D20 Deathmatch Wiki

S1E7 — Wild Magic — Strako v Zayliss

Properties1
tagsepisode, season-1

30 min read

Champions and playersNyteTide as Strako, the Wild Shadow; HeyLochNess as Zayliss
ResultStrako (cleaves Zayliss with two reckless axe hits)
Arenaa portal tower set adrift in the cosmos, with four corner portals (mirrored space, molten lava/forge, green, blood pool). After the mid-match chaos event, a shattered asteroid field (“the desolate asteroid”)
HostsCaustic Phoenix (Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer); Mudcat narrates and plays the Arbiter
WatchYouTube

What happens

Opening: bone day

  1. 0:00:01 The Arbiter flies in through the skull-shaped rock mouth of the Dread Fortress to the Grandmaster’s subterranean throne room. He finds Elusia hovering over a small, old pug in a round fluffy chair.
  2. 0:01:02 Doug. The Arbiter asks when they got a dog. Elusia says “We’ve always had Doug.” She has “always had the goblins take it, but Doug’s always been a part of this family and the Dread Fortress.” She is offended that he forgot “an entire family member.” The Arbiter blames the stress of preparing all the Deathmatches.
  3. 0:01:29 The bone test. Some days Doug the Pug has no bones and “just kind of collapses.” If he has bones, “then it’s bone day and we have a good day in front of us.” Elusia compares it to “the creature when it pops out and it sees its shadow.” Doug is a “very old, sad-looking pug,” barely keeping his eyes open, trying to bury himself in his bed. Lights shine down on him. Elusia digs her nails under him and stacks his body up like a tower, then lets go. “It’s a bone day! He has bones!”
  4. 0:03:20 The Arbiter: “Do you know who else has bones? The sacrifices for today’s deathmatch.” She says he’s underestimating how important this is. He calls Doug “the bone daddy” and says “I think maybe I’m too stupid to understand.” She agrees: “That has to be it.”
  5. 0:04:26 The champions. The Arbiter presents “Strako, the Wild Shadow, versus Zayliss.” He doesn’t remember where he got them: “Strako was wandering around somewhere doing something. Zayliss was outside of the carnival. It was a whole mess.” He adds, “They told me they wanted to die, I think even.”
  6. 0:05:05 Strako is alarmed that nobody told him there’d be a pug, then: “I love puppies. Today, in honor of my fallen boy, I will now fight this battle for Doug the Pug and all the puppies!” He says “At first I was concerned that I was once again captured by the Witchlight Carnival.” He is confused about the bones (“For puppy bones?”).
  7. 0:07:44 Doug teeters and might collapse but stays up. “Doug is happy that I am happy… Good champion choices, Arbiter.” The Arbiter says “Last week was a little bit weird with the cats and the dog thing. I didn’t want there to be any other odd sexual tension this time.” Elusia asks for “a good, clean, straightforward fight.”
  8. 0:08:49 The arena. Elusia wants “a place with circles, perhaps little like doggy holes. Doug loves to go through those when he has bones.” The Arbiter opens a portal to a tower set adrift in the cosmos, with stars streaking past. Each corner has a portal:
    • one that looks out into space, with an almost mirrored finish
    • a pit of lava with a fiery opening (the “molten forge”)
    • a green portal
    • “a strange pool of blood with some squirming bodies coming out of it”
  9. 0:10:07 Elusia’s welcome. “This is the chaos of time and space here.” Doug doesn’t like to walk far, so portals make it easier for him to hop through. “It belongs nowhere else in time but here… My gift to you.” She challenges them to “be masters of this space and time.” Then she flies up with Doug in her arms to the Acolytes, who are doing devil horns: “for Doug the Pug!… For the fight! For the blood! And for the win!” She lifts Doug up; his body slouches in her arms. Doug has his own throne beside hers in the stands.
  10. 0:12:08 The Arbiter’s wager. “I want there to be as much blood as possible. I have a running wager on about three liters, maybe four even.” He poofs out.
  11. 0:13:14 Placement. Strako rolls a 20 on initiative and Zayliss a 12. Zayliss starts by the molten forge. Strako starts behind a wall with cover.

Pre-match chaos event: balloon weapons (0:14:08)

  1. The Acolytes demand a chaos event before the match even begins. The Arbiter rolls “for Doug”: a 2. “Doug’s not such a great roller.”
  2. 0:15:06 Zayliss is holding a staff and Strako a great axe. Both turn into balloon weapons “as if some clown came through and swapped it out,” for one round. Doug is “clearly impressed and very happy.”

