S5E10 — BoneBound Brawl — King Bofus v Bone Daddy (and Darcy)

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On a frozen mountaintop, the self-proclaimed frog royal King Bofus faced Bone Daddy, a whip-cracking champion returning from an earlier season, along with his skeletal partner Darcy. Over one fight, Bofus turned out to be Bone Daddy’s father’s ex-lover, and the ghost of a conspiracy theorist made several appearances. The battle ended with a tidal wave of bone that buried both champions beneath a brand-new mountain.

The Story

Winter Clothes in the Attic

The night began with the Lord of Fate searching the Dread Fortress for Thea. He passed through the kitchen, the brewery, the Grandmaster’s old bedroom, his own bedroom and Thea’s old bedroom, “which is now an office.” He finally climbed a large keep to the attic. There, in a maze of boxes, Thea was bundling a line of goblins into mismatched scarves, mittens and hats in checkers and polka dots. She warned one that it would lose its fingers if it skipped its gloves.

Thea then wrapped a goblin-sized scarf around the Lord of Fate, where it looked like a thin thread, and tried to force a child’s glove onto his hand. He refused: “I’m the Lord of Fate. I don’t need to wear gloves outside.” Thea was unmoved: “You can still get frostbite.” Asked where all the clothes had come from, she said simply, “Boxes.” The attic also held a horse, some photo albums and a whole box of crowns, every one too big for her head.

The Lord of Fate offered a fix. With a snap of his fingers, he swelled her head “like Megamind… like a pear.” Thea collapsed under the weight of her enormous brain, wailing “I got too many thoughts!” He snapped it back, and she resigned herself to buying crowns that fit. She then opened a pink portal where a window had been and announced the night’s champions.

A Frog King and a Bone Daddy

Bone Daddy stepped out first, and the Lord of Fate squinted at him: “Didn’t he die? Didn’t you die?” Bone Daddy explained, behind very reflective sunglasses, that he could never truly die in any way that matters, as long as “Darcy, my true love, nurses me back with the power of bone and the power of daddy.” Thea promptly bowed at his feet. The Lord of Fate begged Bone Daddy not to encourage her, while admitting he had enjoyed the man’s “gyrations” last time.

King Bofus arrived in a frog mask topped with a crown. They explained that the mask had not yet been removed from their head. Bofus had fought here before against Richard Knottley, “a man who threw a Peloton bike at me, and this is infinitely weirder.” Bofus quickly learned Bone Daddy’s given name, Bonald Daddison, and kept using it. They described themselves this way:

King Bofus: “I, the man frog you see crouched before you in a frog-like pose, is 50% man, 50% frog, 50% idiot, and 50% not good at percentages.”

Bone Daddy turned out to be a devoted mommy’s boy. His mother was the only one allowed to call him Bonald, and her advice about the cold explained his sleeveless coat. Then a skeleton ambled out with her arms in front of her. This was Darcy. Bofus asked whether she was a dog, a child or a mother, and Bone Daddy admitted that “the relationship hasn’t really been set in stone yet.” Thea nodded: “We’ve discovered labels are really restrictive.”

The Pom-Pom Portal

Thea handed out pom-pom hats that transformed into each wearer’s dream hat. A spare hat grew until its pom-pom became a portal, and Thea flew through on pink impish wings, trailing glitter. Bone Daddy’s pom-pom turned out to be made of baby teeth. He explained that “the Tooth Fairy is my ex. Complicated woman, but I’m a complicated man.” Bofus’s hat sat on their crown, which sat on the mask, and it took the shape of Bone Daddy’s mother.

Bone Daddy’s actual mother was sitting in the stands beside the goblins, wearing a tooth pom-pom of her own. When he pointed out that nobody had offered Darcy a hat, Thea burst into tears that dripped out of her eyes as literal crocodiles (“This is how crocodiles are made”). She made amends with a wrapped present: a hat with three pom-poms, which Darcy tore open with her long bone claws.

Whips, Frogs and a Ghost

The Acolytes hurled blue slushies, and Bone Daddy struck first with a natural 20. He spun his whip overhead and charged in like a cowboy (“Yippee-ki-yay!”), cracking it across Bofus’s chest while his mother high-fived the crowd. When he tried to wrap the whip around Bofus’s neck, the frog king was mildly aroused. A shudder of excitement ran up the mask, the crown dinged and blushed, and Bofus purred, “Joke’s on you, I’m into this… Harder, daddy.”

Darcy wrapped Bofus in a crushing hold. As Bofus struggled, they relived the memory of their last fight, and the ghost of Richard Knottley appeared in a tin hat, muttering about “the Chinchillin government.” Darcy collapsed into a heap of bones, except for her shoulders, chest and arm, still clamped around Bofus like a bone jacket. Bofus answered with a gatling gun of frogs fired from under the mask. Bone Daddy whipped every one aside, and each frog hopped off with a small red welt on its butt cheeks. One winked at him, and he winked back.

Bofus then ripped Darcy off their body and swung her like a whip, so she coiled around Bone Daddy “like a python made of bones.” Bone Daddy shrugged it off with another natural 20. He pulled Darcy’s scattered bones back together with a gesture, and the two of them high-fived. Thea flew down to give the flagging king a pep talk, nose to mask, until Bofus roared, “I’m King Man-Frog Bofus!” Thea added that there were so many frogs “they go up every orifice.”

Totino’s, Tongues and Big Milk

The Acolytes demanded chaos, and the arena filled with the smell of each champion’s favorite food. Bofus resisted. Bone Daddy did not: “I need my Totino’s.” His mother launched the Totino’s fifty yards, Darcy caught armfuls, and he whipped one into his mouth.

