S5E16, Chaos Royal (Season 5 finale), the first Chaos Royale (four-way)

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The Season 5 finale threw four returning champions into the first-ever Chaos Royale: Tormiir the minotaur, Bobby Clark and the eldritch backpack known as the Hunger, the identity thief Copycat, and Richard Knottley, rebuilt from Peloton parts. They fought on the doorstep of The Dread Fortress for a single red ceramic mug. Along the way it took in weaponised phone calls to a minotaur’s mother, five hundred deceptive hot dogs, a chinchilla named Dylan, and an unholy alliance between a shapeshifter and a backpack full of teeth. Meanwhile the ruler of The Void brooded over his troubled reign and walked out before the show was done.

The Story

A Gloomy Throne Room

The finale opened with Thea, a tiny pink imp, fluttering down the Fortress’s dark and murky hallways calling for her master. She found the Lord of Fate in his throne room. The candles and soft fur rugs were gone and the room was drab, bare and unlit. He had conjured a window into a wall that normally has none, and he stood with his arms crossed behind him, staring at rain he had also conjured on the pane, even though the Fortress sits in a lava field.

Thea asked whether this was “one of your, like, little emo sessions.” He insisted he was “pondering my rule.” Thea had thought pondering had something to do with ponds, and she produced a clipboard so she could take notes on his thoughts. The news he gave her was bleak. People were upset that the Grandmaster was still imprisoned, there were riots, and The Eastern Outpost had just been ransacked. Thea added the rumours that he smells, farts constantly and wears fake Italian leather shoes. Only that last charge truly stung: “They are real Italian leather! They always have been!”

“Things are not going the way that I had planned for them to go this season,” he admitted. Thea had a fix. She had organised a royal rumble of four monstrous champions, and the prize was a pretty red mug donated by the Acolyte Gator. The Lord of Fate was unconvinced but willing: “I would like to see four people fight to the death over a ceramic mug. Sure.”

Four Fools for a Mug

Thea clapped, pink lightning struck the floor, and the champions appeared. Richard Knottley immediately tried to leave. “You won’t let me live. You won’t let me die,” he cried, and he charged for the door. The Lord of Fate snapped his fingers so that every door Richard walked through led him straight back into the throne room. Richard had died so many times that his body could only be revived by infusing it with Peloton equipment, and his heart was now a Peloton core. He had renamed himself “Dick Okio,” after Pinocchio, since his old nickname was Dick Twist, and he had a fresh tattoo of the new name in case he forgot it.

Copycat arrived wearing the Lord of Fate’s face. After losing her last fight and being reincarnated, she had started attending group therapy, and she had come away with a new mantra: “the only one that can live everybody else’s life better than themselves is me.” The real Lord of Fate begged her to stop. Tormiir skipped the speeches. He charged a beam between his horns, melted a meteor out of the boiling sky and kicked the glassy shard that fell. “Now that’s how you make an introduction!” the Lord of Fate approved.

Last came a boy the Lord of Fate mistook for Robbie Clark. Thea corrected him: Robbie was free now and growing up in Florida among the alligators and falling iguanas. This was Bobby Clark, “boy adventurer and herald of the ancient unifying flesh that is the hunger,” and his backpack had tentacles, eyes and teeth slurping out of it. When Richard made a grab for the mug, Thea clapped again. The Fortress walls faded, and the four found themselves at the Fortress’s front door, a great skull with an open mouth set in the lava fields. Thea hid the mug in a secret spot. Copycat promptly took Thea’s form so that she could ask herself where it was hidden. Up in the stands, The Acolytes wore Tormiir t-shirts, chugged milk and poured it over their bodies, which horrified the minotaur: “That’s cow milk for cows, you sick bastards.”

Horns, Meatballs and Mothers

Tormiir opened with a crackling purple swing of his greatsword aimed at Richard, the champion who wanted the mug most. Richard declared his Peloton limbs unbreakable. “What if someone stops paying the subscription fee?” Tormiir asked. “I am the subscription fee.” Tormiir then fumbled the swing, hurt himself, and knocked off Richard’s mustache along with the sword. He blamed the milk boys. His follow-up charge worked far better, and it left Richard impaled on his horns, “one between the ribs and one just shy of an exit.” Richard soon asked to be put down, since “that horn kind of close to my rectum.”

The Hunger lunged from Bobby’s backpack at Copycat: “Foul flesh sculptor, your mimicry is admirable. I shall make it mine.” Copycat wriggled away from the first lamprey-jawed tube, but a later one scraped a meatball-sized chunk out of her leg. She answered by becoming “Thornir,” a horned copy of Tormiir who cheered the crowd on to drink their milk. Then she found a crueller weapon. She phoned Tormiir’s mother, told her that her son had entered a milk-drinking contest with a beef-brisket celebration afterward, and hung up on her. The damage to his relationship with his mother landed. The mother, it turned out, was “really hoofing it” to the arena.

Copycat offered the Hunger a plate of poisoned meatballs, which missed but won Bobby’s heart. Most people feared the Hunger, he said, but she had given it meatballs, and he hoped they could be best friends and “help turn all humans and life into one giant ball of flesh.” Copycat found that “a little iffy” and left him with a puzzle: “By the way, you don’t have a mother. You have a father.” Richard, still skewered, unleashed Peloton electricity into Tormiir. Tormiir’s own magic was electrical anyway, so the bolt ran harmlessly through his hooves into the ground. A swarm of Chinchillas poured out of Richard’s reopened wounds, and Tormiir kissed him on the head for bringing more friends. Richard pulled himself free, bonked uselessly off the minotaur’s lowered head and sat down to sob. The Lord of Fate ruled the result a defensive “pathetic stance,” face to the ground with his ass very high in the air.

Ghosts, Wombats and Dylan

The first chaos event sent a bully ghost to every champion to make them hit themselves. Tormiir told it to stop, and it ran off whimpering. The other three punched themselves. In the second round Tormiir called his mother back to undo Copycat’s lies. He told her Copycat was “like artificial intelligence… but walking around, and a real asshole about it, too,” and he finally landed a huge purple bolt on the shapeshifter, “a big, solid bolt of fuck you.” Bobby wanted to go after the minotaur instead of Copycat, who might help him find his dad. The Hunger cracked his arm back against his will to strike Copycat anyway. Bobby then punched Tormiir’s calf with his little fists and only hurt his fingers.