Round 1

  1. 0:16:00 Strako rages at the sight of his beloved axe turned into a balloon animal. His body pulses with energy. Wild magic: a tiny fairy starts glowing in the center of his chest. “How fitting.”
  2. 0:17:35 He peeks around the corner: “Zayliss, I have a present for you. Are you ready?” Zayliss: “Dude, my staff just turned into a balloon.” Strako: “Do you believe in fairies?” Zayliss: “Yeah.” Strako: “Good.” The fairy shoots out and hovers in front of Zayliss’s face (“Hey, what’s up?”). Zayliss looks between it and her balloon staff, really confused.
  3. 0:18:40 “I hope you enjoy your present.” Strako ducks back into full cover and the fairy explodes in her face. Elusia: “Did this fairy know it was going to explode?” “Oh yeah.” “Bye-bye!” Zayliss passes the save easily (26) and holds her balloon staff behind her so it won’t get hit. Strako: “Did you like my fairy?” Zayliss: “It’s a little doll.” Strako: “I’ll be sure to tell her that next time. She may not be so kind.”
  4. 0:20:29 Parkour. Zayliss “tactically retreats” 25 ft behind the other side of a wall, then parkours up the 15-ft wall: “Parkour! Parkour!” She ends right above Strako, “looking right down at his dome.”
  5. 0:22:39 Arms of the Astral Self. “I have extra arms that are coming out of me. They’re green and they start to glow. Thank Zenyatta.” She jumps down and the arms burst out as she falls. Strako saves against it with a “dirty 20.” Elusia: “an aerial attack from above!” She lands 10 ft in front of him, inside her astral arms’ 10-ft reach. Strako is 7’5” and Zayliss 5’6”.
  6. 0:24:46 One astral-arm strike hits for force damage. Strako’s unstable backlash: as the punch lands on one side of his face, “a magical hand is going to come back and smack you right in the jaw.” Strako, as she drops in: “Hey.” Elusia: “Lots of magic hands.” Drew: “Battle of hands.” Zayliss’s Stunning Strike: Strako stands “unflinching” and saves. Her astral hands are fists while her normal arms are crossed.
  7. 0:29:26 The balloons burst. At the end of the round the balloon weapons swell until they pop. Both champions take a little “balloon bursting damage.” Their real weapons return, and the balloons scatter as brightly colored confetti. Elusia: “Doug the Pug is satisfied.”
  8. 0:30:55 Arbiter vs Doug, begun. The Arbiter rolls another 2. “An embarrassment. You can’t teach that.” Doug sighs and “almost slaps you,” nearly collapsing. Elusia props him back up: “You almost removed Doug’s bones.” The Arbiter bows (“My apologies, Doug”) and rolls his eyes. Elusia: “You should show more respect to your elders.”

Round 2

  1. 0:31:30 Strako: “I’m so happy to have my baby back. Thank you, Doug. That was a most unfunny but hilarious ruse.” He kisses his axe, smacks it against his shield, and tells Zayliss: “You have no respect for me and I don’t like it at all.” He rushes in. The first swing misses as she evades; an upward slash connects.
  2. 0:33:36 “We’re cool.” Zayliss whispers: “Dude, I respect you. Just be cool.” Strako: “Really?… Oh, I had no idea you have such a resting face demeanor.” Zayliss: “I mean, it’s a show, right?” Strako: “but I mean, I definitely want to fight you.” Zayliss: “Oh. I mean, I always want to fight things, so yeah.” Elusia: “Are we all cool? Is everyone cool?” The Arbiter: “Grandmaster, I have no idea what’s happening right now… I was cool before anyone was talking about it.” Elusia: “ice cream cool.”
  3. 0:35:24 The green portal. Elusia notes “the clock there is moving in a different time.” Zayliss sprints for the green portal. Strako’s opportunity attack misses; he slams his axe into the ground seconds after she has gone. Zayliss jumps in backwards, flipping him off. Elusia: “This is very Deadpool energy, I like it.” Zayliss: “I respect you! Respect!”
  4. 0:36:47 Strako’s insight check: does she genuinely respect him or is he being led on? Zayliss’s player: “she actually does respect you, she just is very weirdly chaotic.” That confusion is why he missed. Strako: “what the f-”
  5. 0:37:24 Portal roulette. The green portal smells of “springtime, and health… citrus, and vitality.” Zayliss doesn’t get the refreshing effect. It’s like walking through a door, and she stumbles out of the mirrored space portal with advantage on her next attack. She climbs a ledge, spreads her arms and announces: “the portal wasn’t that bad.”
  6. 0:39:21 Hero points. The crowd loves the portal and throws hot dogs and beer. Each champion gets one hero point. Elusia: “Plus ultra.” She warns Zayliss about the bubbling lava to her left.
  7. 0:40:42 Doug rolls for himself. The Arbiter rolls a 10. Elusia: “you, dear Arbiter… apparently have no bones this evening.” She rolls for Doug, “this dog picking up a small d20 in his mouth just barely spits it out and rolls a 14.” The Arbiter: “I didn’t realize we were using the New Jersey rules of rolling… I didn’t know mouths were allowed here.” Elusia: “As you know, there are no rules. Except for the rules that I make up.” She pushes Doug’s throne closer so he can see.