Bone Daddy then raised Darcy’s “brothers and sisters” from the soil to seize Bofus’s limbs. The corpses were still at the zombie stage, and their skin sloughed off as Bofus simply walked free. Bofus stood up on two legs, which no man frog should ever do. When Bofus dropped back to all fours, Bone Daddy asked, “You’re being a little brat right now, aren’t you?” and promised “a little bit of consequences.” Bofus’s safe word was “amphibian”; Thea recommended “water buffalo.” Darcy’s attempt to trip Bofus failed when the frog hopped backwards over her (“This is amateur hour”). A debate about whether Kraft Singles count as cheese summoned Knottley’s ghost again, and Thea explained to the audience that every goblin who works at the Fortress gets a pet chinchilla with pet insurance. Knottley believed those chinchillas had a government.

Bofus tried to summon hundreds of frogs. Only two came, and Bone Daddy stepped on both of them (they said thank you). So Bofus drew a long pink tongue from under the mask, which stiffened into a razor-sharp sword. Bofus took an anime ninja stance and finally landed a hit, drenching Bone Daddy in drool: “Take some damage, you prick!”

Thea arrived with a tray of 2% milk for strong bones. Bone Daddy drank his, but Bofus poured theirs on the ground, declaring that milk is “made up by big milk.” Thea poured hers out too. Bofus then wiped the drool off their chest to reveal a fresh Peloton tattoo: “My brother, my Peloton brother… I miss you, brother.”

The Bone Mech and the Frog Splash

Bone Daddy unleashed his signature move: “Death Armor Reborn in the Combat Yard. D-A-R-C-Y, Darcy!” Darcy’s rib cage opened to engulf him, and bones rose from the earth until she became a towering bone mech. Its giant fist, “Daddy’s Girl,” came down so hard that Bofus’s head disappeared into their body, and Bone Daddy scraped “this gooey mess of Bofus” off his foot. Bofus pushed a thumb into their head cavity and re-inflated with a pop and a ribbit. Then they ran up a jagged rock, twisted in midair and slammed onto the mech with the Frog Splash, which shrank the machine around its pilot.

Perched on top of the mech, Bofus tried to summon the Tooth Fairy so she could watch Bone Daddy’s humiliation. Bone Daddy shrugged it off with another natural 20, and Bofus’s own ex tumbled through the portal instead. It was Craig, Bone Daddy’s father, who took a seat on the opposite side of the stands from Bone Daddy’s mother. “My parents separated when I was four years old,” said Bone Daddy. “Did you fuck both my mother and my father?” Bofus had home truths for him: “I left your mother alone. I went after your dad.” Craig remembered Bofus as a frog prince (“I got a promotion,” Bofus replied) and cheerfully gave Bofus permission to punch his son in the head. The second punch was a natural 20. A second attempt at the Tooth Fairy, Tina, produced only a single falling tooth.

The Box of Chaos

The mech grabbed Thea and hurled her at Bofus as a “basketball special.” She cracked the sound barrier, and the echo stirred the chaos storms until lightning brought The Box of Chaos crashing down. A column of yellow and pink fire burst from it, and a shadowy figure with yellow eyes hooked its claws over the side: “I’m really not fucking picky. What do you got?” Bone Daddy offered his sunglasses (“I got more, baby”). The figure put them on and, instead of giving him an item, awakened his inner monster, doubling the power of his best strikes. Yellow and pink fire lit between every bone of Darcy, and his flaming fist set Bofus’s pants alight (“Toasty buns, toasty buns!”). Thea threw toasted bread to everyone.

Bofus answered by winking at Bone Daddy’s mother and feeding the box the pom-pom hat shaped like her. In return they received Morir’s Cataclysm, a leather-bound tome whose words flowed off the page and wrapped around their skin in glowing markings. Three tongues shot from under the mask, but they slid harmlessly off Bone Daddy’s bones. So Bofus dropped their crown into the box too: “I would give my entire kingdom just to see this man burn.” The figure handed over a ring that once belonged to the Arbiter, making the wearer master of time and space for a round. Bofus slipped it onto the tiny finger under the mask that had been holding the crown up, and their eyes flashed with multicolored lightning. Thea, meanwhile, fell out of the sky like a shot pigeon and threw a tantrum on the ground.

A final chaos event demanded that the champions fold paper shields against a hail of rocks from the Acolytes. Both failed, and both were left battered and exhausted.

The Bone Wave

Bone Daddy called his family to him. Darcy’s arms grew extra joints to lift his mother and father onto his shoulders, wrapped in a “cloak of calcium.” Then a tidal wave of bone rose behind him. Even with the Arbiter’s ring working against him, his attack met Bofus’s dead even, and the effort was too much for both of them. The wave grew until it overshadowed the mountain, beyond even Bone Daddy’s control.

His father whispered in his ear: “Son, you forgot the only rule. You gotta listen for the safe word.” “I’m sorry, father,” Bone Daddy whispered. His life flashed before his eyes: his mother, his father teaching him to throw, Tina stitching his beanie, and finally Darcy becoming all of it. Darcy’s skull looked down at him and nodded: it’s okay.

Bofus at last pulled off the mask. Frogs spilled out of it, leaving only one tiny, sad frog head on the neck of a large man. The little frog walked to Craig and embraced him.

King Bofus: “I always loved you, Craig… You turned me from a prince into a king.”

“I always loved you too,” said Craig, and wiped a tear from the froggy eye. “And at least this time it wasn’t death by fucking Peloton,” Bofus added. The wave crashed down and piled into a mountain made entirely of bones. Thea declared it “a monument to the battle offered here as sacrifice to the acolytes today.” The Lord of Fate, pleased, awkwardly asked the Acolytes about the after party.

