| Champions and players | DeadAussieGamer as Atlas; Jared (@NVNG) as Bromir |
| Result | Atlas. Bromir falls into the abyss and is secretly taken by the Arbiter. |
| Arena | Reaper’s Rock (a frozen mountainside arena with a ladder, braziers and an abandoned mine’s leftovers) |
| Hosts | Caustic Phoenix as the Grandmaster and Mudcat as the Arbiter, co-running |
What happens
- 0:00:00 — Anthem. The recording starts as the Grandmaster calls the champions to the middle. The Arbiter performs “the ceremonial anthem of our people” (“Blood! … Undeth!”). He “took some liberties in the bridge and I went up a little bit.” The Grandmaster calls it his “musical hobby”: “the heart was there.”
- 0:01:46 — Placement. The Grandmaster complains that the Arbiter hasn’t prepared the fight “despite me apparently asking for this three times earlier today.” Bromir starts low; Atlas “over here with some elevation.” “Give me a show. Give me blood. And when it comes to time, give me death.”
- 0:05:27 — Atlas’s opening. Atlas (a warforged; his joints hiss, shaking off ice) offers “organic man” a coat “so you can dab the tears from your eyes once I thrash you.” His plates separate in blue-purple light: “Come forth, Halifax!” He summons Halifax, a horse made of crackling lightning (phantom steed flavored as an elemental spirit).
- 0:07:30 — Bromir’s opening. “You brought a pony to this fight… I’m at Mama’s Playland right now. Yeah, brother.” Bromir rubs snow on his body and enlarges himself: “I’m gonna grow up and come down on you, robot tin man.” The Grandmaster wants his vitamins on her Amazon list; the Arbiter offers to “ask Jeff Bezos personally.”
- 0:10:37 — Steel wind strike. Atlas leaps down off the precipice (hydraulics absorb the landing). His forearm splits into a crossbow of energy firing five bolts; one hits Bromir hard. Bromir flexes off part of it (“not today”). The Grandmaster: “It was one of my favorites growing up.”
- 0:19:23 — Bromir throws the pony. He passes a constitution check to touch the lightning horse, picks up Halifax and throws it at Atlas (“Yeeting the pony”). It misses, but lands beside Atlas, unhurt but for a few points.
- 0:23:52 — Arbiter and Grandmaster. “Arbiter, you suck.” “Small minds can only handle small tasks.” He turns and rolls his eyes at her; she doesn’t see it.
- 0:24:47 — Lightning and the tidal wave. Halifax turns into a bolt and strikes Bromir (“Have I somehow summoned a metal Thor to my field?”). Atlas casts Tidal Wave; the electrified water shocks Bromir’s nipples. Bromir: “No one shocks my nipples except my boyfriend, and I don’t like that, and he won’t like that either.” The Grandmaster: “I was hoping to put a pool in this place eventually.”
- 0:30:21 — Bromir misses three punches; the Grandmaster grants him Bless: her wings open and purple light spotlights him like a bodybuilder. “An angel of my own.” With action surge he lands two punches, but Atlas’s arcane ward soaks all of it.
- 0:36:45 — Atlas’s origin: “I was built by a monastery of priests to stand against those who would fight against the bulwark of justice. My abjuration engine protects me from those wicked hands.”
- 0:38:20 — Chaos event: blizzard. Both are blown 15 feet (Bromir rolls a nat 1). Visibility drops to 10 feet; they take escalating cold damage unless within reach of one of three braziers. Atlas climbs a ladder to a brazier and honors the Grandmaster with his pose: half-kneeling, shouldering a ball of light from his core showing her face. She makes his flame grow. Bromir: “What is a mammal? I don’t even know what that is, brother.”
- 0:47:34 — Bromir’s elbow drop. He casts jump, leaps 30 feet and drops an elbow on Halifax. Atlas’s Rebuke Violence blasts Bromir with radiant light. The Grandmaster, unimpressed by Bromir’s menace, injects him with the Amazon supplements and makes him grow another size, tall enough to stand face to face with Atlas on the ledge and share his fire. “The cream rises to the top just like I did.” “Dead birds also float.”
- 0:59:34 — Rock slide. Atlas uses mold earth to bring the mountainside down on Bromir; Halifax kicks his calves (he stays up with a nat 20 flex). Bromir is buried in boulders. In the rubble he steps on a crushed healing potion left by dead miners who were caught there (1:07:43). Atlas then grabs the torch and crushes its flame in his fist: “The Grandmaster did not come here to watch me break you.” The Grandmaster: death “only has one eye.”
