S7E1 — A Soup Served Cold — DeeDrah v Gazpacho Man Andy Gammage

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Season 7 opened on a blood-soaked castle rampart under a giant full moon, where DeeDrah, a woman with one name and two blades, fought Andy Gammage, the Gazpacho Man and self-proclaimed Intercontinental Cold Soups Champion. It was a brawl of steel chairs, barbed-wire noogies and a man who swallowed a beam of magic in two gulps. In the end, the life-or-death question came down to the deadliest game in the world: rock, paper, scissors.

The Story

The Season of Vigilance

The season began in The Dread Fortress with the Arbiter asking the Grandmaster to keep talking, because Stuart, the IT guy, was “screwing up in the background again.” She was happy to oblige. She declared a season of Vigilance and warned that “Things are changing in the Void and danger is edging along.” Then she caught herself: “I shouldn’t have said edging, that sounded sexual.” The champions had been brought back “so that way we may be united as a community, that we remember who we are. These fights aren’t just for show.” A moment later she admitted they were very much for show.

She welcomed the Acolytes. First-timers were encouraged to bring their grandmas and throw them into the arena as fodder, shouting their names so they would make the credits. A blue slushie machine and Double Sun Cola waited at the break. When she called herself “the most amazing and generous Grandmaster,” the Arbiter hedged. She listed people who would agree with her, including Grandma Naomi, Linda (“Nobody likes Linda, though”) and Edna. He told her she did “fine around here,” but “let’s not blow it out of proportion.”

Then came an awkward question: had he forgotten the champions again? The Arbiter explained that he was “now upper management” and had delegated that job to Thea. Thea was nowhere to be found in the empty halls. All he remembered was that she had been working on “a craft… a project… Deadline.” Hoping for the best, he smacked his hands together. A portal tore open in time and space, and the champions stepped through.

Two Champions, Too Many Names

DeeDrah spoke plainly: “Grandmaster. I am Deidra. I am here to fight for you.” Asked whether she was experienced, she said only “Yeah.” That satisfied the Grandmaster, who put her money on DeeDrah before the second champion had said a word.

That second champion had plenty of words. “My name’s Andrew. My friends can call me Andy. Andy Gammage! Gazpacho Man! Intercontinental Cold Soups Champion.” He had come “to win back my full mortality so I can take on Mean Gene for that world title.” The Grandmaster found all those names greedy and preferred DeeDrah’s single one, “Just like Cher… Easy to chant.” The Arbiter thought Andy was “desperate for friendship,” but he warmed to him quickly.

The Grandmaster wanted the fight somewhere Thea couldn’t get to, so she said, “Take us to the castle.” The Arbiter flared his white, glowing wings in ripples of time and space. No portal opened. The world simply blended “kind of like the Scooby-Doo ending,” and they stood atop the rampart of a dreary, dread castle. Bodies, halberds and swords lay strewn about, and screams, gnashing of teeth and wailing rose in the background. “It is cold, it is desolate, and it is begging to be destroyed by our champions,” the Grandmaster said. “Make this your stage.”

Chairs, Children and Skin Pockets

Andy struck first. With a heavy heart he produced a steel chair, pulling it from his elbow crease “like a clown’s pocket.” When someone called him a magician, he explained: “You don’t earn money doing cold soup shows. You gotta earn on the side.” The chair landed with “a beautiful smash sound,” and he followed it with a shove and a charge. “This may be cold soup, but things are getting hot,” the Grandmaster observed, and she awarded herself a point for the line. The Acolytes pelted Andy with blue slushies, and he guzzled one: “It’s no gazpacho, but it’ll do.”

DeeDrah answered with a short sword in one hand and a sickle in the other. The sword struck home, but Andy threw her off the sickle swing with a few cutting words “from my bard side”: “Not today, little lady. I got soups to make.” She slashed him hard enough to throw off his next attack (“slow that shit down”) and laid a curse on him for good measure. The Arbiter announced he was pulling for Andy, because “a man who’s, you know, confident enough to give himself several nicknames… screams winner.”

The first bout of chaos came from the stands. A crowd of children, about five to 12 years old, began cheering in the form of insults (“Oh, your eyebrows! One’s bigger than the other!”). Neither champion could ignore them. Andy took it worst: “Cold soup sucks! Hot soup’s better!” Hidden among the children was a tiny pink imp, Thea, whose laser-beam eyes made every insult sting. Asked where she had been, she offered a spoken report, since, as the Arbiter admitted, “I haven’t taught her to write.” She had counted “1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 12, 14, 82 stairs, I think.” Then she had passed through doors shaped like a U, an I, an O and another I, and found the bathroom, “which was really nice, but I didn’t need to be there yet.”

The insult had wounded Andy deeply. “I am sensitive about the number of toes I have. It’s not my fault. It was a cold soup accident.” He flew into a rage, red up to the forehead with steam shooting from his ears. DeeDrah called this “inconsistent.” Andy grabbed her in a headlock and reached into another bicep for a two-by-four wrapped in barbed wire. The Arbiter finally understood: “This whole time he’s had skin pockets.” When the Grandmaster asked when Andy had last showered, he answered, “Well, I’ve been dead for 20 years, so probably 30 years.” DeeDrah, who likes “stinky things,” was unbothered by the smell. What followed was a perfect strike, and “the worst noogie of your life,” the barbed wire raking back and forth through her hair.

That was a mistake. “Nobody touches my hair.” Still trapped in his grip, DeeDrah threw up a hand and blasted sparkly magic straight up his nostrils. “I see the turntables have turntabled,” Andy said, adding, “You think that’s the worst thing I’ve snorted?” When her second blast came, he opened his mouth, rolled his eyes back and swallowed it, in two gulps. The Acolytes went wild. The Grandmaster called it a first in the arena, and the swallowed magic healed him. DeeDrah wriggled free: “I am free from your grip, and you still had to eat magic.”

Bulls, Wings and a Chinchilla

The moon dimmed and the stone floor turned sticky. Each champion found an open PBR in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other, with a mechanical bull rising beneath them. “Roll to yee-haw, motherfuckers,” the Grandmaster commanded. DeeDrah was a pro and had already named her bull Edward (“We’re buddies”). Andy surfed his bull’s back with gyrating hips and described his skill set as “Throating magic and frustrating folks.”

