of our system.” Teddy’s low Instinct gave him fewer actions, so half his turns went to clearing fatigue.
• Lore numbers are now canon (creator ruling): Teddy killed “somewhere between 7 and 12,000” zombies; Granny has 69 great great grandchildren. Mudcat: “if you come back and play again as these characters, these are now lore numbers and you’re responsible for remembering them.” Caustic Phoenix: “This shit is canon now.” Mudcat: “These are all canon, whoops.”
• Luboffin says it’s fine if Granny forgets everything. She tweeted the wrong name that day: “Randy Evelyn’s coming to the battle.”
• Caustic Phoenix’s TTRPG tip: play a forgetful character or a habitual liar.
• Last words. The speakers are invited to answer “as yourself or as your character”, so their canon status is uncertain:
  • Granny/Luboffin: “Good things come to those who bake.”
  • Teddy/Chunk: “Confidence is important… sometimes it’s okay to put it aside and not be so overconfident.” Caustic Phoenix: “Lose the confidence.” Teddy: “Come in feeling terrible for yourself… Smart boy. Best policy.”