Round 3

  1. 0:42:20 Bolstering magic. Blue runes glow on Strako’s axe. He presses it to his chest and one rune peels off and starts glowing in his chest. Elusia: “So is this like a cool version of temporary tattoos?”
  2. 0:43:05 Strako looks up at Zayliss: “Oh, I get it. I see.” He flips her the bird and walks into the blood portal: “You want blood?” The squirming bodies grab his ankles and pull him down into syrupy blood. He holds up his middle finger toward Zayliss the whole way down. He comes out of the space portal with advantage on his next attack. He didn’t attack or take damage, so his rage ends.
  3. 0:44:37 Elusia: “Ooh, he’s got layers.” The Arbiter: “rage is great, but it’s a one trick pony… get at the emotional heart of our champions before we… take the blood out of that heart.” Elusia: “Have the heart and then drain the heart.… Just putting all the organs on display.”
  4. 0:45:50 The tackle. Zayliss leaps off the wall and tackles Strako back into the portal, spending her hero point on the strength contest. She wins and goes through with him. While pushing, she says “dude, you’re actually really cool. Like, we should hang out after this.” Strako: “The messages are so mixed.” Elusia: “This is a new dance… D20 dance bros.” Zayliss’s player: “She’s very much so a bro.”
  5. 0:47:45 Different exits. Strako steps out of the molten lava portal and is burned. It singes “all the hairs on your body,” and any metal on him is hot to the touch. Zayliss steps out of the green portal and is healed. Elusia: “Death on one hand, life on the other.” The Arbiter: “I’d like to think of this as the wild magic version of a map.”
  6. 0:49:01 The hosts are still trying to work out whether the champions are cool. “Should we do this to each other? Is that like a friendship thing?” The Arbiter: “They’re fighting to the death and we’re up here eating nachos… We have Doug. They don’t have a Doug.”
  7. 0:50:14 Mouth roll. “The Arbiter puts that D20 in his mouth and spits it up in the air.” “Disgusting.” He gets a 4. Doug beats him. Someone shouts “Fuck you, Doug!” (speaker uncertain, probably Drew). The Arbiter: “Maybe I gotta get rid of my bones.” Elusia: “get rid of your bones and then regrow them and then you will be stronger.” Doug leads 2–0.

Round 4

  1. 0:51:27 Strako comes out of the fire portal. The fire evaporates the leftover blood on him and his chest hair singes. Unamused, he watches “little fluffy magic” heal a scratch across Zayliss’s chest: “Really?” He rages again, and the wild magic is the fairy again. “Listen here. Walk with me a moment.” He closes 40 ft and throws the fairy.
  2. 0:53:06 Zayliss uses Deflect Missiles. Strako rolls a nat 1, so she deflects the fairy back into Strako’s face. Strako: “Well, damn it. Just wait till I get my hands on that fairy.” NyteTide: “Massive badassery and epic failure all rolled into one.” Elusia: “Perfect package.”
  3. 0:54:38 Zayliss’s regular arms “are now just probably flipping them off” while her astral arms attack. One hit lands. The backlash fires a wild bolt of light that zooms past her face. Strako: “Sorry, I can’t control myself sometimes.” Zayliss: “Your eyes twitching? Is that normal? Did you have too much caffeine today?” Someone adds “Yes, this battle is electrifying, I love it!” (speaker uncertain).
  4. 0:58:05 Elusia can’t tell whether they’re becoming less cool or more unstable. The Arbiter: “I’ve been reading a lot of Cosmo… deteriorating mental health is cool these days.… All the kids are doing it.”
  5. 0:58:43 Philadelphia style. Roll-off number three. The Arbiter tries “Philadelphia style. You don’t want to ask what that is.” Elusia: “it’s certainly less weirder than the L.A. style.” He gets a 3 and Doug a 4.
  6. 0:59:26 The low rolls still push them over the chaos threshold. Elusia calls a water break because “Doug the Pug needs a snack.” The concession hot dogs now have eyeballs: “sometimes plucking it out was a lot more effort, so we just left them in.” (The break is cut from the mp3. 1:00:06 “Name that monster” is the trivia prompt.)

