The Acolytes

The Acolytes are the crowd. They are the residents of The Void who pour into the floating grandstands every week to watch Champions fight to the death, and no Deathmatch happens without them. As the Grandmaster once put it, “For what is a Deathmatch without witnesses?” They are lovable and also violent, gassy and forever hungry for more chaos.

Overview

The Acolytes live across the lost and broken worlds and realms of the Void, under the rule of the Grandmaster. Each Sunday they travel through portals the Arbiter opens and take their seats in the stands of an arena that is never the same twice. It might be a ring of wooden bleachers in the sky, an almost ethereal choir hovering over a dark town square, or a transparent tavern ceiling that turns out to be dangerously permeable. Wherever the arena goes, they are high above it, looking down. They are also the show’s real-life audience in Twitch chat, who watch the Deathmatches just as their in-world counterparts do.

The Acolytes are not passive spectators. They can lift a champion’s spirits with a roar, which the arena sometimes turns into a literal gift: an energy drink in the hand, a lucky break, a blue slushie of pure adrenaline. They hurl whatever is in their pockets at the fighters. When they decide a match needs more mayhem, they demand chaos, and they often get it, whether the hosts like it or not. They can also call down Gerald, the Box of Chaos, which takes sacrifices in exchange for strange rewards. The Grandmaster has warned that “it has happened before, that the fans have actually murdered a champion on their own.”

The hosts adore them and treat their lives as cheap. Acolytes get greased to death, shot, frozen, splattered and sacrificed with alarming regularity, and nobody stops the show. At the same time the Grandmaster calls them “my people, those who I love and care for,” bakes them cookies, and often ends a match with words of advice meant just for them.

History

The Early Seasons

In S1E7 — Wild Magic — Strako v Zayliss, the Acolytes were already in fine form. They threw hot dogs and beer, flashed devil horns, and demanded a chaos event before the match had even started. The Grandmaster flew up to join them with Doug the Pug in her arms, leading the cheer “for Doug the Pug!… For the fight! For the blood! And for the win!” When they demanded chaos a second time, Doug himself rose from his little throne in the stands, sprouted tiny wings and flew down into the asteroid field to play a game of tag in space with Strako and Zayliss. At the end, the Grandmaster carried Strako up hand in hand: “Come, my champion. Let me take you to your fans.”

Fate of the Arbiter

In S2E6 — FoTA - Sands of the Arena (Fate of the Arbiter, Part 2), the Arbiter dragged three former teammates, Toddleheim, Flynry and Locket, onto the sands of the arena and swooped over the screaming crowd: “Acolytes! I have returned to satiate your bloodlust.” When the friends refused to fight each other, he whisked the whole arena, Acolytes and all, into a dark temple of his own, where a huge statue of himself loomed over everything. The crowd believed this was a normal, voluntary Deathmatch. They chanted for chaos, granted every champion a burst of heroic spirit and then a stroke of luck, and summoned the Box of Chaos, which some of them had already fed a Pearl of Healing at Orin’s Keep. Flynry summed them up: “The acolytes seem to be most lovely and also most horrible all at the same time.”

Cookies, Farts and Beer

The Acolytes’ appetites became a running theme in Season 2. In S2E13 — The Brave — Buli v Chancy, the Grandmaster was found in the kitchen baking chocolate chip cookies for the Acolytes, wearing an apron that read “Grandmaster”, not “grandma.” None of the cookies were for the champions. Up in their sky-high wooden stands, the crowd swayed to Chancy’s ocarina and was asked to settle a dispute between two three-foot fighters. Their ruling was that height doesn’t matter, but “maybe girth” does, which got Buli up a twenty-foot wall. Then they emptied their pockets onto the field: dice, hot dogs, spaghetti, fish heads, Elmo, bees, a dumpster fire, Santa Claus and “even a little Squirtle.” A raccoon landed on Chancy’s head (“This is not how you treat a diplomat”), and the Arbiter noted that someone in the crowd threw their own feces, “as one does at a sporting event.” Later they demanded chaos on their own and turned every weapon into a pillow. The Grandmaster had the pillows filled with rocks, because “goose feathers are hard to come by.”