Copycat, still wearing the Lord of Fate’s face, got the real one to admit he kept his Kansas City barbecue in the kitchen, and Thea had the Goblins bring all of it, with at least five hundred hot dogs. Copycat swore they were vegan tofu, so Tormiir agreed to five. The first throw slipped and stabbed Copycat in the eye. The second hit, and then came the reveal: “How’d those 100% ground beef hot dogs taste?” Tormiir vomited them up whole, and the sight made Copycat and Bobby throw up too.

Richard sat in the sand and listed his ruin: a lost internet business, a lawsuit after Big Tuna, a commercial that broke the rules on false claims, “and now I’m not even a real boy.” A chinchilla appeared to comfort him. Richard named it Dylan, held open the port in his chest so it could crawl back into its nest, and spent his whole turn trying to repair himself. Every attempt failed. The second chaos event followed, as frozen flying wombats stampeded through the clouds and let loose their bowels, pelting everyone with a hail of cubed, ice-hard poop. “Wombat poop is cubed,” Thea explained helpfully, “so they are perfectly ice cubed. You can stack it.”

Strange Alliances

After a short break, Tormiir called his sword back to his hand, lit it by licking the edge, and carved into Copycat. Bobby turned on Richard instead, urging him to “put aside your technology. Join the new flesh.” Richard caught the tentacle in mid-air, half-remembering that he had seen its kind somewhere before. “If you can’t get them with honey, get them with mayonnaise,” as the Hunger always says, and it hosed him in black bile. Copycat called in an FDA tactical team against Tormiir’s “mad cow disease,” but the agents trampled her instead. From flat on her back she grabbed a megaphone and urged the Void to buy milk, which sold out everywhere. She then sided with Richard and took his face, which he took as a compliment: “Holy shit. I knew I was sexy.” Richard fired an Iron Man–style beam from his chest that finally hit the Hunger, and for one moment Bobby’s eyes went wide: “where am I?” Then the tentacles took over again.

The third chaos event brought Dolly, who pushed through a portal with her cracked porcelain face and black glass eyes. Tormiir met her gaze, and Richard met it worst of all. Copycat then made her pitch. She mocked the Lord of Fate’s loneliness while wearing his face, which included a confession that Thea was “the best thing that has ever happened to me,” and she offered the Hunger a partnership: “drop the act of the kid and you and me team up? I’ve always wanted a backpack.” The Hunger agreed. It tore itself off Bobby, who had no skin under his clothes, only a half-grown translucent spine, and he crumpled “much like a puppet.” The backpack settled onto Copycat’s shoulders. She also phoned the manufacturer for a second mug, just in case.

Horrified, Richard and Tormiir teamed up. Richard climbed into Tormiir’s horns to be launched as a “Meatball special,” and he later stole Copycat’s phone, called Tormiir’s mother to restore the minotaur’s honour, smashed it, and stuck the SIM card in his tinfoil hat: “Now I am the cell phone!” Copycat’s parting shot told him to go “view your mother’s OnlyFans account.”

The Felted Friend

As the arena turned deadlier, Tormiir got Copycat “canceled” by posting horrific statements from her accounts. The Hunger simply drained energy from the earth to shrug it off and grew Copycat a new phone and tablet out of its tendrils. Copycat sent the IRS after Richard’s bank account, which held negative thirteen dollars. Then she treated the Hunger to a steak dinner that was arriving right behind Tormiir: his mother. The Hunger bit “like a milkshake straw,” and Tormiir fell. “I was going to win that mug from my mama so she could drink out of it,” he said. “Water, you freaks.” His spirit drifted out of his body and took a seat on a sideline bench.

Richard, down to his last sliver of life, handed the dying Dylan to Thea for safekeeping. “I should die,” he said. He threw three final punches “for Tormiir’s mother” while the crowd chanted Dylan’s name and Tormiir’s ghost cheered him on, and every one was turned aside. The Hunger mangled hot dogs, the remains of Tormiir’s mother and Tormiir’s body into a giant puppet riding atop Copycat. “Preferred term is felted friend,” noted the ghost. As the Muppet hands loomed over him, Richard triggered his Peloton self-destruct sequence: “Surprise, bitch, you get to explode.” It fizzled. The tendrils gushed over him like a geyser, and he heard a chorus of voices: “welcome, welcome… You’re here. You’re with us. You’re loved.” His last words were “Coachella sucks this year.”

Good Night

Thea crowned “our victor, the champion, Copycat and the Hunger!” and promised the mug would be mailed once she found out where they lived. The real Lord of Fate was not celebrating. “To be honest with you, I didn’t have a great time,” he said. “This is just not how it was supposed to go. Things are not the way they’re supposed to be.” Saying he had somewhere else to be, he stomped back into the Fortress. Copycat told Thea to let her “other half cry it out” and invited her for ice cream. Thea closed the season for the Acolytes alone, urging them to “never give up until the final breath in your body is finally gone.”

Notable Moments

• Richard Knottley returned with a Peloton core for a heart and a new name, “Dick Okio,” tattooed on so he wouldn’t forget it.
• Copycat’s deadliest weapon was her phone: she called Tormiir’s mother, the FDA, the IRS and a mug manufacturer.
• The “vegan tofu” hot dogs turned out to be 100% ground beef, and the minotaur vomited them up whole.
• The Hunger discarded Bobby Clark like an empty puppet and became Copycat’s backpack.
• Dylan the chinchilla comforted Richard, and Richard handed him to Thea to save before dying himself.
• The Lord of Fate walked out of his own season finale, saying things were “not the way they’re supposed to be.”

Memorable Quotes

• Richard Knottley: “I am the subscription fee.”
• Copycat: “I am enough. Because I am everyone. Therefore, I am better than everyone. That’s what my therapy circle taught me before I stole all their identities.”
• Tormiir: “Think Kilowog’s use of his ring. Just a big, solid bolt of fuck you.”
• Thea: “Mayonnaise is gross. We’re a Miracle Whip household.”
• Bobby Clark: “I don’t really remember much except for a couple weeks ago, but the hunger tells me that I’m eight.”

Tormiir: “Mama loves me. And I disappointed her… I was going to win that mug from my mama so she could drink out of it. Water, you freaks.”

The Hunger: “Welcome, welcome… You’re here. You’re with us. You’re loved.”

Who and What Appears

Characters

The Lord of Fate (Mudcat; the Arbiter/Vythorn ruling in the Season of Fate).