- 1:09:00 — Bromir collapses more of the cliff on everyone. Atlas shields himself and keeps hold of his shield against “a literal mountain.” Bromir catches his breath. “We don’t drug here, minus the growth hormones I gave you.” “The Blood Scouts” swear on honor.
- 1:14:38 — Chaos event: the snow bridge. The ground heaves and opens a chasm “we’ve yet to find the bottom of,” covered by a thin ice bridge that can be crossed three times.
- 1:17:45 — Atlas teleports with steel wind strike across the snow bridge so Bromir’s back is to the chasm. Halifax wanders blind and gets his tongue frozen to the wall.
- 1:26:02 — Bromir grapples Atlas with a nat 20 squat and carries him onto the ice bridge: “Let’s raise the stakes, Tin Man.” The ice breaks under their combined weight. Atlas doesn’t struggle and stares at him. Bromir: “Respect. I show you respect.” He throws Atlas clear and jumps with a flex; both make it to solid ground.
- 1:32:30 — The Grandmaster’s toast. She gives both a greater healing potion: “As we fight, we live. And as we live, we fight for what we love.” Atlas has no mouth and throws his potion to Bromir. Bromir: “Atlas, I respect you. You earned the right of your name.”
- 1:34:35 — Tenser’s transformation. Atlas reabsorbs Halifax’s lightning (a heartbeat-like pulse in his core) and transforms into a war machine: massive upper body, hands floating free of his forearms, held by gouts of energy. He throws his shield into the pit and takes his sword in both hands. Moved, the Grandmaster ends the blizzard. Superhero landing across the gap.
- 1:41:19 — Bromir asks to return to his true size “so I may face him on equal footing.” She draws the drug back out with a wave of her jeweled hand. He runs at Atlas screaming “Oh yeah!” and casts Thunderwave, then flexes; the Grandmaster: “This was cooler when you were bigger.”
- 1:45:38 — Atlas’s sword (the sound of cocking shotguns, a huge longsword swung like a baseball bat, then reversed). Bromir sweeps his legs and slaps him, all glancing blows; he wipes blood from his face and stares Atlas down, and Atlas hesitates (“Recalibrating. Little pinwheels of death”).
- 1:56:51 — The Arbiter’s chaos event. The Grandmaster lets him choose, threatening to replace him (“I have two options already in front of me”). He fuses a water elemental and an air elemental into an ice elemental with two spinning faces (“like a twisty ice cream cone”). It does an aerobatic flip over the chasm but at first only splashes them (“You feel slightly hydrated”). “Sometimes two heads are better than one. Clearly, this was a mistake over here.”
- 2:05:46 — Teamwork. Bromir asks Atlas for a boost; “this unit will comply.” Atlas spins his waist 360 degrees and catapults Bromir into a double-leg drop on the elemental.
- 2:11:48 — The elemental whirls Bromir into the chasm. Atlas throws his sword into the chasm wall as a foothold; Bromir catches it and hangs ten feet down. Atlas drops his transformation and fires a 7th-level disintegrate from a siege engine on his back, blowing a hole through the elemental’s body. “Atlas is unbreakable.” The crowd throws trash at the elemental.
- 2:21:35 — Bromir’s sacrifice. He goads the elemental (“Snow Cone… I’ll fight you all the way to the second level of hell”), does a one-handed pull-up (nat 20) and Thunderwaves the cliff edge, vaporizing the elemental’s water and dropping it, and himself, into the ravine. He salutes Atlas with Atlas’s sword: “Well fought, sir. You beat Bromir with a boulder fist. Go on to do better,” throws the sword back and flexes at the Grandmaster as he falls. The Grandmaster and the whole crowd flex back in salute.
- 2:26:34 — Atlas tries to save him (“Illogical. Atlas has not beaten you yet”): he casts passwall to reach into the cliff and grab Bromir by the neck, but his iced hands slip. The Grandmaster: “Some deaths must happen on this field, and there are few that come as noble as the one Bromir showed us today. Let it stand, and we will honor him.” Atlas gives the anthem salute.
- 2:29:56 — The Arbiter’s secret. “Down below the field in the abyss, Bromir falling through an eternity, galaxies and stars… Out of nowhere, the Arbiter appears to him. You may have fallen on the field, but I still have a use for you. As he grabs you by the throat and poofs you away. Unbeknownst to anybody.”