When Andy grabbed for her again, DeeDrah dove under him (“I’m a slippery little fucker”). She pulled shadows around her arm that hugged tighter whenever anyone pulled against them. “Don’t you fuck with hugs,” Andy protested. “That’s all I’m trying to do.” He seized her anyway, unleashed his heavenly aura, sprouted great golden wings and carried her a hundred feet up, a silhouette against the moon. “Look kid, I really like you, but I gotta get to the gazpacho king status. I’ll see you at the bottom.” He let go. DeeDrah spread wings of her own and flew back down: “Come and get me, fucker!” When the Arbiter noted the problem with both champions having wings, she shot back, “Everyone has wings!”

The third chaos event was small and pitter-pattering: a tiny, sad-eyed chinchilla begging for warmth, whose icy touch made it a “Chin Killer.” DeeDrah warned it off (“I’m cute too”), and it bonded to her. Andy declined a chinchilla of his own: “My autistic focus right now is on sea lions.” The Grandmaster nearly choked on her water and promised to find him one over the break.

Partners?

After the break, neither host had approved the commercial Thea had somehow made and edited herself. Asked who taught her, Thea hopped up the steps, farting with every one, and refused to answer. The Arbiter insisted “We’re a team now. We’re partners now,” and added, “I mean, I kind of saved your life.” He had once died stepping in front of the Shadow King’s attack on Doug. The Grandmaster was unmoved:

Grandmaster: “I am the Grandmaster. There’s no Grandmaster and Arbiter. There’s the Grandmaster and then the Arbiter.”

She then confessed that, though “eons of ages old,” she had never had gazpacho, and that she might have her first cup if Andy won. Andy offered the Arbiter some baffling advice about abstinence and filling his cup of soup. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re trying to say to me, but I like it,” the Arbiter replied. “You can stay.” Hovering like Piccolo, Andy declared himself reformed: “He used to be bad, then he gave birth to himself, now he’s good… Just like the gazpacho man.” Then he went supersonic and hit her with the steel chair. The Acolytes, furious about the hair, rioted in DeeDrah’s honor and chanted her name. She answered with a devastating sickle blow.

What’s in the Box?

The Arbiter brought out Gerald. A yellow and purple box shot down from the heavens, its lid throwing up a heatless column of magical fire, and a shadowy figure with black, tendrilly fingers crept out. Andy swallowed the fingers. “Get the fuck off my fingers, guy,” Gerald complained, and he wanted to know where HR was. Each champion could sacrifice something for a prize. Ready to leave his past behind, Andy dropped in his Intercontinental Championship belt. “I got a lot of shit, but not a championship belt,” said Gerald. “This is fucking sweet.” In return he floated Andy a sleeveless denim jacket of ethereal leather and chain, and the Acolytes immediately ripped the sleeves off their own jackets to match. “Gotta abolish that sleevery,” Andy said.

Things went downhill from there. The chair dented its own seat on DeeDrah. On Andy’s next swing it unfolded, bounced off the ground and went “straight for the taint”: his own. He tried to save face with finger guns and a little gazpacho dance. DeeDrah answered his “stupid fingers” with a burst of hellfire. He shrugged off half of it: being a gazpacho chef made him resistant to fire, and so did the fact that he was known “in some of the clubs around LA as what they call a bear.” The chinchilla, it turned out, had been riding the end of DeeDrah’s blade the whole time and taking a bite with every hit. A whisper reached her ear: “Chinchilla Crew.”

Andy pulled a maul from his vest, then went back to his trusty, dented chair (“Crank that Superman”), which hit hard and then missed. “Maybe you should just sit in chairs from now on instead of swing them,” DeeDrah suggested. With nothing else to offer the box, she asked her chinchilla to “take one for the team,” and it popped in. Gerald was delighted, because he “needed one more to finish my boots.” After a long pause (the Grandmaster joked he was learning to read), he handed her “this piece of junk I’ve had laying around,” a Dragon Slayer. The Grandmaster renamed it on the spot: “It’s a bear slayer.” At first it felt far too heavy. “I bet the sword’s not that heavy,” Andy said, “but the weight of your conscience is on it.” DeeDrah fired back, “And your soup is gonna taste like guilt,” and the bear slayer bit deep.

Rock, Paper, Scissors

Both champions were nearly spent. Andy, exhausted, landed a punch and grabbed DeeDrah once more, then swung his soup ladle in a great uppercut and missed. The stands erupted, with Acolytes trampling and stabbing one another with broken bottles. Their frenzy called up a final chaos event: “the most deadliest game in the world and it is rock, paper, scissors.” The winner would live and the loser would die.

DeeDrah threw paper. Andy threw scissors. “Look kid, you put up a good fight,” he told her, imagining a world where they might have been tag team champions. “But my Miss Elizabeth is waiting for me.” He drove the handle of his ladle through her eye and down to the ground. The Grandmaster poured her bowl of gazpacho over the body, and it kept pouring, an unending fountain: “May you be remembered well and swim in the bowl that never ends.” Her vast, glittering wings spread in the moonlight as she raised Andy’s hand. He vowed to face Mean Gene, “my best friend who stabbed me in the back, literally, and killed me over the gazpacho pot,” and to make Miss Elizabeth a queen. The Arbiter’s bet paid off.

Grandmaster: “This night, you have witnessed glory. You have witnessed good soup.”

Dried Blood

Afterward, Andy told DeeDrah, “You can call me Andrew because you’re not a person anymore.” DeeDrah insisted the chinchilla had volunteered, and the Grandmaster confirmed it was “a volunteer jump.” The Arbiter warned that the chinchillas are unionized and would make trouble for the rest of the season. He also confirmed that Gerald’s chinchilla boots were now finished. The Grandmaster added that chinchillas in the Void are immune to magic, and that you can throw them. Andy revealed that Gerald’s fingers taste like black licorice. The Grandmaster offered to record “Kurumi,” Andy’s nickname for DeeDrah, in her eulogy notes. When asked about next of kin, DeeDrah said to notify the Sanrio company, since she is a loner.

Notable Moments

• Andy swallowed a beam of DeeDrah’s magic in two gulps, which the Grandmaster called a first in the arena.
• The Arbiter realized Andy had been pulling a steel chair and a barbed-wire two-by-four out of “skin pockets.”
• Andy carried DeeDrah a hundred feet into the sky and dropped her, only for her to sprout wings and fly right back.
• The Acolytes ripped off their sleeves in solidarity with Andy’s new sleeveless jean jacket.
• DeeDrah sacrificed her loyal chinchilla so Gerald could finish his boots, and got a “bear slayer” in return.
• The match was decided by rock, paper, scissors, and ended with a soup ladle through the eye.