After the break: the lever (1:00:22)

  1. The Arbiter mentions the chocolate ice cream eaten with a wooden “tongue depressor.” Elusia orders “Arbiter, pull the lever.” He asks which one; they have a lot of levers. It’s the big one lit with bright green lights. “Are you actually color blind?” “Yes.” “It’s the one that says, pull this lever.… We label these clearly for that purpose.”
  2. 1:01:45 Sucked into space. The air pressure shifts as if being sucked out of the room. Both champions fail strength saves and are dragged through “the portal of space and time,” clawing at the ground with their feet lifting off. They land in a shattered asteroid field, standing on asteroids.
  3. 1:03:14 Elusia: “welcome you to the desolate asteroid.” There is a small breathable atmosphere, but anyone pushed more than 20 ft out into space takes damage “as that cold will begin to take your life.” Fighters are weightless crossing the gaps and can kick off between the three asteroids.
  4. 1:04:28 Initiative is rerolled. Zayliss gets a dirty 20 and Strako 12. “The tables have turned.” “Turntables also turn.” Elusia throws Doug a piece of popcorn.

Asteroid round 1

  1. 1:05:30 Zayliss pushes off and floats across on momentum. On the way she asks: “is this death death?… you have like a family or kids or anything?” Then she punches with an astral arm and hits. The backlash erupts as giant light from Strako’s body and narrowly misses her. Strako saves against her Stunning Strike again. Drew: “You guys are good at con saves.”
  2. 1:07:57 Her second swing is a nat 1, and the momentum spins her around in space. She can’t right herself.
  3. 1:08:39 Strako tries to find an angle on the spinning monk. Zayliss: “I can’t control this. Just hit me, man.” He misses. The Arbiter: “You are the worst barbarian I have ever seen.” Strako: “But you may have heard of me.”
  4. 1:09:18 Care Bear stare. Strako’s bonus-action wild magic: “he’s just gonna like Care Bear this light from his chest.” Elusia: “Which Care Bear are you invoking?… Who’s the grumpy one?… The little thunder one?” They settle on that. Zayliss fails: force damage, and she is blinded until the start of her next turn. The force becomes momentum: she’s pushed 10 ft into open space, spinning, now in different directions. Elusia: “You are somersaulting. Outer space can be wickedly vicious.”
  5. 1:11:29 Arbiter vs Doug, round four: 15. “Suck it, Doug.” Elusia: “He’s a pug with no bones. You should be a little nicer.” The Arbiter says Doug was looking at him “Like a dick.” “That’s why they call him Doug.”
  6. 1:12:39 Marco Polo. Still blinded, Zayliss pushes off debris toward where she thinks he is. Strako: “I’ll help you out, Marco.” A random direction roll brings her back onto solid ground. Her spectral arms swing at the air and both miss. Elusia: “That Marco Polo makes more sense now.”
  7. 1:14:49 Elusia reminds them that hero points don’t carry over: “You could take a piece of the rock so you can say, like, look, I’ve been to asteroids.”
  8. 1:15:17 Strako waits for Zayliss to see again: “You’re done flailing about now. You can see, right?” When she nods, he attacks. The first hit lands, and the impact pushes her slightly so he misjudges the second. “Gravity is different here.”
  9. 1:16:29 Shield Master shove. He plants his foot and shoves her with his shield. He wins the strength contest (25 vs 3). The low gravity doubles it, sending Zayliss 20 ft out to the edge of the atmosphere, where she takes cold damage and struggles to breathe.
  10. 1:18:02 The Arbiter snaps. He rolls a nat 1 and Doug beats him with a 3. “Fuck, fucking, fucking dog.” Face shaking, he raises his hands in rage and drags meteors down in a meteor swarm on the champions. Both save. Strako weathers it. Zayliss, unable to get her footing in space, is smacked by the meteors and looks “very rough.”
  11. 1:20:09 Elusia apologizes to the champions and chat: “The Arbiter clearly has anger issues because he got beat by Doug the Pug… Who knew that he would feel so insecure because of a Doug that has bones?… You should sit down, Arbiter.” The Arbiter: “No, no, no. I’m cool. I’m cool. We’re cool.”