Dried Blood

In the arena locker room, goblins pulled chunks of bone out of both revived champions. King Bofus left the Acolytes with a creed: “If you can, always be at least 50% man, 50% frog, and 100% Bad at potentially maths… 50% Peloton.” Bone Daddy’s parting advice was simpler: “Never forget to say thank you, daddy.” Everyone signed off with “Good night, daddies.”

Notable Moments

• The Lord of Fate enlarged Thea’s head into a pear-shaped Megamind brain, and she collapsed under her own thoughts.
• Thea cried literal crocodiles because Darcy had been left without a hat.
• Bofus revealed that they had dated Bone Daddy’s father, Craig.
• Bofus drew a pink tongue from under the mask and turned it into a sword, and later fired three tongues at once.
• Bofus traded a hat shaped like Bone Daddy’s mother for Morir’s Cataclysm, then traded their crown for the Arbiter’s ring.
• The final clash ended dead even, and the bone wave buried both champions under a mountain of bones.

Memorable Quotes

• Bone Daddy: “Bone Daddy can never truly die in any way that matters.”
• The Lord of Fate: “I’m the Lord of Fate. I don’t need to wear gloves outside.”
• Thea: “This is how crocodiles are made.”
• King Bofus: “Milk doesn’t help your bones get stronger, is what I’m saying. It’s made up by big milk.”
• Bone Daddy: “Death Armor reborn in the combat yard. D-A-R-C-Y, Darcy!”
• King Bofus: “I left your mother alone. I went after your dad.”
• The Box of Chaos’s shadowy figure: “I’m really not fucking picky. What do you got?”
• King Bofus: “I would give my entire kingdom just to see this man burn.”

Who and What Appears

Characters

King Bofus / King Man-Frog Bofus (Dr. Bees). Pronouns they/it.

• Look: a frog mask topped by a crown. Under the mask is a tiny, sad frog head on a large man’s body; the crown is held on by a tiny finger.
• Nature: claims to be “50% man, 50% frog, 50% idiot, 50% not good at percentages.” Leader of a frog nation, “the one with the frogs.”
• History: previously fought Richard Knottley, who threw a Peloton bike at him, and died in that tie. He is haunted by Knottley’s ghost, which now lives “deep within my soul”, and has a fresh Peloton tattoo on his chest.
• Craig: once a frog prince, made king by his ex-lover Craig, Bone Daddy’s father (“I got a promotion”).
• Habits: cannot read. Owns a sad-frog mug. Thinks milk is a “big milk” myth. Has strong views on Kraft Singles. Safe word “amphibian.” Into feet.
• Powers: fires frogs from under the mask, summons frogs from the ground, the Tongue Sword (and later three tongues), signature move the Frog Splash (swaps the opponent’s stats).
• Box of Chaos: got Morir’s Cataclysm (glowing skin markings) for his pom-pom hat, and the Arbiter’s ring (master of time and space for a round) for his crown.
• Fate: died in the tie, unmasked, kissing Craig. Revived in the locker room (Dried Blood).

Bone Daddy / Bonald Daddison (Johnny Stanton). A returning champion from a previous season.

• Look: pale, spindly limbs, sleeveless coat, very reflective sunglasses (and spares), a whip.
• Family: a “mommy’s boy.” Only his mother may call him Bonald. His parents separated when he was four, and he learned “everything I know” from his father.
• Love life: his ex is Tina the Tooth Fairy, who stitched his tooth pom-pom hat. “Can never truly die in any way that matters” as long as Darcy nurses him back.
• Tastes: favorite food Totino’s. Drinks only whole milk.
• Powers: raises the dead (zombies, “Darcy’s brothers and sisters”); signature move Death Armor Reborn in the Combat Yard (D-A-R-C-Y), the bone mech, with the attack “Daddy’s Girl”; heroic surge as a tidal wave of bone.
• Box of Chaos: traded his sunglasses for doubled nat-20 effects (his “inner monster”).
• Fate: died in the tie, forgetting the safe word. Revived in the locker room.

Darcy. Bone Daddy’s skeleton partner, “my true love.” The relationship is unlabeled: not familiar, minion or mother, sometimes “mommy.” She has long-fingered bone claws and two thumbs, and wears a three-pom-pom hat from Thea. Her bones can scatter and reassemble. She becomes the bone mech and nods “it’s okay” at the end.

Bone Mother / Bone Mummy. Bone Daddy’s mother, in the stands beside the goblins and Thea, wearing a tooth pom-pom hat. She pucks Totino’s 50 yards and rides his shoulder in the surge. She no longer speaks to Craig.

Craig (“Bone Daddy Daddy”). Bone Daddy’s father and Bofus’s ex. He appears in the stands through Bofus’s failed portal, endorses Bofus punching his son, rides the surge, delivers the safe-word warning, and shares the final kiss with Bofus. Mudcat said “Craig Dennison?”; his surname is uncertain.

Tina the Tooth Fairy. Bone Daddy’s ex. Bofus tried twice to summon her; the only result was a single tooth.

Richard Knottley (ghost). Bofus’s previous opponent: the Peloton thrower, a conspiracy theorist about the chinchilla government, wearing a tin hat and a tiny mustache. He left a “Kill Switch video.” His ghost appears through Bofus.

Thea. Has impish pink wings and a glitter trail, long pointy ears, a ridged spine and an arrow-tipped tail. She runs the goblins’ winter wardrobe, cries literal crocodiles, brings 2% milk and toasted bread, gets thrown as a basketball, and throws a tantrum after her nat 1.

The Lord of Fate. Refuses gloves and resizes Thea’s head with a snap. Remembers Bone Daddy’s gyrations from last time. He has “a lot of issues” with Thea and puts them “on her record.”