• Brooding in a stripped, unlit throne room with a conjured window and rain.
• Says ruling is hard: riots, the ransacked Eastern Outpost, and anger that the Grandmaster is still imprisoned. “Things are not going the way that I had planned for them to go this season.”
• Insists his shoes are real Italian leather.
• Keeps a Kansas City barbecue in the kitchen of the Dread Fortress; the goblins fetch it.
• Can loop doors back into the room and call down lightning.
• Leaves the finale early, unhappy, for “somewhere else to be.”

Thea (Caustic Phoenix). A tiny pink imp who serves the Lord of Fate.

• Organized the Chaos Royale to cheer him up. Teleports people by clapping and commands the goblins.
• Unsure whether she has a brain. Her household is “a Miracle Whip household.” She hates people (speaker uncertain). She loves ice cream.
• Held Dylan the chinchilla. Gave the season’s closing address.

Tormiir (guest). “The great minotaur,” a muscle-bound warlock-type.

• Powers and gear:
  • Purple crackling magic channelled through his horns; it is “magical electricity,” so lightning grounds through him harmlessly.
  • A two-handed greatsword that returns to his hand. He lit it by licking it with his tongue.
• Body: greases and shaves daily, with gorilla-pattern hair.
• Personality and lore:
  • Fiercely protective of cow’s milk as sacred and maternal; hates seeing Acolytes drink it.
  • Devoted to his mother, who would “jump through a portal again” to nurse him if he were dying.
  • Hints he “paid for college” with something lewd (“Only cows”).
  • The Acolytes wear Tormiir t-shirts.
• In this episode: wanted the mug for his mama “so she could drink out of it. Water.” Allied with Richard late. Fell to the Hunger’s bite on his mother. His ghost watched from a bench and became part of the felted friend.

Tormiir’s mother. A minotaur, phoned twice (by Copycat, then by Richard).

• Copycat claimed she has an OnlyFans account.

Bobby Clark (guest). “Boy adventurer and herald of the ancient unifying flesh.”

• Remembers only the last couple of weeks. The Hunger says he’s eight.
• Doesn’t know his mother; Copycat says he has a father.
• His predecessor Robbie Clark “is free now,” growing up in Florida.
• Discarded by the Hunger: he had no skin under his clothes and a half-grown translucent spine, and collapsed like a puppet.

The Hunger (guest). An eldritch horror in a backpack of tentacles, eyes and teeth that seeks to unify all flesh into one mind.

• Overrides Bobby’s will. Its sayings include “if you can’t get them with honey, get them with mayonnaise” and “Join the new flesh.”
• Effectively immune to electricity. Can draw energy from the ground and form phones and tablets from tendrils.
• Fused with Copycat as her backpack and won. Swallowed Richard Knottley into its chorus.

Copycat (guest). A shapeshifter (“foul flesh sculptor”) who takes others’ forms: the Lord of Fate, Thea, Tormiir (“Thornir”), Dick Twist.

• Was reincarnated after losing her last fight. Has attended group therapy (“before I stole all their identities”).
• Her phone powers can reach the FDA, the IRS, a mug manufacturer and Tormiir’s mother.
• Winner, fused with the Hunger. Calls the Lord of Fate “my other half.”

Richard Knottley / “Dick Twist” / “Dick Okio” (guest).

• Body and gear:
  • Revived so many times his body is now held together by Peloton parts, with a Peloton core as his heart.
  • A tattoo of his new name.
  • A port in his chest and a tinfoil/aluminum hat (now holding Copycat’s SIM card).
  • Peloton electricity and a chest “unibeam.”
  • Chinchillas live inside him.
• Lore:
  • A conspiracy podcaster with an internet business, lost after Big Tuna; his commercial broke FCC rules.
  • In lawsuits with the FDA, with pending arrest charges and negative $13.
  • Believes in the Chinchilla government. Has a friend King Pophos in the afterlife.
  • Claims this was his third time in the arena and third consecutive death.
• Consumed by the Hunger.

Dylan. A talking chinchilla living in Richard’s chest (Richard is “its nest”). Badly hurt powering him; held by Thea at the end. His fate is unstated.

Gator. An Acolyte (“great to be a Gator”) who gave the red mug.

The goblins of the Dread Fortress (servants), the FDA tactical division, the IRS.

Places

• Throne room (Dread Fortress): normally candles and fur rugs; drab this episode.
• The front door of the Dread Fortress: a skull with an open mouth, in the lava fields. This was the arena.
• The Eastern Outpost: ransacked during the riots.
• The Dread Fortress kitchen.
• Florida (where Robbie now lives).

Items

• The red victory mug (from Gator), hidden in Thea’s “secret pocket.” A second mug was ordered by Copycat.
• The Lord of Fate’s Kansas City barbecue; 500 hot dogs (claimed tofu, really 100% ground beef).
• Frozen cubed wombat poop (souvenirs).
• Copycat’s (rental) phone. The Hunger’s tendril Android phone and tablet.

Lore statements

• Champions killed in the Deathmatch are brought back to life later (Thea: “we bring them back to life later”).
• Milk sold out across the Void after Copycat’s PSA.

Full Round-by-Round

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

Opening: the Lord of Fate’s gloom

1. 0:10:50 Thea opens: “Welcome, Acolytes, to the Dread Fortress as we kick off season five’s finale.”
   • A tiny pink imp, Thea, flutters down the Fortress’s dark, murky hallways calling “Lord of Fate?”
   • She finds him in his throne room (Dread Fortress). Its usual candles and soft fur rugs are gone; the room is drab, nearly bare and unlit.
2. 0:11:39 The Lord of Fate has apparated a window into the wall where none normally exists. He stands with arms crossed behind him, staring at rain he has also conjured on the pane, even though the Fortress sits in a lava field.
3. 0:11:58 The “emo session.” Thea asks whether this is “one of your little emo sessions.” He says he is “pondering my rule.” Thea thought pondering “meant like ponds, but there’s no pond in here.” She brought a clipboard, pen and paper so she can hear his thoughts “if you say them out loud.”
4. 0:12:43 State of the realm. “It’s hard to be the ruler.”
   • People are upset that the Grandmaster is still imprisoned.
   • There are riots.
   • The Eastern Outpost was just ransacked.
   • Thea adds the rumours: people say he smells and farts constantly, and that his shoes are fake Italian leather. He snaps: “They are real Italian leather! They always have been!”
   • “Things are not going the way that I had planned for them to go this season.”
5. 0:13:30 Thea’s pitch. Since he’s been “down the toilet hole lately,” she has organized a royal rumble with four “chaos! Monstrous characters.”
   • The prize is a pretty red mug, a gift from the Acolyte Gator (“great to be a Gator”), meant to make the champions fight bloodier.
   • The Lord of Fate: “I would like to see four people fight to the death over a ceramic mug. Sure.”
6. 0:14:17 Thea claps; pink zaps of lightning strike the ground. She “reintroduces” the champions: “The Bored [?], Tormyr, Bobby, yeah, not Robbie, Bobby Clark and the Hunger, Richard, Nolly, and Copycat. Hey everyone, welcome back.” All four are returning champions.