Asteroid round 2

  1. 1:20:52 Zayliss arcs over Strako in three dimensions and lands behind him. She tries to kick him into space and misses. She turns and punches him in the gut. The backlash zaps her back. He resists her Stunning Strike using the bolstering rune’s bonus.
  2. 1:24:09 The electrifying rock. Perception: within 5 ft, something in the rock sparkles. Zayliss digs out an electrifying rock with little sparks dancing around it, which she can throw for thunder damage. Elusia: “This is a magnetic little asteroid.” Zayliss tosses it up and catches it, looking at Strako: “You want to catch it?” “No.”
  3. 1:25:35 Can Strako stay on the asteroid? He rolls 26. Zayliss spends her hero point and “find[s] that inner strength just to kick a little harder.” Strako goes flying 10 ft into space.
  4. 1:27:27 Shoving the asteroid. Strako: “That you would dare kick the wild shadow off of a space asteroid.” He kicks off debris back toward the rock and spends his hero point to shove the entire asteroid Zayliss is on. Drew: “you push off with all the force of an anime protagonist, and you sonic boom your way into this asteroid,” slamming in headfirst. The asteroid moves 20 ft. Strako then opts to take his own backlash force damage to push it further: “I want blood to just go from my head as I do that.” Elusia: “If you’re not going big, what are you doing in my arena?” The asteroid ends up 20 ft outside the barrier, and Zayliss takes cold damage.
  5. 1:30:47 Chaos event: Doug plays tag. The Acolytes trigger another chaos event. Elusia warns that “it has happened before, that the fans have actually murdered a champion on their own.” Zayliss has the least health, so she rolls (10). Doug rises from his throne, bones barely holding, and tiny wings pop out of his back. A small bubble encases his head and he flies down into the asteroid field. Strako calls heads on the coin flip (“He’s just gonna touch the blood on his head”). Doug lands next to Strako, licks his boot, and flies back up: “You are now it.” The rule: two rounds, and whoever is “it” at the end of the second round takes tag damage. Drew: “Tag in space.” Strako: “Okay. Thanks, Doug.”
  6. 1:34:23 Strako uses the rest of his movement to reach “the itty bitty tip” of Zayliss’s asteroid, which is now “way the F out there.”
  7. 1:35:37 Redemption. The Arbiter rolls a nat 20 and finally beats Doug (“Suck it, Doug”). Elusia: Doug is “a little exhausted” from playing tag. She has the Arbiter sling his thrown meteors back out of the field with a small reverse meteor swarm. Both dodge it entirely, Zayliss with evasion and Strako with Shield Master.

Asteroid round 3: Timothy

  1. 1:37:35 Zayliss dashes about 70 ft back into the atmosphere, to the far side of the asteroid from Strako. She spends a ki point to Dodge.
  2. 1:40:10 Rules clarification. Strako: “Must I tag her with my hand, or can I use a different object?” Elusia: he can tag another living being, such as his fairy, “but you cannot tag a weapon and then yeet said weapon across the field.” He looks for “a little alien nearby.”
  3. 1:41:12 The alien. He finds a small caterpillar-like creature that glows pink, purple and blue, with sudden bright flashes at random times. Strako: “I’m just going to try and leap after it and grapple it. I’m pretty good at that.” He leaps and catches it, tagging “the living snot out of this alien.” “Arbiter, this alien is it, correct?” It is. He throws it the opposite direction, away from Zayliss. Elusia: “Oh, sneaky… That’s cool, dude.” Strako: “Thank you, my friend. But it’s time to go to space.”
  4. 1:43:03 Pulling enormous G-forces with its face peeled back, the alien screams “I don’t want to die!” and explodes in a hail of fire, “like Krillin and DBZ.” Another little glowy worm crawls out. Strako: “Timothy! Oh, I’m sorry.”
  5. 1:43:46 The fall of Worm’s Town. The Arbiter narrates: “Unbeknownst to you, you’ve killed the mayor of the Worm’s Town. He had brought peace and prosperity to his new empire and had just defeated the Republic, but now their society, cast adrift on an asteroid, leaderless, falls into chaos once again and decays from within and eventually succumbs to self-destruction.”
  6. 1:44:14 Strako: “Look, sometimes I don’t know my own strength. I’m sorry. Rest in peace, Timothy. Anyways, back to the killing.” He points: “You better go get it.”