Memorable Quotes

• Andy Gammage: “I am sensitive about the number of toes I have. It’s not my fault. It was a cold soup accident.”
• Andy Gammage: “Well, I’ve been dead for 20 years, so probably 30 years.”
• DeeDrah: “Nobody touches my hair.”
• Andy Gammage: “I see the turntables have turntabled.”
• DeeDrah: “Maybe you should just sit in chairs from now on instead of swing them.”
• Gerald: “I got a lot of shit, but not a championship belt. This is fucking sweet.”
• Andy Gammage: “I bet the sword’s not that heavy, but the weight of your conscience is on it.”
• Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: “May you be remembered well and swim in the bowl that never ends.”

Who and What Appears

Characters

Andy Gammage, “Gazpacho Man” (Jay Foster). Also answers to Andrew and Andy.

• Who he is:
  • Intercontinental Cold Soups Champion.
  • Has been dead for 20 years, killed by Mean Gene, his best friend, who literally stabbed him in the back over the gazpacho pot. He fights to win back his full mortality, take on Mean Gene for the world title and become the Gazpacho King.
  • Wants to make his Miss Elizabeth “Queen Elizabeth.”
• Body and habits:
  • Missing toes from “a cold soup accident.” Sensitive about it.
  • Has skin pockets in his biceps, elbow crease and vest.
  • Hasn’t showered in “probably 30 years”; calls the stink his “heavenly aura.”
  • Trains and makes soup in “the danger room.” Hates hot soup. Catchphrase “Oh yeah.”
• Powers:
  • Rage (red face, steam from the ears). Known “in some of the clubs around LA” as a bear, so he resists fire while raging.
  • Cutting Words “from my bard side.” Swallow Magic (ate an Eldritch Blast in two gulps; called a first in the arena).
  • A heavenly aura with big golden wings. Finger guns.
• Weapons and gear: steel chair (now dented), barbed-wire two-by-four, maul, soup ladle.
• This episode:
  • Sacrificed his Intercontinental Championship belt to the Box of Chaos for the sleeveless denim jean jacket (+3 AC).
  • Swallowed Gerald’s fingers. Hit himself in the taint with his own chair.
  • The Arbiter likes him (“You can stay”).
  • Won.

DeeDrah (MrsBettierage). Goes by one name, “Just like Cher.” Called “Kurumi” by Jay.

• Fighting style and powers:
  • Short sword and sickle. Pact of the Blade warlock: Eldritch Blast, hex, shadow armor, Hellish Rebuke.
  • Slasher feat. Resistant to radiant damage. Celestial Revelation wings.
• This episode:
  • “Nobody touches my hair.” Her hair was wrecked by the barbed-wire noogie.
  • Expert on the mechanical bull, whom she named Edward.
  • Bonded with the chinchilla (“Chinchilla Crew”), then sacrificed it to the Box of Chaos for the Dragon Slayer (“bear slayer”), made into her pact scimitar.
  • Killed by a ladle through the eye after losing rock-paper-scissors.
  • A loner. The GM bet on her.

The Arbiter (Mudcat).

• Now “upper management.” Delegated finding champions to Thea, and gives Thea her performance reviews.
• Claims “We’re partners now” and “I kind of saved your life.” He hasn’t taught Thea to write.
• Traveled to the arena by flaring his white glowing wings in ripples of time and space.
• Bet on Andy.

Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer (Caustic Phoenix).

• Opens the “season of Vigilance”: danger approaches the Void.
• “There’s the Grandmaster and then the Arbiter.”
• “Eons of ages old,” never had gazpacho; may have her first cup if Andy wins.
• Hosts “The Price is Kinda Right” (in the break; not logged). Has vast, colorful wings.
• Poured an unending bowl of gazpacho over DeeDrah’s body.

Thea (Caustic Phoenix). A tiny pink imp.

• Was supposed to find the champions; was off on “a craft… project.” Can’t write.
• Heckled Andy from among the insulting children.
• Gave a spoken report of counting stairs and finding the bathroom through U-I-O-I doors.
• Made her own unapproved “Thea Teaches” commercial; refused to explain it, hopping up the steps farting.

Gerald / the Box of Chaos (Mudcat).

• A yellow and purple box. Its lid beams heatless magical fire hundreds of feet up, and a shadowy figure with black tendrilly fingers comes out.
• His fingers taste like black licorice (Dried Blood).
• Kept the championship belt. Used the chinchilla to finish his chinchilla boots.
• Asked “Where’s HR?” Gave away the Dragon Slayer as “junk.”

The chinchilla.

• A tiny, icy “Chin Killer” chinchilla. It bonded to DeeDrah, rode her blade biting on each hit (“Chinchilla Crew”), and volunteered into the Box of Chaos.
• Chinchillas in the Void are immune to magic and throwable; they are unionized (Dried Blood).

Stuart / Stewart. The arena’s IT, who “gets everything wrong.”

Mean Gene. Andy’s former best friend and killer; world-title holder (inferred from “take on Mean Gene for that world title”).

Miss Elizabeth. Andy’s beloved, waiting for him.

Named Acolytes / people: Grandma Naomi, Linda, Edna, Anna Vortaria; “Great to Be a Gator” (threw Andy a slushie); the insulting children.

Places

• The Dread Fortress. Its empty halls; stairs and a bathroom per Thea.
• “The castle”: a dreary dread castle rampart under a giant full moon, blood-soaked, with bodies and weapons strewn about. Chosen so Thea couldn’t reach it.
• The western bar conjured by the chaos event: sticky floor, mechanical bulls.
• Andy’s soup “danger room.”
• “Clubs around LA” (real-world joke).

Items

• Andy’s Intercontinental (Cold Soups) Championship belt, now in the Box of Chaos.
• Sleeveless denim jean jacket (+3 AC; ethereal leather-and-chain structure). The Acolytes copied the look.
• Dragon Slayer (“bear slayer”), now DeeDrah’s pact scimitar.
• Gerald’s chinchilla boots (finished).
• Andy’s steel chair (dented seat), barbed-wire 2×4, maul, ladle.
• PBR and cigarette (chaos event).
• Blue slushies (adrenaline) and Double Sun Cola.
• The GM’s unending bowl of gazpacho.