The Box of Chaos’s shadowy figure. Has yellow eyes and claws. “Not picky,” but prefers real cheese products. It now wears Bone Daddy’s sunglasses and tried on Bofus’s pom-pom hat.

The goblins. Bundled up for the cold. Each gets a pet chinchilla with pet insurance.

Places

• The Dread Fortress: the kitchen, brewery, the Grandmaster’s old bedroom, the Lord of Fate’s bedroom, Thea’s old bedroom (now an office), a large keep, and the attic (boxes of goblin winter clothes, a horse, photo albums, a box of crowns).
• The “very large chinchilla place” for the goblins’ chinchillas.
• The snow-capped mountaintop arena, with jagged rocks. It is now the site of a mountain of bones, a monument and graveyard to Bofus and Bone Daddy.
• The arena locker room (Dried Blood).
• Bofus’s frog kingdom (unnamed).

Items

• The pom-pom hats, which become each wearer’s dream hat: Bone Daddy’s teeth pom-pom, Bofus’s Bone Mother hat, Darcy’s three pom-poms.
• Morir’s Cataclysm: a leather-bound tome whose words wrap the skin in glowing markings.
• The Arbiter’s ring: grants mastery of time and space for one round.
• Bofus’s crown (sacrificed to the box) and frog mask (removed). Bone Daddy’s whip and sunglasses (sacrificed to the box).
• Totino’s, 2% milk, toasted bread.

Lore statements

• Every Dread Fortress goblin gets a chinchilla and pet insurance. Richard Knottley believed the chinchillas have a government.
• The Box of Chaos can give powers, not only items, and a second use costs a fatigue (a game mechanic).
• The Arbiter’s rings can turn up in the Box of Chaos (“once belonged to the Arbiter”).
• In the Dried Blood creator note, Mudcat says the Arbiter gained Morir’s Cataclysm in Vythorn’s Return on his way to becoming Lord of Fate.

Full Round-by-Round

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

Opening — the Dread Fortress attic

1. 0:05:53 The file opens with a misheard “Welcome to D20 Chess Box!” (almost certainly “D20 Deathmatch”). 0:06:03 Mudcat narrates: the Lord of Fate searches the Dread Fortress for Thea. He moves through the kitchen, the brewery, the Grandmaster’s old bedroom, his own bedroom and Thea’s old bedroom, “which is now an office”, then climbs a large keep up to the attic.
2. 0:06:42 The attic is a chaotic maze of boxes. Inside it a line of goblins is being bundled up for the cold in cute, mismatched scarves, mittens and hats (patterns, checkers, polka dots). Thea is making sure “the goblins are ready for today’s deathmatch” and warns one to wear its gloves “or you’re gonna lose your fingers when you step outside.”
3. 0:07:38 Thea puts a goblin-sized scarf on the Lord of Fate, where it looks like “a small kind of like thin thread”, and tries to force a child-sized glove onto his hand. He refuses: “I’m the Lord of Fate. I don’t need to wear gloves outside.” Thea: “You can still get frostbite.”
4. 0:08:38 — Attic contents. Asked where all the clothing came from, Thea says “Boxes.” The attic also holds a horse, some photo albums, and a whole box of crowns, all too big for Thea’s head.
5. 0:08:58 The Lord of Fate snaps his fingers and enlarges Thea’s head, “like Megamind… like a pear” (Thea asks for “only the forehead part”). She can’t hold it up, says “I got too many thoughts!” and collapses under her giant brain. He snaps it back to normal. Thea will “just have to buy crowns that are fit for my head.”
6. 0:09:50 Thea opens a pink portal where a window was and announces “King Bowfist [Bofus] versus Boondock [Bone Daddy].”

The champions

7. 0:10:18 — Bone Daddy returns. Lord of Fate: “I remember the Bone Daddy… Didn’t he die? Didn’t you die?” Bone Daddy: “Bone Daddy can never truly die in any way that matters.” He is “only as immortal as long as Darcy, my true love, nurses me back with the power of bone and the power of daddy.” Thea bows ceremoniously at his feet (“All hail the power of bone and the power of daddy… I’m not worthy”). Lord of Fate: “Please don’t encourage her.” He tells Bone Daddy he liked his “gyrations” last time. Thea squints through Bone Daddy’s very reflective sunglasses.
8. 0:11:44 — King Bofus. The Lord of Fate calls him a “dingus”; Thea corrects him to “royalty” and bows again. Bofus’s audio cuts out (charades and “frog in his throat” jokes). 0:12:30 Bofus explains it was “this incredible frog mask that as of yet has not been removed from my head”. His title is “King Man-Frog Bofus” (transcribed “King Mad Frog Bofors”).
9. 0:13:04 — Bonald Daddison. Bofus decides to call him “Bonald”. Bone Daddy: “My given name is Bonald Daddison.” Bofus: “Last time I was here, I fought a man who threw a Peloton bike at me, and this is infinitely weirder.”
10. 0:13:29 — 50% math. Bofus: “the man frog you see crouched before you in a frog-like pose, is 50% man, 50% frog, 50% idiot, and 50% not good at percentages.” Bone Daddy: “Half man, half frog hybrids, just a normal Tuesday night for me and Darcy.” On Fridays, “I put this whip to the test.”
11. 0:14:11 Thea offers a hat with a pom-pom (“Fight me for it, Bonald”). Bone Daddy’s mother always said, “Bonald, Bonald, if you go outside when it’s cold… put on a jacket. That’s why I keep my sleeveless coat on all the time.” “Bone Daddy is nothing if not a mommy’s boy.” Only his mother may use the name Bonald.
12. 0:15:04 — Darcy. A skeleton ambles out, arms in front: “Darcy, come here, girl.” Bofus asks whether she’s a dog, his child or his mother. “The relationship hasn’t really been set in stone yet… whatever you need her to be in the moment.” Thea: “We’ve discovered labels are really restrictive.”
13. 0:15:50 The Lord of Fate demands to know which 50% is man and which is frog (“You didn’t answer me last time”). Bofus: maybe someone will “roll something above a fucking seven when they try and take off the mask… Maybe, just maybe, you’ll find out this time.” “Fight me, Bonald Daddison.”