Introductions

7. 0:14:49 Richard Knottley tries to leave. “You won’t let me live. You won’t let me die… We can escape now if we join forces.” He charges the first door.
   • Copycat: “I want a mug. I love collectibles.” Bobby (inferred speaker): “I want a mug. I will fight to the death.”
   • The Lord of Fate snaps his fingers. Every door Richard exits through loops him back into the throne room through a new door. “You’re not going anywhere, dick twist. You’re gonna fight to the death, and you’re gonna like it.”
   • Richard keeps walking through doors (“try, try again”). Thea: “You should be used to that, because you use Peloton, so you go nowhere fast.”
8. 0:15:41 Richard’s new body: “Dick Okio.”
   • He has died so many times that his body can only be revived by infusing it with Peloton equipment. His heart is now the core of a Peloton.
   • His new name is “Dick Okio… like Pinocchio,” because his name was Dick Twist. The others suggest “Pen Okio” and “Pentinokio,” but he “just got this fresh tattoo” of his own name “in case I forgot.”
   • The Lord of Fate asks who pedals the Peloton to keep it running. Richard: “Don’t ask questions that might blue screen of death me.”
   • The Lord of Fate doubts he is the real Richard: “the old dick would have said the Chinchilla government is behind this puppet charade.”
   • Copycat’s player (02, possibly out of character) says his heart is actually run by naked guinea pigs.
9. 0:17:37 Copycat. The Lord of Fate complains: “why did you invite Copycat? She’s always trying to copy me.” Copycat is wearing his face.
   • Copycat explains: after losing her last fight and being reincarnated, she “decided that I needed help” and has been attending group therapy sessions.
   • Her mantra: “the only one in charge of my life is myself… And the only one that can live everybody else’s life better than themselves is me.”
   • The Lord of Fate: “God damn it. Stop it. Quit it.” Copycat-as-Lord of Fate shushes the room: “Silenced… I say silence.”
   • Thea: “Oh, new Lord of Fate who looks like he’s actually had a facelift.”
10. 0:19:30 Tormiir. “It is I, Tormiir, the great minotaur.” He gives up on words and “gives you what you wanna see”:
    • He slings his head back and charges a beam between his two horns.
    • The clouds part and boil. He melts a meteor in the sky; it falls as a shard of glass, and he kicks it. “Ta-da!”
    • The Lord of Fate: “Now that’s how you make an introduction!” Copycat parrots every line until he begs her to stop.
11. 0:20:09 Robbie is free. The Lord of Fate thought the boy’s name was Robbie Clark. Thea: “Robbie is free now. Robbie’s growing up and learning all of the cool things that Florida has to offer, like alligators and iguanas that fall from trees.”
    • A “proceed / no, wait” bit follows.
12. 0:20:37 Bobby Clark. “I’m Bobby Clark, boy adventurer and herald of the ancient unifying flesh that is the hunger.” He points to a backpack with tentacles, eyes and teeth slurping out of it.
    • He hopes everyone’s flesh will be “unified into the hunger so that we may… become one unified mind and all be happy.”
    • Copycat-as-Lord of Fate: “you’ve already accomplished a majority of that. Because I am everyone.”
    • Bobby: “I like how your face looks like it’s on another person’s face… It reminds me of my grandma.”
13. 0:21:32 The mug grab and the arena. Richard tries to steal the mug. The Lord of Fate: “Thea, don’t let him get that mug.”
    • Thea claps. The Fortress walls fade, and everyone stands at the very front door of the Dread Fortress, “its ominous skull-opening mouth,” amid the lava fields. This is the arena.
    • Thea: three will “probably die, which will… bring back together, you know, life later on.” She hides the mug in a secret spot, and it vanishes.
14. 0:22:26 Copycat becomes Thea. Copycat (inferred, in Thea’s form) asks herself where the spot is. Thea: “Oh no. Is that me? Am I having an out-of-body experience?”
    • Copycat-Thea: “This time I get to fight in the Deathmatch!”
    • The Lord of Fate: “It’s gonna be great. Especially the part where you’re going to die.”
15. 0:23:18 The Acolytes. The Lord of Fate flares his wings and rises: “Are you ready to see the chaos royale?”
    • Some Acolytes wear Tormiir t-shirts and chug milk and pour it over their bodies.
    • Tormiir: “That’s cow milk for cows, you sick bastards… At least take the shirts off. You shame me.” They keep going.
16. 0:24:02 Initiative. Tormiir (a nat 20, rolled secretly), then Bobby, Copycat, and Dick Twist last. “You’re perfectly in order.” The Lord of Fate: “I planned that the whole time.”