Lore statements

• Season 7 is the “season of Vigilance”: things are changing in the Void and danger is approaching. The fights unite the community “so that we remember who we are.”
• The Arbiter is now “upper management,” with Thea as his delegate.
• Chinchillas of the Void: immune to magic, throwable, unionized (Dried Blood).
• The mega chaotic event: rock-paper-scissors decides life and death.

Full Round-by-Round

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

Opening — the Dread Fortress

1. 0:00:33 The show intro: “Welcome to D20 Deathmatch!” The Arbiter announces “Season 7 begins now.” The Grandmaster says the Acolytes “have been begging for your return to the arena.”
2. 0:01:12 — Stuart. The Arbiter asks the Grandmaster to keep talking because Stuart, the IT guy, is “screwing up in the background again.” The GM: “Stuart gets everything wrong.”
3. 0:01:17 — The season’s purpose. The GM kicks off the “season of Vigilance”:
   • “Things are changing in the Void and danger is edging along.” She adds, “I shouldn’t have said edging, that sounded sexual.”
   • The champions are brought back “for good reason. So that way we may be united as a community, that we remember who we are. These fights aren’t just for show.” Then she adds: “I mean, they are very much so for show.”
   • The fights “bring out the best of us… We give it to the very last drop of blood.”
4. 0:02:20 — Welcome to the Dread Fortress.
   • First-timers should bring their grandmas and throw them in the arena as fodder, shouting the grandma’s name so she gets into the credits.
   • At the break there is a blue slushie machine (“one of our favorites”) and Double Sun Cola.
   • “I, just the most amazing and generous Grandmaster. Isn’t that right, Arbiter?” He hedges: “I don’t know if I’d put it that way.”
5. 0:03:26 — Who would agree. The GM lists people who would back her up: Grandma Naomi, Linda (“Nobody likes Linda, though”), Edna (“Everyone knows Edna”). The Arbiter adds Anna Vortaria [spelling?]: “those are people that no one even knows.” He tells her she does “fine around here,” but “let’s not blow it out of proportion.”
6. 0:03:51 — Thea was put in charge. The GM asks if he forgot the champions again.
   • The Arbiter: “I am now upper management, as you know, and I have delegated that to Thea.”
   • He looks around the empty halls of the Dread Fortress for her. All he remembers is that she was working on “a craft… a project… Deadline.”
   • The GM: “Are you allowing her to play with scissors at this point?”
7. 0:04:56 — The portal. The Arbiter smacks his hands together, hoping Thea arranged champions. A portal in time and space rips open and the champions step through. The players had to be cued in (“That’s your cue… get in here”).
8. 0:05:53 — DeeDrah. “Grandmaster. I am Deidra. I am here to fight for you.”
   • She claims to be an experienced fighter with a single “Yeah.” The GM accepts it (“Who would just say they were if they weren’t?”).
   • The GM puts her money on DeeDrah before even hearing from Andy.
9. 0:06:36 — Andy Gammage.
   • “My name’s Andrew. My friends can call me Andy. Andy Gammage! Gazpacho Man! Intercontinental Cold Soups Champion.”
   • “I’m here to win back my full mortality so I can take on Mean Gene for that world title.”
   • The GM fusses over what to call him. He says friends can call him Andy, and so can everyone else.
   • The Arbiter: “He’s desperate for friendship.” Andy agrees they’re doing him a favor, since he “potentially can win exactly what I want.”
10. 0:08:00 — Names. The GM finds his many names greedy and prefers DeeDrah’s single name: “Just like Cher… Easy to chant.” She chants “Deidra” four times. The Arbiter: “a woman with one name and a man with way too many names… If it’s not [great], you know who to blame.” The GM: blame Thea.
11. 0:08:48 — The arena: the castle. The GM wants the fight “where she cannot get to,” meaning Thea: “Take us to the castle.”
    • The Arbiter flares his white glowing wings in ripples of time and space. No portal opens: “kind of like the Scooby-Doo ending,” everything blends.
    • They arrive on top of a rampart of a dreary, dread castle. A giant full moon shines down on a blood-soaked castle.
    • In the background there are screams of innocents, gnashing of teeth and wailing. Dead bodies and weapons (halberds, swords) lie strewn about.
    • The GM: “It is cold, it is desolate, and it is begging to be destroyed by our champions… Make this your stage.”
12. 0:10:41 The Arbiter flies high into the sky (“Acolytes! Are you ready to see some blood?”) and calls a flat d20 roll-off for initiative. DeeDrah thought low numbers won (“I’m almost number one”). Andy goes first.

Round 1

13. 0:12:15 — The steel chair. “I’m very sorry, Deidre, that I have to do this to you, but I gotta get back my honor… become the gazpacho king.”
    • With a heavy heart he pulls out his steel chair. He rummages, then pulls it from his elbow crease “like a clown’s pocket”; he keeps things “in one of these biceps.”
    • Someone calls out “He’s a magician!” Andy: “You don’t earn money doing cold soup shows. You gotta earn on the side.”
    • The chair hits with “a beautiful smash sound.” The GM: “I think I may have underestimated you a little bit. My apologies.” Andy: “apology accepted.”
14. 0:14:56 — Push and charge. Andy’s weapon mastery sends DeeDrah skidding back 10 ft, “anime style.” He then charges her for his second attack (Charger feat, bonus damage).
    • GM: “This may be cold soup, but things are getting hot. That was a good line. One point for the Grandmaster.”
    • Andy: “Chipping away. Doesn’t have to be fast. We can go slow.” GM: “This is why you deserve to be a champion.”
15. 0:17:05 — Blue slushies. The Acolytes throw blue slushies, specifically at Andy, and he guzzles one (“It’s no gazpacho, but it’ll do”). This is the slushie/adrenaline bonus, +1 to his rolls.
16. 0:18:12 — DeeDrah’s response. She fights with a short sword in one hand and a sickle in the other.
    • The short sword hits (“stabby stab”). Andy: “I’m just fine. Just warm enough. Unlike my soups, which are cold.”
    • The sickle slash would land, but Andy uses Cutting Words “from my bard side”: “Not today, little lady. I got soups to make.” The sickle attack now misses.
17. 0:20:52 — Slasher. DeeDrah’s Slasher feat (“slow that shit down”) lands from her slashing hit. Since the two are locked together on the wall, the Arbiter rules it gives Andy disadvantage on his first attack next round instead of reducing his speed.
18. 0:21:47 DeeDrah hexes Andy with her bonus action. The Arbiter allows it even though she’d already attacked: “You should have maybe hexed him first, but whatever.”
19. 0:22:25 — Bets. The GM is pleased with the face-to-face fighting and still bets on DeeDrah. The Arbiter pulls for Andy: “a man who’s, you know, confident enough to give himself several nicknames… screams winner.”