- 2:30:39 — Atlas crowned winner of Reaper’s Rock. The Grandmaster raises a small mountain under him: “You have true heart that no flesh and blood could ever mimic.” She sends him back home “that you may fulfill the charge that has been granted to you. To bring justice. To offer protection where it is needed,” promising to bring him back for “a true fight. That you may also kiss death.” The crowd chants “Atlas!” until some faint. Atlas says nothing, kneels and shoulders his orb of light with her face in it.
Who and what appears
Atlas. Warforged built by a monastery of priests to defend “the bulwark of justice.” Abjuration engine (arcane ward), shield master, longsword, a siege engine on his back; casts spells (steel wind strike, tidal wave, mold earth, passwall, disintegrate, Tenser’s transformation, channel divinity Rebuke Violence). Speaks of himself in the third person: “Atlas is unbreakable.” Signature pose honoring the Grandmaster with an orb of light bearing her face. Summons Halifax. A tiny engraving somewhere on him reads “Nokia” (player joke, 1:56:18). Winner of Reaper’s Rock; sent home to fulfill his charge; promised a return.
Halifax. Atlas’s horse of crackling lightning. Thrown by Bromir, elbow-dropped, got its tongue stuck to a frozen wall, reabsorbed into Atlas.
Bromir. Champion with boulder fists (“Bromir’s Boulder Fists”), wrestler persona (“brother,” “Oh yeah!,” “the smackdown”), fighter with sorcery (enlarge, jump, thunderwave). Has a boyfriend. Mentions “Mama’s Playland.” Resistant to cold. Grew twice the size by the Grandmaster’s gift, then asked to return to normal to fight fair. Fell into the abyss in a self-sacrifice that killed the ice elemental. Secretly taken by the Arbiter: “I still have a use for you.” (One of the Arbiter’s secret revivals, per DM_NOTES.)
The Grandmaster. Wings that glow purple; jeweled hands; grants Bless, potions, growth and the end of the blizzard; values honor and sportsmanship. Threatens to replace the Arbiter.
The Arbiter. Musical hobby (the anthem); poor dice; rolls his eyes behind her back; designs the fused ice elemental; secretly takes the fallen Bromir.
The ice elemental. A fusion of water and air elementals with two spinning faces. Destroyed.
The dead miners. Died in the rock slide area earlier; one left a healing potion.
Places
- Reaper’s Rock: a frozen, snowy mountainside arena; a precipice, a ladder, three braziers, a rock wall, a bottomless chasm under a snow bridge, remains of miners. (Probably the same place as Kirken’s Mine from S1E4, per Drew; no mine is named here.)
- The abyss under Reaper’s Rock: Bromir falls past “galaxies and stars.”
Show details
- The anthem has words (“Blood!”); the Arbiter performs it; champions salute.
- The crowd: “acolytes of our Grandmaster.”
- Chaos events triggered by “fate rolls” (rules mechanic).
Quotes by character
The Grandmaster
- 0:03:28 “Champions, as we leave this battlefield, do not disappoint me. Give me a show. Give me blood. And when it comes to time, give me death.”
- 1:32:30 “As we fight, we live. And as we live, we fight for what we love. We should never give up on either.”
- 2:28:36 “Some deaths must happen on this field, and there are few that come as noble as the one Bromir showed us today.”
- 2:30:39 “You have true heart that no flesh and blood could ever mimic.”
The Arbiter
- 0:01:15 “I took some liberties in the bridge and I went up a little bit… Respectful, but patriotic.”
- 0:38:20 “I can’t even imagine what it would be like to fight in the arena.”
- 1:57:31 “These two seem to be delaying the inevitable. It seems that they don’t even want to kill each other, really.”
- 2:29:56 “You may have fallen on the field, but I still have a use for you.”
Atlas
- 0:05:27 “You, organic man, you appear to be cold in the attire that you wear. Perhaps you would like a coat?”
- 0:36:59 “I was built by a monastery of priests to stand against those who would fight against the bulwark of justice.”
- 1:05:33 “The Grandmaster did not come here to watch me break you.”
- 2:05:46 “This unit will comply.”
- 2:20:51 “Atlas is unbreakable.”
- 2:26:34 “No. Illogical. Atlas has not beaten you yet.”
Bromir
- 0:07:30 “You brought a pony to this fight… Let me tell you how it’s done.”
- 0:29:32 “No one shocks my nipples except my boyfriend.”
- 1:34:13 “Atlas, I respect you. You earned the right of your name.”
- 1:41:19 “Allow me to return to my true size so I may face him on equal footing.”
- 2:25:26 “Well fought, sir. You beat Bromir with a boulder fist. Go on to do better.”