Asteroid round 4: the kill

  1. 1:45:02 Elusia: “give me all the bones left on this asteroid for Doug, who’s just munching on some popcorn.” Zayliss finds a bigger electrified chunk with double the damage. Elusia: “I’m trying not to make a balls joke… we met our quota a couple episodes ago.” Zayliss throws both rocks. The big one hits Strako with thunder. Elusia: “Which I never understood. It should be lightning damage.” The small one misses and kills Tabitha, the other worm that had crawled out. Elusia: “She’s destroying the small little colony here.” Zayliss yells at Strako: “You were supposed to catch it!”
  2. 1:48:09 Reckless. Strako, “no longer it,” charges “full steam ahead” with two reckless attacks. Both hit.
  3. 1:49:42 Zayliss: “Nice hit, bro.” NyteTide describes it: “got bloodlust in his eyes from being like electrocuted… he just cuts this huge slash across your chest and then he goes to literally cleave you in half with his second hit and kind of stops halfway and just kind of embeds the blade into your hip.” Zayliss dies.
  4. 1:50:07 Valhalla. Strako: “It was a good match and I know we can’t get that beer but maybe in, you know, Valhalla, if I don’t kill all those gods first.” Zayliss: “I’ll save you a seat.” Strako: “Be well, my friend.” He reaches for one of her astral hands for “a little bro moment.” Elusia: “Cool bro hug. Aw.”
  5. 1:50:33 Doug’s farewell. The Grandmaster flies down carrying Doug. “You have fought and left blood on my asteroids.” Doug runs to Zayliss’s body and snuggles in beside her: “You have been gifted a final snuggle to carry you well into the afterlife. Thank you, champion Zayliss.” She summons the Arbiter.
  6. 1:51:20 The bet. The Arbiter bends down over the blood spewing everywhere: “Thank you… That was like three and a half pints. I nailed my bet.”
  7. 1:52:38 Victory. The Grandmaster extends her arm: “Come, my champion. Let me take you to your fans.” She carries Strako up hand in hand to the crowds. “To our acolytes, you who have brought chaos to our arena… Welcome and good night to D20 Deathmatch!”

Dried Blood (after-show)

  • Drew introduces “Nighttide and Loch Ness, our newest guests.”
  • Strako’s build: straight Wild Magic Barbarian to level 10, with the Sentinel and Shield Master feats, to blunt “crazy ki point damage.” NyteTide picked wild magic as soon as he saw unstable backlash. “Strako is a play on Kratos.” He badly wanted the thrown-weapon wild magic result “to be able to throw the ice axe.”
  • Loch Ness, on seeing a barbarian opponent: “I can’t… I like chaos anyways.”
  • Loch Ness loved the blinding and the Marco Polo bit. NyteTide gave her his position “because… we’re content creators… it’s a show.” He was surprised by the monk’s movement: climbing the wall, hammering down from above, and the portal push.
  • Bec: the jump over him took “the map from 2D to 3D.”
  • Drew: the portal-tower map was used in a Patreon playtest. Since there was no second map then, he added being sucked through a portal into the asteroid field to “spice this one up.”
  • Retcon idea (not adopted on air): Loch Ness imagines Zayliss running under, or log-rolling on, the shoved asteroid.
  • Timothy: Drew wanted to make Strako feel bad. NyteTide thought throwing it away would make Zayliss chase it. The hosts riff that Timothy was also “the pastor,” “the single founder of every charitable organization in the region,” “The CEO of Doctors Without Borders,” and had “Single-handedly adopted 18 orphans.” These are table riffs; their canon status is uncertain. Bec chose the alien’s glow colors to match the D20 Deathmatch aesthetic. They want a “remember Timothy / never forget” T-shirt through Highscore T, and an “Alien Timothy worm token.” Bec asks, “Can the Arbiter resurrect Timothy?” Drew: “He will need to make a comeback.”
  • NyteTide was caught off guard by Zayliss’s “dude, we’re cool.” It turned the fight into rivals rather than deadly enemies, and he had messaged Drew beforehand about how to play it. Loch Ness pictured it like Ragnarok, where fighters who don’t have to fight just sit and chat. “She’s edgy and she’s chaotic, but also like she did respect him.”
  • Final words (in character? uncertain):
    • Strako (2:07:11): “You can still respect someone and nearly cut them in half.”
    • Zayliss (2:07:37): “You can respect people who cut you in half.” / “I feel like they would have been best friends.”
    • Drew: “We’ll get that beer in Valhalla. We’d have been best friends if you hadn’t murdered me.”