Chaos event 1 — the insulting children (0:23:31)

20. DeeDrah rolls a 9. In the stands, a contingent of children aged about five to 12 cheer, but they are hurling insults: “You dress like me, Ma! You don’t have enough toes!” “Oh, your eyebrows! One’s bigger than the other!”
21. Both champions fail the Wisdom save, Andy with a natural 1 (“No one passes!”). The insults hurt Andy most: “Cold soup sucks! Hot soup’s better!”
22. 0:25:10 — Thea is in the crowd. Among the children is a tiny pink imp, Thea, who “seems to have it out for” Andy; her laser-beam eyes make the insults hurt more. Andy takes 2 damage, DeeDrah 1.
23. 0:25:47 — Thea’s report.
    • The Arbiter: “Thea, where have you been?” Thea: “I was hanging out in a couple of places. Do I have to give a report?”
    • The GM doesn’t want to read it: “I don’t think she knows how to write.” The Arbiter: “I haven’t taught her to write.”
    • Thea’s spoken report: she counted stairs (“1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 12, 14, 82 stairs, I think”). Then she went through doors shaped like a big U, a big I, a big O and a big I again and found the bathroom, “which was really nice, but I didn’t need to be there yet.”
    • The Arbiter: “It sounds like an adventure.” They move on.

Round 2

24. 0:27:01 The Arbiter mixes up the turn order (“Arbiter’s already messed up”). He says Stewart hasn’t been helpful this week and the arena is a mess.
25. 0:27:19 — The toes and the rage. The pink thing’s insult “hurt me right in the feelings.”
    • “I am sensitive about the number of toes I have. It’s not my fault. It was a cold soup accident.”
    • The rage: all his biceps bulge, and the gazpacho’s spice heat (not temperature) turns him red up to the forehead and shoots steam out of his ears.
    • DeeDrah: “It’s okay for you to be hot and steamy, but not your soup. It’s inconsistent.”
26. 0:28:43 — Heroic surge. The Acolytes’ praise floods DeeDrah’s brain and grants her a heroic surge: she may break the rules once, “big anime moment.”
27. 0:29:35 — The grapple and the 2×4.
    • Andy punches (unarmed strike) and grapples her (Grappler feat). He gets her in a headlock and pushes out his middle knuckle for “a big old noogie.” She fails the Strength save.
    • He then reaches into another bicep and pulls out a two-by-four with barbed wire on it.
    • The Arbiter realizes the man has been pulling things from inside his arms: “This whole time he’s had skin pockets.” The GM: “Very efficient.”
28. 0:32:22 — The smell. The GM asks when he last showered. Andy: “Well, I’ve been dead for 20 years, so probably 30 years.”
    • DeeDrah makes a Constitution save against the stink and rolls 20: “I don’t mind things that stink. I like stinky things.”
    • Andy: “It’s my heavenly aura. …I think you’ll find that it’s actually still in your face.”
29. 0:33:17 — The noogie. The 2×4 attack, with advantage on the grappled DeeDrah, is a natural 20, and he gains more adrenaline.
    • “I’m gonna give you the worst noogie of your life… With a two by four barbed wire. Just raking it back and forth. Fucking up that hair.”
    • Her hair now “looks like somebody backcombed the shit out of it.” The Arbiter: “Scalp damage.”
    • DeeDrah: “Nobody touches my hair.”
30. 0:35:10 — Eldritch Blast in the face. Still grappled, DeeDrah throws up her hand and “sparkly magic” erupts: “don’t touch my hair!” The Arbiter rules there’s no disadvantage for magic this close.
    • It hits Andy full in the face and up the nostrils, “straight into the dome.” Andy has no resistance to force: “One of the only things that works.”
    • Andy: “I see the turntables have turntabled.” Then: “You think that’s the worst thing I’ve snorted?”
31. 0:37:42 — Swallow Magic. Her second blast misses, and Andy uses “swallow magic” to eat the beam.
    • “I just open my mouth and my eyes roll back as it hits the back of my throat and then rolls down as I swallow it.”
    • The Acolytes go “fucking ape shit”: they “have never seen this before except for on HBO.” The display earns Andy his own heroic surge, and the swallowed magic heals him.
    • The GM makes him roll a d4 for how many swallows: two. “It’s a lot of magic. Deidre’s very powerful.” The Arbiter: “Some people pay extra for that though.”
    • Andy’s motto: “Gotta prepare when you’re standing ready, oh yeah.”
32. 0:41:22 DeeDrah: “ew… okay, now I know what I’m dealing with.” With the Acolytes’ adrenaline she breaks the grapple (dirty 20): “I am free from your grip, and you still had to eat magic.”
33. 0:42:27 The Arbiter: “we just watched a grown man swallow a beam of magic in two gulps.” The GM is impressed: “I imagine he had to eat a lot of gazpacho soup to prepare… I think that might be a first here in the arena.”

Chaos event 2 — the western bar (0:43:14)

34. Andy rolls a 4 (“After my Eldritch Throat Blast”).
    • The moon dims as if on a dimmer, and the stone floor turns sticky.
    • Each champion finds an opened PBR in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other, and a mechanical bull pumps up from the ground beneath them.
    • “We are in a western bar… Roll to yee-haw, motherfuckers.” They make Dex saves to stay on.
35. 0:45:10 — Both stay on.
    • DeeDrah is a pro: “Oh, I know this scene. Yee-haw, motherfuckers!” She has named her bull Edward; “We’re buddies.”
    • Andy matches her (advantage from “dangerous things”). He describes his skill set as “Throating magic and frustrating folks.”
    • The Arbiter asks about his gym. Andy makes his gazpacho in “the danger room from the X-Men,” with no stove since it’s cold.
    • On the bull, Andy surfs its back, gyrating his hips.