The pom-pom hats

14. 0:16:45 Thea hands each champion a pom-pom hat that transforms into the wearer’s dream hat. One spare hat grows until its pom-pom becomes a portal to “the mountaintop yet again”. Thea flies through on impish pink wings, leaving a trail of glitter. Bofus defers to the daddy by flapping his arms.
15. 0:17:48 — Bone Daddy’s hat. He steps through on pale, spindly legs. His pom-pom is made of teeth (“Baby teeth,” says Mudcat). Thea: are Bone Daddy and the Tooth Fairy the same? Bone Daddy: “The Tooth Fairy is my ex. Complicated woman, but I’m a complicated man.”
16. 0:19:02 — Bofus’s hat. Bofus hops through on all fours. His hat sits on his crown, which sits on the mask, and it transforms into “the wide… girth of Bone Daddy’s mother”, with the pom-pom as her head. He “took a frog nap and dreamt of your mother.” He calls Thea “the Flapping Demon, whose name I have completely forgotten.”
17. 0:20:03 — Bone Mother. Bone Daddy sees his mother in the stands next to the goblins, also wearing a tooth pom-pom hat, and winks at her. He complains that Thea didn’t ask Darcy about a hat. Thea bursts into tears: literal crocodiles drip from her eyes (“This is how crocodiles are made”). She gives Darcy a present wrapped in green with a red ribbon: a hat with three pom-poms, which Darcy tears open with her long bone claws (the transcript also says “a pumpkin being, like, a pom-pom”; unclear). 0:22:00 Darcy has two thumbs, “pointing right at daddy.” “We’re gonna only point with thumbs from here on out.”

Round 1

18. 0:22:19 “Acolytes, are you ready to see some blood?” Blue slushies fly. Bone Daddy rolls a natural 20 on initiative.
19. 0:23:09 — The whip. Bone Daddy spins his whip overhead, gyrating (“You gotta wind this up, baby”), then sprints in like a cowboy (“Yippee-ki-yay!”). His powered-up whip hit lands on Bofus’s chest. Thea joins the crowd beside Bone Daddy’s mother. Mom high-fives everyone: “That’s my boy” (likened to Donna Kelce next to Taylor Swift).
20. 0:25:07 He wraps the whip around Bofus’s neck from behind and gives the crowd a come-hither. It misses, and Bofus is mildly aroused: “Joke’s on you, I’m into this.” A ripple, “a shudder of excitement”, runs up the mask anime-style, and the crown “dings”; it blushes. “Harder, daddy.”
21. 0:27:20 Bone Daddy whips at Bofus’s feet to trip him (“How did you know I was a feet guy?” / “Don’t worry, I’m still gonna step on you”). It’s a tie, so both take fatigue.
22. 0:28:39 — Darcy grapples. Darcy runs in and wraps Bofus in a grapple while Bone Daddy steps back. (Bofus’s pronouns: “they, it.”)
23. 0:30:11 — The ghost of Richard Knottley. Asked about returning after “their first victory, sort of”, Bofus relives tying with Richard Knottley, “God rest his soul”, who charged up a Peloton bike and gave him a fifth fatigue. “Not again, Satan, not again.” He tries to break the grapple and ties again. Knottley’s ghost appears in a tin hat: “no, you’ll suffer a fatigue because the Chinchillin government tells you to.”
24. 0:32:13 In the scuffle, Darcy collapses into a pile of bones, except her shoulder girdle, chest and arm, still wrapped around Bofus like a bone jacket. Bone Daddy objects to “familiar” and “minion”: “It’s also not mother… It is from time to time mommy, but that’s a different thing.” Bofus: “I’m wearing your mother on my head, and I guess like your bone daughter around my body.”
25. 0:33:01 — Frogs. Bofus reaches under his mask, yells “Have some frogs!”, and fires a “gatling gun of frogs from my face area”. It misses. Bone Daddy whips every frog away; each hops off with a small red welt on its butt cheeks. One winks at him, and he winks back. Bofus: “Flirting with my frogs? How dare you? I’m kind of into it.” A second volley misses too.
26. 0:34:30 Bofus pumps himself up with positive affirmations (“King of the frog people”) and powers up. Bone Daddy: “I love you, but they call me daddy.” The torrent of frogs ties, and both are exhausted. Knottley’s ghost whispers to Bofus: “they love him more than you.” Bone Daddy changes glasses (“Look how attractive he is”). Bone Daddy: “You seem haunted over there, you alright?” Bofus: “Not been fine in a while, but thanks for asking.” “Bone Daddy is nothing if not really considerate.”
27. 0:36:43 “Familiar is the F word that we’re not allowed to say.”
28. 0:36:49 — Darcy as a whip. Bofus rips Darcy off himself and flings her like a whip, so she wraps around Bone Daddy “like a python made of bones.” Bone Daddy defends with a natural 20. He pulls the rest of Darcy’s bones in with magical force from his right hand, she catches her own wingspan with a twirl, and they high-five: “That’s how Bone Daddy does it.” Bofus: “Richard, now I know how you felt.”
29. 0:38:58 — Thea’s pep talk. Thea flies down nose-to-mask with Bofus and pokes his chest: “You get your frogs in order… who are you?” “I’m King Man-Frog Bofus!” Thea: there are so many frogs, “they go up every orifice… They’re very sneaky.” Lord of Fate: “They do tend to squirm their way up there.”