S2E14 — Shrooms — Ulfgar Greyblade (Mcswiggins) v Snoop & Dog went further. Farts are heavier than air, so the Acolytes’ farts sank into the pit below. The Grandmaster welcomed everyone to “the arena of lost farts,” and the Arbiter reminded the front row that ponchos were under their seats. The crowd even got to choose the flavor of their farts: fish, beer, Doritos and cheese, peanut and chili. Mcswiggins said it was “just like being home.” When Snoop & Dog won, the Grandmaster spun Snoop through the air “like a carnival” to chants of “Snoop & Dog!” and the fresh air returned. After the show, Snoop left the crowd some advice:

“fucking stop with the farting. It’s disgusting… Most of you just do not need to be eating nachos, and the cheese is really ruining your digestive system.” (Snoop)

In S2E16, Pub Brawl - Broose Scorchtail v Dewdrop Grizzlebee, the Acolytes watched a brewery brawl through an open sky. They summoned Gerald, and Broose Scorchtail’s moonbeam shone right down through them onto Dewdrop Grizzlebee. The Grandmaster told them to buy fresh brews to support her hospitality business, then dumped her drink out, trying to splash it on their foreheads. Their own chaos, “a gift from the acolytes themselves,” was a thunderstorm that struck both fighters. At the end they all raised amber drinks to Broose as their victor.

The Battle for the Crown

When the Arbiter tried to seize the throne, the Acolytes became more than an audience. In S2E18 · Battle for the Crown Round 1 · Team Grandmaster (Toddleheim & Veronica) v Team Arbiter (Ralzamon & …, they cheered louder than ever, “but this time there is a desperation as they know everything is on the line.” They were made the judges of the tournament, voting after each round for “not just the team that won, but the team that… put on a spectacle.” Their chaos turned the champions into cows, a cockatrice and a giant badger. When the freezing cold began to bite, Toddleheim appealed to the crowd, and the Grandmaster asked them to share their body heat “to grant him nice little mittens for his snow paws.” They cheered, and his suffering was halved, although “only one is brutal and yells full damage for you.” After the round she raised all four fighters, including Ralzamon and Glub Glub of the Arbiter’s team, to the Acolytes’ eye level, and closed with: “Keep faith, Acolytes, and we will be victorious.”

Blood Feud and the Ghostly Choir

In S3E11 — Blood Feud 1 — Havoc v Isha Inverraseth, the Acolytes hovered almost ethereally above a dark town, singing in “a haunting, gorgeous choir” for blood. Here the Grandmaster called them “my people, those who I love and care for.” For once a champion turned on them. Havoc stopped beside the whispering Box of Chaos and addressed the stands directly:

“You seek to laugh at our pain. You seek to exploit our grief. I refuse. I refuse to abide by the terms of your game.” (Havoc)

Then she slammed the box’s lid shut with her maul, which no one had ever done before.

Live at Full Sail

At LIVE at Full Sail Hall of Fame 2023 — Jenny Gray v Chef GPT, the Acolytes were a live crowd in the room, and they paid for it. The Grandmaster warned that if they held back their cheers, “we might come out and take your lives.” The Arbiter reassured them: “It’s not so bad. You’re not doing anything with it anyway.” Their cheers earned Chef GPT a boost of inspiration, and when he begged “Save me, Acolytes… I’ll make all of you delicious breakfast,” they carried him. His frog-oil grease killed several front-row Acolytes (“It’s okay, they were unnamed NPCs”). Luis Sanchez, who had made Jenny Gray’s shield, was named the evening’s sacrifice so the Grandmaster could have his necklace, and he melted into the lava. A popcorn seller whose snacks healed Chef was killed by the Arbiter and left covered in popcorn. Audience members also played Jenny’s rabid chinchilla and won a pillow fight with a siren’s scream.

Under the Shadow King

During The Shadow King’s rule, the Acolytes kept coming. In S4E9 — Shootout — Stanley Second Life Gibbs v Gideon Regalis Electus Gregorius the 537th (Greg), they swung cowboy hats and lassos for a Wild West showdown between Stanley Second Life Gibbs and Greg. One Acolyte had a hat shot through. Another was sacrificed to the Box of Chaos, and a third, JustJules22, was killed by a stray bullet. When both champions died, the Grandmaster declared that the only winners were the Acolytes, “for they have witnessed a true fight to the death.”