Round 1

17. 0:25:18 Tormiir’s first swing goes wrong. He swings his two-handed greatsword like “a full health master sword”: a purple, crackling, evil beam aimed at Richard, “cuz he wants the mug more than I do.”
    • Richard: “my limbs are now made of Peloton parts. I am unbreakable.” Tormiir: “What if someone stops paying the subscription fee?” Richard: “I am the subscription fee.”
    • Tormiir rolls a nat 1 and damages himself. “The milk boys distracted me!”
    • The blade hits Richard with a “ding” and flies off, and so does Richard’s mustache. The sword lies on the ground.
18. 0:27:23 The goring rush. Tormiir lines up his spine and charges, horns crackling with purple warlock fire “like a giant… electronic stove lighter.” It hits.
    • Richard ends up impaled on Tormiir’s horns: “one between the ribs and one just shy of an exit. Like right mid-cheek.”
    • Richard tries to “paraglide” past on the horns (“Butterfly in the sky”). He calls Tormiir “Toriel, the elf” by mistake.
19. 0:29:43 Bobby and the Hunger vs Copycat. A giant mouth slouches out of the backpack. The Hunger: “Foul flesh sculptor, your mimicry is admirable. I shall make it mine.” Lamprey-jawed tubes spiral at Copycat for three attacks.
    • Attack 1: Copycat rolls a natural 20 on defense and dodges by moving like a lamprey: “no one can copy as good as me.”
    • Attack 2: a miss. Thea: “Look it up on wikihow.”
    • Attack 3: it hits. A tendril scrapes Copycat’s leg and takes “a nice little meatball” of flesh. Caustic Phoenix as narrator: “Put that in a lunchbox for later.”
    • Bobby: “I was raised for this.” Copycat: “Did I just lose a chunk of my leg?”
20. 0:32:45 Copycat becomes “Thornir.” She does a girly anime fan dance, spins, puts on a headband with miniature horns, and takes Tormiir’s form. “I’m Thornir. But only better.”
    • She cheers “drink your milk!” to the crowd. Tormiir: “You dishonored my mother! You sick fucks!”
    • This psychological attack misses.
    • Richard, still on the horns, asks Tormiir to put him down: “that horn kind of close to my rectum.”
21. 0:34:26 The call to Tormiir’s mother. Copycat pulls out a phone: “May I speak to Tormiir’s mother?”
    • She tells the mother that Tormiir signed up for a milk-drinking competition, with a beef-brisket celebration afterward, and wants her there. “Oh, you want to have a word with him? Oh, I’m sorry, you can’t. She hung up on your mom!”
    • Tormiir: “Mommy, no, I did not… I’m going to end your existence.”
    • It hits with a status effect: damage to his relationship with his mother. She “said she was really hoofing it” and will arrive within a couple of hours. Tormiir: “This is racist!” Copycat: “don’t have a cow about it.”
22. 0:37:26 Poisoned meatballs. Copycat asks if the Hunger is hungry. Bobby: “He’s always hungry.” Copycat conjures a plate of poisoned meatballs. It misses.
    • Bobby is delighted. Copycat helps people talk to their moms, and he doesn’t know where he comes from. Most people fear the Hunger, but she gave it meatballs. He hopes they become best friends and “help turn all humans and life into one giant ball of flesh.”
    • Copycat: “Last part is a little iffy… But the rest of it, though, seems quite profitable. I mean, enjoyable.”
    • Then: “By the way, you don’t have a mother. You have a father.” Bobby: “I have more questions.” “Questions will have to wait.”
23. 0:39:46 Richard’s turn. He activates his “turbo dinosaur power”: a bolt of Peloton electricity, gears and cogs twisting, into Tormiir, who is still impaling him.
    • Tormiir rolls a nat 20. His magic is “magical electricity anyway,” so the zap runs down his horns and hooves into the ground. “That tickles.”
    • The blast opens Richard’s wounds. A swarm of chinchillas pours out of his body and nibbles Tormiir. It misses. Tormiir: “You just gave me more friends.” He kisses Richard on the head.
24. 0:41:40 Richard gives up. He pulls himself off the horns: “this is the thrice time I’ve been in this Deathmatch arena and not a single goddamn hit… hits anyone.”
    • He tries a bull charge on the minotaur (“Fuck that Cal [cow] guy”). Tormiir just lowers his head and it bonks off.
    • Richard sits down “and think[s] about my life.” He refuses his last attack: “you try being me, Thea.”
    • The Lord of Fate rules his sobbing a defensive “pathetic stance”: “face to the ground and your ass very high in the air.” The first attack on him has disadvantage. “My ass goes ever further into the air.”

Chaos event 1: the bully ghost (0:44:41)

25. Before the roll, the Lord of Fate calls Bobby “Robbie” again: “You look like the other one… the other boy The Hunger had.” Bobby: “The Hunger had another boy?”
26. A white wisp floats up before each champion. “This ghost is quite the bully.” It grabs an appendage and makes them hit themselves: “stop hitting yourself.”
    • Tormiir rolls a nat 20: “You can stop hitting yourself, you fucking ghost.” The ghost runs away whimpering.
    • Copycat, Bobby and Richard fail and each take a point.