Round 3

36. 0:47:48 Andy: “You may have broken my grip once, but you won’t do it again.” He hits, then tries to grapple. DeeDrah rolls a natural 20: “I’m a slippery little fucker.” The Arbiter: “Put that on your tombstone.” She dives under him (“Go low. He’s never seen his ankles,” says the GM).
37. 0:49:45 — Shadow armor. DeeDrah’s reaction is shadow armor: she pulls from the Plane of Shadows, the next attack against her has disadvantage, and she resists radiant damage, which she “already had.”
    • The GM: the shadows creep up as the moon brightens again and hug her arm, tightening if she pulls against them.
    • Andy: “Don’t you fuck with hugs. That’s all I’m trying to do.” DeeDrah: “Not from you.”
38. 0:50:53 Andy hits anyway (27 with disadvantage) and tries the grapple again; she resists (21). He answers with Cutting Words: “you don’t get this intercontinental championship built by pulling moves like that… you in the big time now.” She is grappled again. DeeDrah: “I am a champion regardless of what you say, but that kind of hurt a little bit.”
39. 0:52:55 — The heavenly aura and the flight.
    • “Almost as if I was making a Hatsu, which I am not.” He unleashes his heavenly aura, and big golden wings sprout from his back. He flies straight up with DeeDrah in his grip. The GM: “Two of you, a silhouette against the moon, just picturesque.”
    • He spends his heroic surge to fly as high as possible (advantage, double 14s): about a hundred feet up.
    • At the top: “Look kid, I really like you, but I gotta get to the gazpacho king status. I’ll see you at the bottom.” He lets go.
40. 0:55:30 — DeeDrah’s wings. As she falls she keeps facing him, then uses Celestial Revelation: her wings come out and she flies back down: “Come and get me, fucker!”
    • The Arbiter: “Guess that’s the problem when both champions have wings.” DeeDrah: “Everyone has wings!” Someone: “That’s the quickest shutdown of a heroic surge.”
    • On the way down she fires two Eldritch Blasts. Both miss, “just for dramatic effect.”

Chaos event 3 — the chinchilla (0:57:32)

41. The Arbiter rolls a 17 (the GM: “you are actually really terrible at rolling”).
    • Something small on the ground, like a pebble, shakes and pitter-patters toward them. It is a tiny chinchilla with sad big eyes, begging for warmth in the cold. They must resist its icy touch, “Because they are Chin Killers!”
    • DeeDrah rolls a natural 20: “Look here, little fucker, I’m cute too, and I know we can pack a punch, so you stay over there.” Andy rolls 19.
42. 0:59:13 — The bond. The GM rules the chinchilla bonds to DeeDrah and adds +1 to her attacks: “Chaos is good and chaos is bad.”
    • Andy gets to name his chinchilla but isn’t tempted (“Just don’t add it to your soup”): “My autistic focus right now is on sea lions.”
    • The GM nearly chokes on her water and promises: “We’ll find you a sea lion over the break.”
43. 1:00:35 The Arbiter calls the break: “maybe find a seal or something like that. We’ll be back in 10 minutes.”

Ad break (1:00:35–1:11:06), excluded

After the break

45. 1:11:06 — Thea’s commercial.
    • The GM: “Wait, did we just watch the same thing?” Neither approved Thea’s commercial: “Now she has a whole segment?”
    • The Arbiter: “How did she even learn to edit the video? Thea, who taught you to do that?”
    • Thea hops up the steps, farting each time, and refuses to answer.
46. 1:11:47 — Partners?
    • The GM blames the Arbiter: “We’ll talk about this later in your performance review.” He objects: “I give the performance reviews to Thea… We’re a team now. We’re partners now.”
    • GM: “I am the Grandmaster. There’s no Grandmaster and Arbiter. There’s the Grandmaster and then the Arbiter.”
    • Arbiter: “We’re like much closer, you know?… I mean, I kind of saved your life.”
    • GM: “You should die of embarrassment for saying something like that, honestly.”
    • He starts “Acolytes, are you ready for some blood?” and she cuts in: “Blood!… Because I do it better.”

Round 4

47. 1:12:52 — The first cup of soup. The GM confesses she has never had gazpacho: “I am eons of ages old, and I have never had it. So should you win, maybe I’ll have my first cup of soup.” Andy: “you haven’t lived… I’m going to serve it to you cold.” GM: “Put your fist where your mouth is.”
48. 1:13:27 — Andy and the Arbiter.
    • Andy to the Arbiter: “don’t give up, okay? Because absence makes the heart grow fonder… One year off. That’s a lot of abstinence… Fill your cup of soup.”
    • Arbiter: “I don’t know what the fuck you’re trying to say to me, but I like it. You can stay. I hope you win… you’re chill.”
    • Andy: “maybe the real magic was the D20 Deathmatch we deathed along the way.” Asked whether he’ll swallow magic again: “The gazpacho man promises nothing.”
49. 1:14:44 — Piccolo. Andy hovers on beating wings “like… the guy from Dragon Ball Z, the green guy.” That’s Piccolo; the Arbiter had guessed Toucan Sam. Andy: “He used to be bad, then he gave birth to himself, now he’s good… Just like the gazpacho man.”
50. 1:15:37 — Supersonic steel chair.
    • He goes “supersonic” straight at her with the steel chair. The table debates steel vs aluminum; the Arbiter prefers aluminum because it’s lightweight.
    • Andy: at this speed “an aluminum chair might just kind of fly off into the wind.” Gravity drags them “down to the depths.”
    • It hits, with Charger damage on top. The GM: “Shake it off, girl… Fix that hair.”
51. 1:18:38 — The crowd avenges the hair. The Acolytes “don’t like” that her hair got messed up. They throw slushies, get in fist fights, rip their clothes off in the stands and chant “Deidre, Deidre.” She reaches five adrenaline: her next hit does critical damage. DeeDrah: “I like these people.”
52. 1:20:04 — Pact blade and sickle. DeeDrah (“I’m faster than you”) attacks with her Pact of the Blade sword, which misses, then the sickle, which hits for heavy critical damage. Andy can’t cut it down with words this time. Slasher again gives him disadvantage on his next first attack.
53. 1:22:11 She looks at the chinchilla: “Chinkilla pro.” (Its bonus was already counted.) She raises her hand at Andy as if to say bring it on. The GM: “this is where the fire starts to really get going.”