In S4E17 (Season Finale) - Vythorn’s Return Part 3, Vythorn the Arbiter defeated the Shadow King and claimed the throne by the rules of the Deathmatch. The Acolytes revolted. Taking Elusia while she was still in chains struck them as “not in the spirit of chaos, not in the spirit of honor.” They poured out of the stands and rushed him, and he froze every one of them in place. Then he told them, “You don’t have to love me. You don’t even have to like me, but you will all serve me.”

The Season of Fate

Under the Lord of Fate’s rule, the Acolytes became restless “taxpayers.” In S5E6 — American Amphibian — King Man Frog Bofus v Richard Knottley, they were protesting outside the Fortress. Right after Thea bent over and farted open a portal a whale could swim through, King Man Frog Bofus suggested joining the rioters. When the Lord of Fate flared his wings, they screamed, threw beers, ripped their shirts off and punched each other, and one was tossed over the side and splatted into a million pieces between the fighters at The Crimson Keep. They had been helping Thea fill out her tax paperwork. After Richard Knottley convinced her she was a person, she declared to the crowd, “I’m a people!” Later she started them chanting, until the Lord of Fate banned chanting for the rest of the day.

In S5E8 — Graveyard Grudge — Granny Edith v Teddy Oso, Thea promised the champions that if they cried on the ground, the crowd would throw slushies at them. The match was hard on the stands. Harvey had his eyes knocked out by a raisin cookie, Scrib got a raisin stuck in his ear, and Lady Magdala choked on a cookie, broke her teeth and needed CPR. When the Box of Chaos handed Teddy Oso a poisoned apple, the Acolytes helpfully pointed out it was a Granny Smith.

In S5 Ep17 — Vythorn’s Return Part 4, the Acolytes watched the Shadow King vanish and the Arbiter put a dagger to Elusia’s throat, only to set her free. As they waited, unsure what any of it meant, the Grandmaster spread her wings and spoke to them. Chaos, she said, “is ours to wield, not for others to wield over us.” She declared a new era in which “we may be the masters of our own fate.”

The Season of the Trials and Beyond

In S6 Ep6 — The Hunt for #2 - Part 1 — Team C (Frigidum, Bob the Barbarian, the Duke) v Billy, the Acolytes stared down through a transparent tavern ceiling. Bob the Barbarian was delighted: “Finally, an audience to watch my greatness.” When they lost their minds over a chaos event, ripping off shirts and punching their grandmothers, the ceiling proved permeable. Flying wombats swooped in and hailed down frozen, perfectly cubed wombat poop. The Duke embraced it: “I’m in my element. I embrace the shit.” Later, after his RPG missed, he looked up and asked them, “Did you rig it? Like, is this a sick game to you all?” The crowd also helped out. They reminded the team that Billy had hidden from the light at the start, which gave Frigidoom the idea to scare him with the fridge light. They were also taking bets on how many testicles one champion really had.

In S7E5 — Rock and a Hard Place — Iowa-Ska v the Pebble, the Acolytes formed “a circle of love” in the sky. They ripped off shirts, did ice luges off naked busts and handed out blue slushies of adrenaline. The Grandmaster reminded them that their channel points “aren’t just for looks. Now they got value,” and invited them to “Beg for their success… Or you can sit back and watch them suffer.” Then they threw their emotes onto the field: Dorito chips, axes, giraffes, butt sharks, “a lot of goblins” and Hero Forge minifigs. Iowa-Ska dodged, and The Pebble did not. The crowd included a faction of devoted “Pebble-ites,” and one old lady fainted at the sight of his oiled muscles. At the end they stood and poured out their blue slushies for the winner: “This is for your victory. This is for your legacy.”

Notable Moments

The Acolytes ruled that height doesn’t matter, but girth might, and it got Buli up a twenty-foot wall.
Their farts sank into the arena to create “the arena of lost farts,” with ponchos provided for the front row.
Their cheers knitted Toddleheim “nice little mittens for his snow paws” in the Battle for the Crown.
Havoc refused to perform for them and slammed the Box of Chaos shut, the first champion ever to attack it.
They rose up against Vythorn’s seizure of the throne and were frozen in place mid-charge.

tags	lore
aliases	Acolytes, taxpayers

The Black Tome

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