Chaos event — favorite food (0:40:16)

30. Thea rolls a 14, but “the Acolytes are demanding chaos!” Bone Daddy rolls for it (12, “your season premiere”). A delicious smell wafts in: each champion’s favorite food, offered by Bone Daddy’s mother and by Bofus’s little frogs. Bone Daddy’s favorite is Totino’s (“I’m not one dimensional”). Bofus resists; Bone Daddy is tempted. Both are now at three fatigue.

Round 2

31. 0:42:38 Bone Daddy: “I need my Totino’s.” His mother pucks them 50 yards; Darcy grabs as many as she can, and he whips one into his mouth. He clears a fatigue.
32. 0:43:02 He doubts the crown (“an Akoth”? unclear), or else it “grows organically out of your head.” Bofus: “Come at me, bro.” Bone Daddy: “Nobody calls me bro.”
33. 0:43:42 — The dead rise. He fists the ground, and Darcy’s “brothers and sisters” reach up from the soil for Bofus’s four limbs. It misses: they are “at the zombie stage still”, and skin sloughs off their hands as Bofus walks free. Bofus stands up on two legs, which “no man frog should ever do”. He’s “mildly less attracted to Bone Daddy now.” Bone Daddy hasn’t “started Bone Daddy’s training sessions yet.”
34. 0:45:51 A whip strike hits. Bofus drops back to four legs “only because I want to.” Bone Daddy: “You’re being a little brat right now, aren’t you? You need bone daddy to… give you a little bit of consequences.” “That appears to be the case.”
35. 0:46:41 — Safe words. Bofus’s safe word is “amphibian.” Thea recommends “water buffalo.”
36. 0:47:14 Darcy kneels “in a tabletop pose” behind Bofus to trip him, but Bofus just hops backwards over her: “This is amateur hour. I expected so much from Bonald Bonason.” Darcy runs to Bone Daddy and wraps her arms around his neck (“protect me”), and he clears fatigue.
37. 0:48:48 — Cheese. Bone Daddy asks the old question: at 99 pounds plus one pound of cheese, “am I then one percent cheese?” Bofus erupts over American Kraft Singles (“I ruined a man last time with this fact”). The ghost of Richard Knottley flies out from under the mask, with a tin-foil-covered head, glasses and a tiny weird mustache, ranting about the chinchilla government and launching cheese facts at Bone Daddy’s ear: “not actually technically cheese… at least 51% cheese food product.” It fails.
38. 0:50:57 — Lore: the chinchillas. Thea explains that every goblin who comes to work here gets a pet chinchilla, with pet insurance, so there is “a very large chinchilla place”. Richard Knottley is “a known conspiracy theorist who believes that our chinchillas have a government” trying to overthrow everything. Bone Daddy remembers the good benefits from last time. Bofus: when Knottley died, he left behind a “Kill Switch video”.
39. 0:51:22 “I must summon more frogs!” Bofus drums the ground (“come to me, my brethren!”) for hundreds of frogs with “paddle hands.” It fails: two frogs come, Bone Daddy steps on both, and they say thank you. Bofus pinches the bridge of his nose: “Is this what a king looks like?”
40. 0:53:12 — The Tongue Sword. Bofus pulls a long pink tongue out from under the mask; it straightens into a razor-sharp sword. It misses. Bone Daddy: “you need to put that tongue back in your mouth.” “I refuse!” In an anime ninja power stance, the powered-up tongue hits, slathering Bone Daddy in drool: “Take some damage, you prick!” Bone Daddy: “This isn’t massage oil, my skin can’t handle this.” Bofus reels it in, takes a deep breath (“much better”) and clears a fatigue.
41. 0:55:35 — The milk. Thea brings a tray of 2% milk “because that’s how you help your bones with calcium.” Bone Daddy: “I only drink whole milk, but I will take this.” Thea: “I’m sorry, Mr. Daddy?” He chugs it. Bofus pours his on the ground: “It’s made up by big milk.” Thea’s jaw drops and she pours hers out too. “Do you have any idea how hard it was to transport milk all the way up to a mountain top?” Bone Daddy’s world crumbles: “apparently there’s a Chilean government and that milk doesn’t work.” Thea: “Milk is no longer functional, everyone.” “You’re going down for this, Bofus.”
42. 0:58:29 — The tattoo. Bofus wipes drool off his chest to reveal a fresh Peloton tattoo: “My brother, my Peloton brother… I miss you, brother.” Thea: “Water buffalo! Water buffalo!” Lord of Fate: “While we all figure out how to feel about that lore drop,” a break.