Chaos event 4 — the Box of Chaos (1:23:34)

54. The Arbiter ups the ante: “Maybe we bring out the box.” The players chant “What’s in the box?”
55. 1:24:02 — The box arrives.
    • He snaps his fingers, and a yellow and purple box shoots down from the heavens. The lid flips open with a beam of magical fire hundreds of feet tall that produces no heat (“please don’t swallow it”).
    • A shadowy figure with black, tendrilly fingers creeps out.
    • Andy swallows the fingers. Gerald: “Get the fuck off my fingers, guy. What the fuck are you doing?”
    • “I didn’t sign up for this… Where’s HR?” Someone answers: “Do your job, Gerald.” (Speaker uncertain.)
    • Gerald: “Just keep your mouth where I can see it.”
    • The rules: each champion may sacrifice to the box as a free action for a magic item of unknown rarity.
56. 1:25:34 — Andy sacrifices his belt. Removing the fingers from his throat, he decides “if I’m gonna be the gazpacho king, I gotta get ready to leave the past behind.” He takes off his Intercontinental Championship belt, holds it up and drops it in.
    • Gerald: “I got a lot of shit, but not a championship belt. This is fucking sweet.”
    • The GM: “I don’t even think Gerald knows how to fashion with that.”
57. 1:27:16 — The jean jacket.
    • The fingers pull back from Andy’s face this time (“So that’s how he likes it,” says the GM). They float him a garment, ethereal but with a solid structure of leather and chain: a denim jean jacket with the sleeves ripped off, +3 AC.
    • Andy: “You can get them digits nice and close if you want.” Gerald: “No, I think I’m good here… you enjoy that. We’ll just go our own ways.”
    • It fits perfectly, arms bulging out the sides. At once the Acolytes rip the sleeves off their own jackets to match.
    • Andy: “Gotta abolish that sleevery.” DeeDrah: “Sleeves are bullshit.” “No one wears sleeves here.”
58. 1:29:59 — Andy’s turn.
    • He fumbles for items, then goes back to the steel chair for “a head shot.” He has carried it the whole time with its legs looped onto his wing, so it’s awkward but keeps his hands free. DeeDrah: “You just fly in circles?… Because it’s heavy.”
    • The chair comes down and dents its own seat. Andy: “can’t use this chair again… I’m not gonna judge if you want to use it with a little bump in the butt.”
    • The GM then remembers the disadvantage from Slasher. The hit is undone and rerolled.
59. 1:32:52 — The taint.
    • Andy’s second swing is a natural 1. He takes max damage plus a roll on himself and gains a fatigue.
    • He over-swings as she ducks and lets go; the chair unfolds, bounces off the ground, and goes “straight for the taint.” Everyone cringes.
    • “Weep not for me, Acolytes, for this is not the first time the gazpacho wins” (sic).
60. 1:34:13 — Finger guns.
    • To save face he casts finger guns with his bonus action and does his little gazpacho man dance. The GM rules he shoots immediately: “I’m impatient… I don’t care what the rules say.” Asked about it, Andy: “I’m a spell. I’m a barbarian… Wouldn’t you like to know?”
    • It hits. The GM: “Listen, anybody can quote Danny DeVito.”
61. 1:36:36 — Hellish rebuke.
    • DeeDrah answers “your stupid fingers” with Hellish Rebuke. Andy fails the Dex save: “I’m going to let this one go because I don’t know where the line is” (meaning he won’t try to swallow it).
    • It would be a huge hit, but Andy: “It is just as well that I’m a gazpacho chef, so I am resistant to fire… In my rage, I’m known in some of the clubs around LA as what they call a bear, so I get the bonus rage abilities of the bear.” He takes about half.
    • Andy: “It was a good story, and I don’t regret the joke.” The GM thought the cold soup would protect him. Andy: “It’s only cold in temperature.” GM: “But flavor is on fire… I’m drinking the soup. I’m buying into this.”
62. 1:39:12 — Short sword strikes.
    • DeeDrah stabs twice with the short sword, “strike up and then strike back down.” Andy: “It’s not the size of your sword that matters, Deidra.”
    • On the second, Andy: “Look, kid, I appreciate your gumption. But you ain’t doing it this time either. I’m a-cuttin’ words ya.” He rolls a 1 on Cutting Words and it fails.
    • Andy: “Only my utensils were as hot as my gazpacho.”
63. 1:40:43 — Chinchilla Crew.
    • The GM notes for flavor that the chinchilla rode on the end of DeeDrah’s blade the whole time. She held it perfectly still, and every time the sword hit, the chinchilla took a bite.
    • A whisper in her ear: “Chinchilla Crew.” DeeDrah repeats it. The GM: “We need shirts with that.”
    • Andy: “You need to get the name right, bitch.”
    • Arbiter: “anytime a chinkilla stabs somebody, I’m going to like it… the blood is the main selling point. Theme song was… icing on the cake.”