Round 2

27. 0:46:18 Tormiir calls his mother. He turns on Copycat and first phones Mom to clear the status:
    • “you’ve heard of, like, artificial intelligence… this person’s like that, but walking around, and a real asshole.”
    • “I’m not drinking milk, I’m not offering beef, except in the privacy of my own bedroom.”
    • He loves her, and “if I start dying again, I hope you jump through a portal again and give me some of your sweet, nourishing milk, and nobody else!”
28. 0:47:26 The insult. Eye to eye with Copycat: “You only like being everyone else because you know that what you are… is a piece of shit.”
    • Copycat: “I am enough. Because I am everyone. Therefore, I am better than everyone. That’s what my therapy circle taught me before I stole all their identities.”
29. 0:48:39 Tormiir’s first real hit. Purple energy climbs from his hooves, arcs around his horns and locks in the middle, “think Kilowog’s use of his ring. Just a big, solid bolt of fuck you.” It hits Copycat.
    • He thanks the Acolytes for the shirts. They don’t put the milk down, but they stop pouring it “out of respect” and just hold cartons.
30. 0:49:59 Bobby’s conscience. Bobby wants to attack “the giant minotaur that shoots lightning” instead of Copycat, because Copycat might help him find his dad.
    • The Hunger’s tendrils wrap Bobby’s arm and crack it back against his will. His eyes glow with pain: “no, I want that flesh.”
    • The Hunger hits Copycat and drains her power.
    • Bobby breaks free, runs up and punches the back of Tormiir’s calf with his little kid fists, twice. Both miss. “My fingers!”
    • Copycat: “It’s okay. I taste like paper anyways.”
31. 0:52:22 Tormiir’s calves. “Pure, unadulterated sex. I am a giant, massive muscle boy. I grease myself daily. I shave.” He keeps hair only where a gorilla has it: “He’s got a gorilla chest.”
    • Copycat: “those ain’t no baby calves. That’s some prime stock.” Tormiir: “I almost regret trying to kill you.”
32. 0:53:20 The Lord of Fate’s barbecue. Copycat, as the Lord of Fate, asks the real one for help. “Where does the Lord of Fate keep his barbecue?” “In the kitchen.”
    • Thea claps, and goblins bring all of it: “the good kind. From Kansas City.” The Lord of Fate: “Hey, what are you doing with my barbecue?”
    • Copycat wants hot dogs. The goblins bring out at least 500. Muddled lines follow: “Thea doesn’t eat hot dogs because hot dogs are for people.” / “Thea hates people.” (speakers uncertain)
    • Tormiir: “Those better be pork.” Copycat swears they’re vegan tofu hot dogs. Tormiir: “I’ll have five.”
33. 0:54:52 The hot-dog throw. Copycat cooks a ginormous platter and tosses one to Tormiir. She rolls a natural 1. The hot dog slips and stabs her in the eye. Copycat appears to be in Thea’s form here; Caustic Phoenix asks, “How do you hurt yourself throwing hot dogs, Othea?”
    • “Do we only have one eye now?” “If you are me, and I’m you… That makes four eyeballs. So technically we only have three… Hashtag TheaMath.”
34. 0:56:00 The special hot dogs. The second throw hits Tormiir. Copycat: “Hey, Tormiir… How’d those 100% ground beef hot dogs taste?”
    • He takes damage and gets a psychological status effect for “the crippling knowledge that you ate more cows.” Tormiir vomits. The hot dogs come up whole, unchewed: “doink, doink, doink… sticking out.”
    • Caustic Phoenix rules sympathetic vomiting. Copycat and Bobby fail and take a point. Richard is spared because he’s “busy crying into your own hands.”
35. 0:58:16 The viral video. Copycat filmed it all and uploads it to the World Wide Web, cutting out the vomiting, to wreck his credibility. It misses: the internet is unfazed.
    • Tormiir: “I spent full evenings taking big old meat rods over and over… How do you think I paid for college?”
    • “Only cows.” “Only sows.” Bobby: “What you guys talking about?”
36. 0:59:46 Richard’s lament. He sits in the arena sand, legs straight out. He lost his internet business; he “got bought out and sued after Big Tuna”; his commercial broke FCC regulations for false claims (“Tuna juice is delicious”). “And now I’m not even a real boy.”
37. 1:00:34 Dylan the chinchilla. A chinchilla appears and talks to him (only Richard hears it): “everything’s gonna be okay… just because the dice are bad doesn’t mean everything’s bad.”
    • Richard names it Dylan. It tells him he is its nest. If he wins, he becomes a real boy again, or Dylan gets a “real chinchilla home.”
    • Richard holds open the port in his chest so Dylan can climb back in. He tightens his belt buckle and spends every action trying to restore himself (“Elon Musk, electrical energy power”).
    • All three Mettle saves fail. “Dylan, it’s not working!” The Lord of Fate: “You heal zero points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”

Chaos event 2: the frozen flying wombats (1:02:53)

38. Richard screams: “You sick, twisted people!… D20 Deathmatch is my hell!”
39. Raspy shrieks echo across the arena and the sky darkens. “It’s no dragon, no bird, but magically flying frozen wombats stampede through the clouds,” letting loose their bowels: poop hail of cold cubes. All four fail.
    • Thea: “wombat poop is cubed, so they are perfectly ice cubed. You can stack it.” Richard: “It’s still shit.” “But frozen shit. So you can throw it really hard.”
40. 1:04:31 Break. Someone ate his barbecue, so the Lord of Fate goes to eat. The break is cut.

After the break

41. 1:04:49 Thea clears the wombat poop to the side. Anyone may take a cube home as a souvenir. “When we bring them back to life later, then they can take home their very own wombat poop ice cube.”
    • The Lord of Fate: “do you have a brain?” Thea: “I have not opened it up to check… both my eyes work.” He: “We’ll have to cut you open and see someday.” Thea: “Okay.”

Round 3

42. 1:06:59 Tormiir’s flaming blade. He extends his hand and the sword flies back into it. He runs his “long, delicious cow tongue” along the edge and lights it aflame (“That is one mad cow”). The charge misses.
    • He steps into wombat-poop cubes, uses the momentum to swing around, and thrusts. It hits Copycat. Copycat: “Oh, gosh, I feel like I’m at the slaughterhouse.” Caustic Phoenix describes her being “chopped and diced up into all of those beautiful cuts.”
43. 1:09:49 Bobby turns on Richard. “I don’t want to punch a minotaur anymore.” To Richard: “You seem a little sad… you have some weird metal and bugs coming out of you… They’re other animals.”
    • A goopy, pulsing tendril: “put aside your technology. Join the new flesh.” Richard: “In a past life, I vaguely remember seeing your kind before. And I didn’t like it!” He sidesteps on a “dirty 20.”
    • Bobby tries to shove a tentacle down his throat. The Lord of Fate: “I’ve seen this movie, I think.” Richard catches the tentacle in mid-air (“I say, no, not today”) and stares at it, trying to remember where he’s seen it before.
44. 1:11:51 The black mayonnaise. “Like the hunger always says, if you can’t get them with honey, get them with mayonnaise.” Two tentacles fire “like Blastoise cannons,” spraying black bile. It hits, with a status effect of cosmic goo.
    • Thea: “Mayonnaise is gross. We’re a Miracle Whip household.”
    • Richard: “So you’re a liar.” Bobby: “mine are not the pants that are on fire.” Richard: “I have now realized he’s a monster before I believed he was a boy.”
    • Bobby tries to high-five Tormiir and says he “smells like the back of a Westiwan [?].”
45. 1:13:43 Copycat calls the FDA. “Am I speaking to the FDA? I’d like to report a very aggressive case of mad cow disease… It’s a longhorn.”
    • The FDA’s tactical division arrives by helicopter and rappels in. Richard: “I took [Big Tuna?] juice off the market. It wasn’t me.” They run past him to Tormiir: “I’m perfectly clean!”
    • Natural 1: the FDA tramples Copycat instead. “Oh, God, your boots hurt!… is that one genuine leather?”
46. 1:15:31 The milk PSA. On her back, Copycat grabs a megaphone: “we have a rampaging bull on the loose… the only way to protect yourself is to get big and strong. So please buy all the milk everywhere right now.”
    • Milk coupons fly from the sky. Milk sells out across the Void, and every Acolyte has a glass in hand. “Milk that cow… This has been a public service announcement.”
47. 1:17:26 Copycat boosts Dick Twist. “You go over there and you show that grass fed hecker who the heifer you are.” He gets advantage on his first attack.
    • Richard: “I’m in an open lawsuit with the FDA right now… I was a podcaster.” He sent them a manila envelope, and “there’s pending charges for my arrest.” Copycat sent another one.
    • Richard: “Are you actually like big government tech?” Copycat: “I just enjoy being everybody else, everywhere else, including you.”
    • She takes Dick Twist’s face. Richard: “Holy shit. I knew I was sexy.” They nod at each other.
48. 1:19:44 Richard vs the Hunger.
    • Still holding the tentacle, he surges Peloton electricity through it. It misses, even with advantage. Bobby: the Hunger is “made of my feelings.” Richard: “Now I know you’re full of shit.”
    • He uses a Heroic Surge to heal.
    • He asks whether the Hunger is shock-proof. Thea rubs her clothes for static and zaps Bobby; it fails. The Lord of Fate drops a bolt of lightning on him, which also misses. Bobby: “I think I’m just invincible and immortal and unquestionably powerful.” The Lord of Fate: “I think he’s lightning proof.”
    • “That was a joke. I was just charging up my uni-beam.” His Iron Man–style unibeam blasts from his chest. It hits, and smiling chinchillas fly out with it.
49. 1:23:02 Bobby flickers. As the beam hits, Bobby’s eyes go wide: “where am I?” Then the tentacles take over again: “I’m ready to keep fighting.” Richard: “Sorry kid, you’re gonna have to die too, can’t take a chance.”