Round 3

43. 0:59:26 “Welcome back… from that tuna juice filled break.” Bofus is at 13 Fighting Spirit, Bone Daddy at 14.
44. 1:00:00 — The signature move. “Bofus, Bofus, Bofus, more like Dingus, Dingus, Dingus.” Bone Daddy: “Death Armor Reborn in the Combat Yard. D-A-R-C-Y, Darcy!” Her rib cage opens to engulf him, her arms enlarge, and bones rise from the soil to add to her form until she is a bone mech around him. His stats switch, and the table chants “Do it!”
45. 1:01:38 — Daddy’s Girl. His powered-up signature attack, “Daddy’s Girl”, hits: the giant fist comes down and Bofus’s head disappears into his body. Bone Daddy scrapes “this gooey mess of Bofus” off his foot. The second attack ties. “You just won’t die, Bofus… You’re a worthy match… It won’t last long, though.”
46. 1:03:27 — The Frog Splash. Bofus pushes his thumb into his head cavity; with a pop and a ribbit his body re-inflates and he pops off Bone Daddy’s shoe. “It’d be a real shame if someone would have… frog splash your stats.” He runs up a jagged rock on his feet paddles, twists in midair and slams down on the mech with his signature move, the Frog Splash. It hits: an earthquake shudder shrinks the mech, crushing Bone Daddy slightly, and his stats shift again.
47. 1:05:57 — The ex. Perched on the mech “master blaster” style, Bofus tries to summon the Tooth Fairy through a portal from another dimension so she can witness Bone Daddy’s humiliation (“Darcy, look away”). Bone Daddy defends with a natural 20. Caustic Phoenix: instead Bofus’s own ex falls through the portal into the stands. It’s Bone Daddy’s father, “Bone Daddy Daddy”. Bone Mother sits on the opposite side of the stadium “because they don’t talk anymore.”
48. 1:08:15 Bone Daddy: “My parents separated when I was four years old.” Bofus: “I might have some home truths for you, son.” “Did you fuck both my mother and my father?” “I left your mother alone. I went after your dad.” Bone Daddy: “I did learn everything I know from my father.” Thea: “Or the femur from the skeleton in this case.”
49. 1:09:19 — Craig. Bofus calls up: “How are you doing up there? Craig?” (Mudcat: “Craig Dennison?”) Craig is fine, and remembers Bofus as “a frog prince!” Bofus: “I got a promotion.” He asks whether he may punch Craig’s son in the head; Craig endorses it.
50. 1:10:19 The first punch misses (“Not even having my own father on your side can distract me”). The second punch is a natural 20, putting Bofus at 11 to Bone Daddy’s 12. “I can feel my ex-lover’s eyes on me.”
51. 1:11:24 He tries the Tooth Fairy again (Mudcat: “Don’t bring Tina into this.”) and fails: a single tooth falls from the sky. Bone Daddy: “who do you think made me this hat, huh? Tina and I had a great relationship.” Bofus: “I’ve scraped my knuckles against it… she made it with love and resilience.” He jumps down into a frog squat to defend.
52. 1:12:45 Thea rolls a 10: “adequate.” “No one says no to adequate.”

Round 4 — the basketball special and the Box of Chaos

53. 1:13:33 “You ever heard of a basketball special?” Mech Darcy grabs Thea and chucks her at Bofus. Thea is “absolutely compliant” and screams “as she embraces her new form.” It hits. Bone Daddy asks what she looks like: long pointy ears, a ridged spine and a tiny tail with an arrow at the end. “So many sharp pieces cut through Bufo’s defenses.”
54. 1:14:49 — The Box arrives. Thrown Thea cracks the sound barrier like a whip; the echo sets the chaos storms crackling, and lightning brings the Box of Chaos down in the middle of the battlefield. The lid flips, a column of yellow and pink fire shoots skyward, and a shadowy figure with yellow eyes creaks its claws over the side. One action and a sacrifice buys a magic item.
55. 1:15:41 — The glasses. Shadowy figure: “I’m really not fucking picky. What do you got?” (Thea: “He even takes American cheese.” Figure: “No, I prefer real cheese products.”) Bone Daddy sacrifices his sunglasses: “I got more, baby.” Thea loses her mind. The figure puts them on its own face: “It is kind of fucking bright out here.”
56. 1:16:32 — Inner monster. Instead of an item, the figure stares into him with its yellow eyes and awakens his inner monster: all natural-20 effects are doubled for him until the end of the match. Yellow and pink fire shoots up his arm and lights between every bone of Darcy.
57. 1:18:01 He grapples Bofus with the yellow fire: “A reptile dysfunction for you.” He rolls a natural 1, hurting himself (fatigue 3). “Mother, grant me strength.” His flaming fist hits, and Bofus’s pants catch fire. Bofus wetly pats them out with his paddle hands: “Toasty buns, toasty buns!” Thea throws toasted bread to everyone.
58. 1:21:24 — The hat in the box. Bofus removes his pom-pom hat (Bone Daddy’s mother), winks at Bone Mummy, and puts it in the box. The shadowy figure puts it on (“kinda cold”). He gets Morir’s Cataclysm, “a leather-bound tome of great power and destruction”. Its words flow off the page and wrap around his skin in glowing markings, and he gains an extra power up. Bofus: “I thought you were going to ask me to read, which I cannot do.” Bone Daddy: “I’ll read you a bedtime story sometime.” Bofus owns “a rather fetching mug of a very sad and very annoyed frog” but does not sleep with it.
59. 1:23:16 — Three tongues. A green shimmer emanates from his “baby oiled, now drool covered body.” “I think we’ve maybe been taking it too easy on one another.” Three tongues shoot from under the mask. They miss, “like a soft tongue massage”, and slip past Bone Daddy’s bony body.
60. 1:25:08 — The crown in the box. Bofus drops his crown into the box, taking a fatigue for the second use: “I would give my entire kingdom just to see this man burn.” His kingdom is “the one with the frogs”; the chinchilla government is Knottley’s. Bone Daddy can’t tell 10 from 12. Thea: “That’s because you’re a bonehead.”
61. 1:26:37 — The Arbiter’s ring. The figure hands him “a pretty little piece of jewelry that once belonged to the Arbiter.” For one round he is the master of time and space, and his opponent’s attacks have disadvantage. He puts it where the crown was, on “the tiniest little” finger under the mask that has been holding the crown up. His eyes flash with multicolored lightning, “like Neo in the Matrix learning kung fu”, and he sees all of Bone Daddy’s potential moves. He clears the fatigue: “let’s go, son!”
62. 1:28:51 Thea rolls a natural 1 and falls from the sky “like a pigeon that just been shot”, then throws a massive temper tantrum on the ground.