Round 6

64. 1:42:04 — The maul. Andy forgot to add an item; it’s heard first as “a mole.” The Arbiter: “If you want a mole, you can have a mole, guy.” It’s a maul, kept in “a random pocket inside my vest. Don’t even need the biceps for this one.”
    • It lacks his weapon mastery, so he goes back to the dented, sweaty steel chair.
    • The GM: “he wants a mall then a mall then a grandmaster.”
    • “I’m a crank back on this chair. Oh no, that sounded wrong… Crank that Superman.”
    • It hits for huge damage. The Arbiter: “Deidre looking fucked up.” Andy: “Gazpacho madness running all over you.”
65. 1:45:25 He pushes her back 10 ft again with his bonus action and charges, but misses. Andy: “It’s a weird shape now. I’m not compensating.” DeeDrah: “Maybe you should just sit in chairs from now on instead of swing them.” His adrenaline fades and he tires himself out.
66. 1:47:31 — DeeDrah sacrifices the chinchilla.
    • She goes to the box, touches the chinchilla on the head: “You think you could take one for the team this time? Because I don’t really got any shit on me right now to put in this box.” She lets it pop into the box: “this is my best friend.”
    • Gerald: “You don’t know you’re doing me a great favor because I needed one more to finish my boots.” “Hi, buddy.”
    • Andy: “It’s on your conscience.” Gerald: “I hope you’re proud of yourself.”
67. 1:48:22 — Gerald struggles. The box needs several rolls. Gerald pauses for “a moment,” and the GM jokes: “That’s because he’s learning how to read and he struggles.” DeeDrah: “You’ve broken the Arbiter.”
68. 1:49:44 — The Dragon Slayer.
    • “Here take this piece of junk I’ve had laying around for a while.” He floats her a sword, a Dragon Slayer: a bonus to attack and damage, plus heavy extra damage against Andy, who counts as a dragon for this instance.
    • The GM corrects the title: “It’s a bear slayer.” Andy: “It’s a bear trap.”
    • DeeDrah: “This is exactly what I wanted. How did you know?” Gerald: “it’s what I would have wanted.”
    • She makes it her pact blade: a dragon slayer scimitar.
69. 1:51:07 — The weight of her conscience.
    • Her first swing misses: “oh, this is really fucking heavy.” She picks it up again (“I got it this time”) and misses again.
    • GM: “That’s because you got rid of your lucky chinkilla… I guess that’s karma.” Andy: “I bet the sword’s not that heavy, but the weight of your conscience is on it.”
    • DeeDrah: “when you kill me, I hope you can never get up again because of the weight of your conscience.”
    • Andy: “When I kill you, I’m gonna take on Mean Gene, rise to the top of the gazpacho rankings as the Gazpacho King, and I’mma take back My Miss Elizabeth, I’mma make her Queen Elizabeth, oh yeah!”
    • DeeDrah: “And your soup is gonna taste like guilt.”
70. 1:52:53 DeeDrah spends her heroic surge for a third attack with advantage. The bear slayer hits for a big chunk.

Round 7 — the end

72. 1:54:30 “If you’re gonna be a king, I need you to end this.”
    • Andy is at heavy fatigue but still lands an unarmed strike: “Throwing magic and hitting things when we’re tired.” DeeDrah is “very close to death.”
    • He grapples her again (“McGripple”), and she fails to resist.
73. 1:56:48 — The ladle. He takes his soup ladle for a big uppercut swing: “because the cream of the tomato soup rise to the top. Just like my ladle.”
    • The GM: “Have you made soup before?” Andy: “Not cream of tomato soup. Too hot. Don’t want no hot soup.”
    • The swing misses.
74. 1:57:37 — The stands erupt. The Acolytes are ravenous: ripping clothes, pouring slushies over themselves, trampling each other to death and stabbing each other with broken bottles. They trigger a fifth chaos event.

Chaos event 5 — rock, paper, scissors (1:58:14)

75. The Arbiter rolls 19. The GM: “the most deadliest game in the world and it is rock, paper, scissors.” It’s the mega chaotic event: whoever wins lives, whoever loses dies.
    • The Arbiter says it with her: “Rock, paper, scissors, shoot.” Someone is slow.
    • DeeDrah throws paper, Andy throws scissors. DeeDrah loses. The GM: “May it taste as good as your gazpacho soup!”
76. 1:59:40 — The kill.
    • Andy: “Look kid, you put up a good fight… in different circumstances, I’m sure I’d take you under my wing… make you into the next intercontinental champion, maybe even we’d become tag team champions. But my Miss Elizabeth is waiting for me.”
    • He puts the handle of his ladle into her eye and drives straight down to the ground.
77. 2:00:53 — The unending bowl. The Grandmaster pours her bowl of gazpacho soup over DeeDrah’s body: “May you be remembered well and swim in the bowl that never ends.” The soup keeps pouring, “an unending fountain.” Andy: “Just like a toilet.”
78. 2:01:18 — The victor. Her own wings vast, colorful and glittering in the moonlight, the GM invites Andy “to the stage in the sky” as winner.
    • Andy: “So long to get back at old Mean Gene, my best friend who stabbed me in the back, literally, and killed me over the gazpacho pot. I will go back… make my Miss Elizabeth Queen Elizabeth because she’s going to be married to the Gazpacho King!”
    • She raises his hand, and the Acolytes cheer “for your king… for your soup.”
    • “This night, you have witnessed glory. You have witnessed good soup… Welcome and good night to D20 Deathmatch.”
    • The Arbiter’s bet on Andy paid off; the GM’s bet on DeeDrah lost.

Full Dried Blood notes (click to expand)

In-character and lore drops (canon, Dried Blood):

• 2:06:22 Andy to DeeDrah: “You can call me Andrew because you’re not a person anymore.”
• 2:07:37 The Arbiter: the chinchillas are unionized and “they’re going to fucking give a shit for the rest of the season” after the sacrifice.
• 2:07:48 DeeDrah insists the chinchilla volunteered: “I said, take one for the team, homie.” The GM confirms “a volunteer jump.”
• 2:08:08 The Arbiter: “And now Gerald has his chinchilla boots finished.”
• 2:08:11 The GM: “chinchillas in the Void are actually immune to magic… also you can throw them.”
• 2:10:21 Mudcat asks “for the later of the canon” what Gerald’s fingers taste like. Jay: “like licorice” (black licorice). Logged as a canon detail.
• 2:09:43 Andy will tell Miss Elizabeth “I did everything I needed to give back to her,” with details only in “mind bleeding death.”
• 2:06:43 The GM offers to note DeeDrah’s alternate name Kurumi (Jay’s nickname for her) “in your notes of your character… My eulogy.”
• 2:06:50 The GM asks if DeeDrah has any “Nixie kin” (likely “next of kin”). DeeDrah: notify “the Sanrio company… She’s a loner. She likes to be on her own.”

Out-of-character (creator notes):

• 2:03:39 Asked to name gazpacho ingredients without Googling, Jay says tomato, “spice, like from Dune,” cinnamon “cinnamon challenge style” floating on top, and red peppers. He built the character on Randy Savage knowledge: “It just had to rhyme.”
• 2:06:02 DeeDrah’s inspirations: “a little bit [Kuromi] from Hello Kitty and a little bit Rumi from K-Pop Demon Hunters.”
• 2:08:43 Bettie on surviving two rounds on very little HP; the GM awards a “survivor badge” in spirit and praises the hellish rebuke, which she held until needed.
• 2:09:19 Mudcat: “our new fatigue and adrenaline mechanic.” Andy swung from +4 to −4 during the fight.
• Sign-offs: Bettie at MrsBettierage (“fight until the very last moment and then make the best fucking plan”); Jay at whoisjayfoster (“thank you so much to all of the gazpacho men… and fuck you to everyone that didn’t”).