Who and what appears

Characters

Strako, the Wild Shadow (NyteTide). A 7’5” wild magic barbarian.

  • Gear: an axe he loves (“my baby”), called a great axe at 0:15:04 and later a battleaxe used with a shield, plus a shield.
  • Wild magic seen:
    • the exploding fairy, which rose from his chest twice
    • magical-hand and light-bolt backlash
    • the “Care Bear” light that blinds
    • a bolstering rune that peels off the axe into his chest
  • Uses Shield Master shoves.
  • Lore:
    • Loves puppies; fought “in honor of my fallen boy.”
    • Feared he’d been “once again captured by the Witchlight Carnival.”
    • Expects Valhalla and to “kill all those gods.”
    • Mentions “you may have heard of me.”
    • Killed Timothy, mayor of the Worm’s Town, through tag. Wants revenge on the fairy.
  • In this episode: he was tagged by Doug, shoved a whole asteroid with his hero point, and won by cleaving Zayliss. The Grandmaster carried him hand in hand to the fans.

Zayliss (HeyLochNess). A 5’6” monk with a staff and glowing green Arms of the Astral Self.

  • Found “outside of the carnival.” Says weird things like this happen to her and she’s “accustomed to it.”
  • A chaotic “bro” who genuinely respects Strako and flips him off constantly.
  • Climbs walls (parkour), deflects missiles, uses Stunning Strike (never landed), evasion, and ki-point dodge.
  • Found and threw electrifying asteroid rocks, accidentally killing Tabitha.
  • Killed by Strako. The Arbiter secretly revived her to 1 HP “for my army.” She told him she’s “a cat person” and joined his grudge against Doug.

Doug the Pug. A very old, sleepy pug who has “always” lived in the Dread Fortress with the Grandmaster.

  • The goblins look after him.
  • Some days he has no bones and collapses. If he stands when stacked up, it’s “bone day,” a good omen.
  • Has his own throne beside the Grandmaster’s in the stands. Eats popcorn and snacks.
  • Rolls d20s with his mouth and beat the Arbiter in four of five roll-offs. The Arbiter won with a 15 and a nat 20.
  • Can sprout tiny wings and wear a head bubble to fly.
  • Started the game of tag. Gave Zayliss a “final snuggle.”
  • Also called “the bone daddy.”

The Arbiter (Drew).

  • Didn’t know Doug existed and blames Deathmatch stress.
  • Is color blind.
  • Bet “three liters, maybe four” of blood and claimed he won at “three and a half pints.”
  • Rages after losing to Doug and summons a meteor swarm. The Grandmaster says he “clearly has anger issues.”
  • Reads Cosmo.
  • Secretly revives Zayliss for “my army.” Admits he’s “a cat person” and vows to “show that pug… show them all.”

Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer (Bec). Devoted to Doug and labels her levers clearly. “There are no rules except for the rules that I make up.” Warns that fans have murdered a champion on their own before.

Timothy. A glowing caterpillar-like alien on the asteroid, mayor of the Worm’s Town. He brought peace and prosperity, had just defeated “the Republic,” and was killed when Strako tagged and threw him. His society collapsed into self-destruction.

Tabitha. Another worm, killed by Zayliss’s missed rock.

The Acolytes. They throw hot dogs and beer, award hero points and trigger chaos events.

The goblins. They take care of Doug.

Places

  • The Dread Fortress, its skull-shaped rock mouth, and the Grandmaster’s subterranean throne room.
  • The portal tower adrift in the cosmos (“the chaos of time and space”). Its four portals, as observed:
    • green: smells of spring and citrus; it healed Zayliss on her second pass and dumped her out of the space portal on her first
    • blood pool: squirming bodies pull you down; it sent Strako out of the space portal, then into the fire portal
    • fire/lava “molten forge”: burns on exit
    • mirrored space portal: grants advantage on the next attack
    • A clock there moves in a different time.
  • The desolate asteroid field: three asteroids with about 20 ft of breathable atmosphere around them and freezing space beyond. It holds electrifying “magnetic” rocks and glowing worm-aliens.
  • The Worm’s Town: Timothy’s colony, now collapsed.
  • Valhalla: Strako’s expected afterlife.

Items

  • The balloon weapons (one round, then they burst into confetti).
  • Strako’s runed axe and shield.
  • Zayliss’s staff.
  • The electrifying rocks (small and large).
  • The lever labeled “pull this lever,” lit green.
  • Concession hot dogs with eyeballs.
  • Doug’s fluffy chair and throne.