Chaos event — paper versus rock (1:29:36)

63. Bofus rolls a 19 (“Lord of Fate, why am I wasting these rolls?”). “The old wives’ tales rumored of the mysterious power of paper… capable of fending off the strength of stones.” The Acolytes raise rocks and pebbles, and each champion must build a paper shield. Both fail. Both are at four fatigue; Bofus has 7 Fighting Spirit, Bone Daddy 9.

Round 5 — the bone wave

64. 1:30:57 Bone Daddy has only his heroic surge left. “Bofus. This has gone on long enough… you’ve reconnected me with Bone Daddy’s daddy… I think it’s time that we all come together to teach you a little lesson.”
65. 1:31:43 “Mother, father, to me.” Darcy’s arms extend with extra joints to bring them in. His mother and father ride on his shoulders, “wrapped in Darcy’s cloak of calcium.” “Let’s put this dingus in the ground.” A tidal wave of bone erupts behind him, “all of the power of bone and daddy.” Under the ring he attacks with disadvantage, and the result is a 10 against Bofus’s 10: a tie. Both champions reach five fatigue.
66. 1:33:16 The wave grows until it overshadows the whole mountain, and even Bone Daddy’s power is too great for him to control.
67. 1:34:03 — Bone Daddy’s end. His father speaks in his left ear: “son, you forgot the only rule. You gotta listen for the safe word. Water buffalo, water buffalo.” Bone Daddy whispers “I’m sorry, father.” His life flashes before his eyes: his mother caring for him, his dad teaching him to throw a ball, finding Tina, “what he thought was the love of his life”, who stitched this beanie, and then Darcy “becoming all of it”. Darcy’s skull looks down at him and nods: “it’s okay.”
68. 1:35:31 — The unmasking. Bofus: “this is the last time he will be called to battle in this arena.” He pulls off the mask. Frogs fall from it, and all that’s left is “one tiny frog head attached to the neck of a large man.” The sad little frog walks to Craig, puts his hands around his waist and whispers: “I always loved you, Craig… You turned me from a prince into a king.” Craig: “I always loved you too,” and wipes a tear from the froggy eye. Bofus: “God bless you, Craig. And at least this time it wasn’t death by fucking Peloton.”
69. 1:36:47 — The monument. The bone wave crashes over them, violent and unending, and piles into a mountain made solely of bones, “a beautiful graveyard in memory of the two of you.” “May this stand as a mountain, a monument to the battle offered here as sacrifice to the acolytes today. We will never forget what you have given us in pure blood, in pure tongue action.”
70. 1:37:43 Thea asks whether it’s good enough. The Lord of Fate is pleased and awkwardly polls the Acolytes (“what are you guys doing later?”) about the after party. “Welcome, and good night, to D20 Deathmatch!”

Full Dried Blood notes (click to expand)

Out-of-character (creator notes):

• Mudcat: Bone Daddy returns from a previous season, “maybe the only champion to come back from a previous season in this current season.”
• Caustic Phoenix: “three pairs of sunglasses.” Johnny: “future so bright I need shades.”
• Dr. Bees admired Bone Daddy’s ready-made supporting cast (mom, Darcy, the Tooth Fairy). Johnny loved how Bofus’s stat-swapping signature move countered his own. He built “Daddy’s Girl” with Mudcat.
• Mudcat: the Darcy mech was the move Bone Daddy pulled at the end of his previous season.
• A striped cat appears on Johnny’s camera. Caustic Phoenix says Lubofan’s two cats fought on the couch behind her during her deathmatch, “a deathmatch in a deathmatch.”
• Bofus has “tied his way to a death twice now.” Mudcat: ties and nat 1s each cause fatigue, so tie deaths are more common than people expect, and there were more early in the season.
• Stat spreads: Bofus 1-1-4 (kept from his previous fight, for more actions). Bone Daddy started 1-2-3, which became 3-2-1.
• Dr. Bees: “if there is a big box of chaos that costs me health and a fatigue to do the thing again you fucking bet your ass I’m going back in there.” Johnny: “Pressing the button is what makes entertaining actual plays.”
• Mudcat: “I wrote this system specifically… for storytelling” (Champions of Chaos).
• Bofus’s original name was going to be “Frankenfrog.” Dr. Bees: “A classic reimagining of the princess and the frog,” and Craig is the one who made him king.
• Mudcat’s lore note: “Dr. Bees was in our Vythorn’s Return series, which is how the Arbiter became the Lord of Fate. And in doing so, he had to gain an item called Morir’s Cataclysm, a tome,” the same tome Bofus pulled from the box. Caustic Phoenix adds that in Vythorn’s Return Dr. Bees played a different frog who couldn’t read anything except Giant (“Different frog. They weren’t related”).
• Dr. Bees: King Bofus is “a leader of a frog nation somewhere”; everything else (Craig, the attraction to Bone Daddy) was improvised, apart from the callbacks to Richard Knottley. Johnny: Bone Daddy’s divorced parents, his “dom ways” learned from his dad, and the Tooth Fairy ex were all improvised.

In-character (canon, Dried Blood):

• 1:53:01 Mudcat frames the final words in the arena locker room, “as goblins are pulling chunks of bones out of your bodies that have been revived.” Both champions are revived.
• King Bofus: “If you can, always be at least 50% man, 50% frog, and 100% Bad at potentially maths… 50% Peloton.”
• Bone Daddy: “Never forget to say thank you, daddy.” Everyone signs off “Good night, daddies.”