Chaos event 3: Dolly (1:24:14)

50. Color drains to greyscale except for one burning red circle. Through a portal pushes a fragile hand, then a soft-worn cloth body and a cracked porcelain face framed with matted blonde hair; black glass eyes search for life. “Roll to avoid eye contact with Dolly.”
    • Copycat and Bobby succeed. Tormiir fails. Richard rolls a natural 1: extra damage and a fatigue.

Round 4

51. 1:25:41 Tormiir targets “Dick Twist.” “I’ve made your last cow joke,” he says, eyes on Copycat. Copycat still looks exactly like Dick Twist. Richard: “I defended you and you betrayed me!”
    • A d20 decides who he goes for: 1–10 Dick, 11–20 Copycat. It’s 19: Copycat.
    • His Heroic Surge misses by one. A horn-bolt power-up “unload[s] in the wrong direction” (“Ole!”).
    • Finally he slashes across her front with the sword, “blood everywhere.” Copycat rolls a nat 1 on defense.
    • The status: not mad cow (“no matter what the publications say”) but an infected wound. She lands in wombat poo and it starts “fistering” (festering). Tormiir: “That’s how I made my way through college.”
52. 1:30:35 The Hunger’s big hits fail. The Hunger reasons that the minotaur is busy with Copycat and turns to “the man in the hat”: “Join us, Richard Knightley.” Richard: “You didn’t even say my name right.”
    • Its Heroic Surge rolls a nat 1, and so does its power-up. Bobby: “This is supposed to be the big hit… I’m just as surprised as you.”
    • Bobby steps in himself: “the hunger, step back… I’m gonna give him a big old punch in the belly button.” It hits. He whispers, “if you submit, we can take over the world together.”
    • Richard: “I’m pretty sensitive there.” Bobby: “What did you think it would do? Tickle? I got widdle knuckles.”
53. 1:34:19 Copycat and the Hunger make a deal. Copycat drops the Dick Twist identity.
    • She asks Bobby’s age. Bobby: “I don’t really remember much except for a couple weeks ago, but the hunger tells me that I’m eight.” Copycat: “Calling child services.” The Hunger: “No, don’t do that.”
    • The Hunger offers the eternal flesh: “Infinite knowledge and power.”
    • Copycat, back in the Lord of Fate’s form, mocks him: “I am the Lord of Fate, so I already have everything. Except happiness.… I’m very sad inside and lonely and I just want somebody to give me a hug… deep down inside, I know that Thea is the best thing that has ever happened to me and I won’t tell her that because I’m scared because attachments are scary.”
    • The real Lord of Fate glares; Caustic Phoenix: “Don’t fucking try it.” He: “Are you gonna jump into the hunger? Do it then, whatever!… he wants to consume you, you idiot!”
    • Copycat’s offer: “drop the act of the kid and you and me team up? I’ve always wanted a backpack. With your consuming powers and my ability to take everybody’s identity. I could be them and then you could just eat them.”
    • Persuasion succeeds.
54. 1:38:08 The fusion.
    • The Hunger starts tearing itself off Bobby, but “Bobby is not ripe yet.” Bobby has no skin under his outfit, just a shirt connected underneath. “Oh, that makes me sad. I’m just a little kid.”
    • Copycat: “Consensually, of course… there’s no eye in team.” An eye appears on a tentacle, then disappears.
    • Richard: “There’s only one victory mug.” Copycat, as the Lord of Fate, phones the manufacturer and orders a second mug in case both win. “I mean, I’m the Lord of Fate.” Richard: “You and your goddamn telephone powers.”
    • The backpack rips off Bobby’s back, exposing a half-grown, translucent spine. Bobby goes limp “much like a puppet without an arm” and crumbles. The Hunger wraps around Copycat and becomes a backpack on her back, tendrils undulating from the crevices. Copycat: “I am ready… That tickles.”
    • In the game, the two now act together with pooled Fighting Spirit and fatigue. Copycat removes one fatigue.
55. 1:42:39 Richard and Tormiir team up. Richard: “I never thought I’d see an Eldritch Horror throw a child away to eat copycat with the eternal cell phone.”
    • Tormiir: “I think we should team up against these abominations so we can continue this fight fairly.”
    • The “Meatball special”: Richard climbs into Tormiir’s horns to be launched at them, stabbing with his tinfoil hat. The roll ties. Both gain fatigue. “We’re doing it, Tormiir! I really don’t feel so good, but we’re doing it.”
    • Tormiir eats the hot dogs off the ground, hoping they’ll restore him: “Mooma, I’m so sorry.”
56. 1:45:09 Richard steals the phone. “though it might cost me all my life points, I’m going to steal the phone out of Copycat’s hands.” It hits, with a status effect.
    • He calls Tormiir’s mother: “the call you got earlier was a crank call. Tormiir would never go against his own people.” Copycat shouts: “He’s eating hot dogs right now!” Richard: “Remember him well. He was an honorable minotaur.”
    • He smashes the phone (a second status). He takes the SIM card and sticks it in his aluminum hat: “Now I am the cell phone!”
    • Copycat: “And view your mother’s OnlyFans account.” Richard: “Oh no! Mom! No! Dishonor!”
    • His angry electric burst at the Hunger misses. Bobby (as the Hunger): “We established that I’m immune to electricity like an hour ago.”
    • Copycat: “that was a rental too… you have a terrible credit score.” Richard: “I never pay my debts back! That’s why I have so many lawsuits against me!”