Lore statements

  • The Grandmaster’s lair has many levers.
  • Fans have killed a champion on their own via a chaos event before (per Elusia).
  • The Arbiter restores dying champions in secret for “my army” (stated here for Zayliss).

Quotes by character

Strako

  • 0:05:17 “I love puppies. Today, in honor of my fallen boy, I will now fight this battle for Doug the Pug and all the puppies!”
  • 0:05:37 “At first I was concerned that I was once again captured by the Witchlight Carnival.”
  • 0:17:35 “Zayliss, I have a present for you. Are you ready?”
  • 0:20:16 “I’ll be sure to tell her that next time. She may not be so kind.”
  • 0:31:57 “You have no respect for me and I don’t like it at all.”
  • 0:47:15 “The messages are so mixed.”
  • 0:53:57 “Well, damn it. Just wait till I get my hands on that fairy.”
  • 1:13:11 “I’ll help you out, Marco.”
  • 1:27:34 “That you would dare kick the wild shadow off of a space asteroid.”
  • 1:42:56 “Thank you, my friend. But it’s time to go to space.”
  • 1:44:14 “Look, sometimes I don’t know my own strength. I’m sorry. Rest in peace, Timothy. Anyways, back to the killing.”
  • 1:50:07 “It was a good match and I know we can’t get that beer but maybe in, you know, Valhalla, if I don’t kill all those gods first.”

Zayliss

  • 0:06:36 “Pugs are cute. I guess I could get the pug some more bones from fighting, if that’s what the pug wants.”
  • 0:07:36 “Doug is definitely the highlight of my life.”
  • 0:33:36 “Dude, I respect you. Just be cool.”
  • 0:34:00 “I mean, it’s a show, right?”
  • 0:36:40 “I respect you! Respect!” (speaker likely Zayliss; labeled Bec)
  • 0:39:03 “The portal wasn’t that bad.”
  • 0:47:07 “Dude, you’re actually really cool. Like, we should hang out after this.”
  • 0:57:32 “Your eyes twitching? Is that normal? Did you have too much caffeine today?”
  • 1:05:49 “Is this death death?… you have like a family or kids or anything?”
  • 1:47:37 “You were supposed to catch it!”
  • 1:50:20 “I’ll save you a seat.”
  • 1:52:09 “I’m a cat person.”

The Arbiter

  • 0:01:02 “Grandmaster, when did we get a dog?”
  • 0:03:43 “Doug the bone daddy has declared it bone day.”
  • 0:12:08 “I have a running wager on about three liters, maybe four even.”
  • 0:41:41 “I didn’t realize we were using the New Jersey rules of rolling.”
  • 0:49:32 “They’re fighting to the death and we’re up here eating nachos.”
  • 0:50:47 “Maybe that’s the secret. Maybe I gotta get rid of my bones.”
  • 0:58:16 “I’ve been reading a lot of Cosmo… deteriorating mental health is cool these days.”
  • 1:09:12 “You are the worst barbarian I have ever seen.”
  • 1:12:03 “That’s why they call him Doug.”
  • 1:43:46 “Unbeknownst to you, you’ve killed the mayor of the Worm’s Town.”
  • 1:51:31 “That was like three and a half pints. I nailed my bet.”
  • 1:51:37 “You will make a fine addition to my army.”

Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer

  • 0:01:06 “We’ve always had Doug.”
  • 0:03:09 “It’s a bone day! He has bones! Doug the Pug has bones!”
  • 0:10:07 “This is the chaos of time and space here… My gift to you.”
  • 0:31:09 “You almost removed Doug’s bones.”
  • 0:41:03 “You, dear Arbiter, are just sad. You apparently have no bones this evening.”
  • 0:41:53 “As you know, there are no rules. Except for the rules that I make up.”
  • 0:45:12 “Have the heart and then drain the heart.”
  • 1:01:27 “Are you actually color blind?… It’s the one that says, pull this lever.”
  • 1:20:09 “The Arbiter clearly has anger issues because he got beat by Doug the Pug.”
  • 1:29:55 “If you’re not going big, what are you doing in my arena?”
  • 1:30:47 “It has happened before, that the fans have actually murdered a champion on their own.”
  • 1:50:33 “You have been gifted a final snuggle to carry you well into the afterlife.”
  • 1:52:38 “Come, my champion. Let me take you to your fans.”

Timothy (voiced by Drew)

  • 1:43:03 “I don’t want to die!”

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