Round 5 (all damage doubled)

57. 1:49:02 Richard: “Tormiir, I cleared it with your mom… I regained your honor.”
58. 1:49:18 Tormiir cancels Copycat. He pulls out a Bluetooth device and beams into Copycat’s social accounts, posting “horrific statements about the state of our current fantasy world, the politics.” “Send, send… retweet, retweet.” The status effect “canceled” hits.
    • Copycat: “How can I be canceled? That just means that I cancel myself.”
    • His horn headbutt misses, and so does a charged sword held between his horns. Copycat: “it looks like we’ve drawn the short horn of things.”
59. 1:51:52 The Hunger’s support combo.
    • Tendrils sink into the ground (“clay,” with “a lot of electrons” from earlier) and siphon the earth’s energy, clearing all statuses.
    • Then one tendril forms an Android phone (“Can’t do the iPhone, sorry”) and another a tablet, doubling Copycat’s communication powers.
60. 1:53:42 The IRS. “I don’t really care about my reputation. Because I myself don’t have one.” Copycat destroys Dick Twist’s bank account and sends the IRS after him. He had “negative $13.” It hits. The IRS sends a harshly worded letter announcing an audit.
61. 1:55:11 The steak dinner. Tormiir falls. Copycat apologizes to the Hunger for the poison and treats it to “a nice steak dinner,” which is arriving right now, behind Tormiir: Tormiir’s mother.
    • The Hunger bites “like a milkshake straw,” powered up, going after the mom: “the worst kind of damage is emotional damage.” Tormiir falls.
62. 1:58:01 Tormiir’s last words. “I just think about my mom and her life giving milk in the way that every other race abuses it.” Thea: “Milk is love. Milk is personal.”
    • “And it was meant for me. Mama loves me. And I disappointed her… I was going to win that mug from my mama so she could drink out of it. Water, you freaks. And I… wanted to hug her one last time.”
    • His ethereal spirit floats out of his body and sits on a sideline bench. Copycat: “he goes to the pastures beyond to be one with the herd.” “How was that beef, hunger?” “Good.”
63. 1:59:49 The egg surprise. “Are you hungry for an egg surprise? Because I think there’s a chinchilla in that one.” The Hunger feeds on Richard. It hits; Richard is at 1, and Copycat-and-Hunger are also at 1. Richard: “I would be really sad if they eat Dylan out of me.”
64. 2:01:12 “Do it for Dylan!” Richard cradles the injured, nearly dead Dylan and walks to Thea: “Can you hold Dylan, please? If he recovers, I don’t want him to die. I should die.”
    • Thea cradles Dylan, exhausted from powering his Peloton body.
    • Richard: “Dylan is dead. Dylan has died.” Thea: “Dylan’s not gonna die.”
65. 2:02:20 The final punches. “One final strike.” He punches at Copycat’s face three times.
    • The first meets a dirty-20 defense. The crowd chants “Dylan!” The second misses; Caustic Phoenix’s narration says he keeps “missing the Ghost of Tormiir [sic].”
    • Tormiir’s ghost cheers: “You’re doing great, bud!… Let’s do it for my mama!”
    • Richard: “For Tormiir’s mother, and if this fails, I go on to see my friend, King Pophos, in the afterlife.” The third is countered by a natural 20.
    • Copycat-and-Hunger regain one Fighting Spirit. The Lord of Fate: “fuck it, round number seven.”

The finish

66. 2:04:28 The felted friend. The Hunger’s tendrils root around the leftover hot dogs, “remnants of the dead Minotaur mother,” and Tormiir’s body, and mangle them into a giant puppet riding atop Copycat.
    • Tormiir’s ghost: “I can copy too… Preferred term is felted friend. I’ll be down here.”
    • The giant Muppet hands swing down. It hits. “This will be how you die.” It looms over Richard, casting a dark shadow: “death knocks on your door.”
67. 2:06:23 The Peloton self-destruct. Bleeding out “for the third fucking time on this goddamn show, consecutively,” Richard blames Foundry VTT, then: “Hey, Hunger, you didn’t sign the Peloton warranty.” The Hunger: “I… Need no warranty.”
    • “Surprise, bitch, you get to explode. Go ahead, eat up, big boy… Peloton self-destruct sequence has begun.” Copycat: “You want some tums for that?”
    • Caustic Phoenix lets him roll the bomb (“I have zero faith in you”). It’s countered.
68. 2:08:24 Welcome. The tendrils gush over him like a geyser and swallow him whole.
    • He hears one voice, then hundreds in chorus: “welcome, welcome… You’re here. You’re with us. You’re loved.” He feels a thousand arms embrace him as he becomes one with the Hunger.
    • Richard’s last line: “Coachella sucks this year.” Copycat: “Hi! Do you want a mint?”
69. 2:09:20 Victory. Thea: “Congratulations to our victor, the champion, Copycat and the Hunger!” The Acolytes go wild. They’ll get the mug, sent “as soon as I find out where you live.”
70. 2:09:40 The Lord of Fate walks out. Copycat-as-Lord of Fate gushes: “I loved it. It was amazing.” Thea: “I’m very proud of you.” The real Lord of Fate: “That’s not me.”
    • “To be honest with you, I didn’t have a great time… they died. Cool. But this is just not how it was supposed to go. Things are not the way they’re supposed to be.”
    • He takes a jab from Copycat (“Run away?… because I’m a baby like that”; speaker mix uncertain), then: “I got somewhere else to be… I got something to do.” He stomps back into the Dread Fortress. Mudcat: “We’ll leave it there for now.”
    • Copycat: “just let my other half cry it out.” She invites Thea for ice cream, and both love ice cream.
71. 2:11:11 With the Lord of Fate gone, the Acolytes turn to Thea: “This has been an amazing season… show us what it means to never give up until the final breath in your body is finally gone. Thank you and good night from D20 Deathmatch!”