D20 Deathmatch Wiki

S2E15 — Black Hole Sun — Professor Stabbz v Mad Cass O Weary

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tagsepisode, season-2

38 min read

Champions and playersTheNoirEnigma as Professor Stabbz; DeadAussieGamer (Dag) as Mad Cass O Weary
ResultProfessor Stabbz (an eighth-level Sunburst from Gerald’s scroll; Cass is sucked into the black hole)
Arenaa quaint small town (rooftops 20 ft up over a tavern, cobblestone streets, a clock tower). The floor turns to lava, then a black hole opens in the middle building.
HostsCaustic Phoenix (Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer); Mudcat narrates and plays the Arbiter and Gerald, the Box of Chaos
WatchYouTube

What happens

Opening: the Arbiter’s week and Doug’s bath

  1. 0:00:00 The show starts late. The Arbiter has had quite a day “in the bowels of the Dread Fortress”: he spent all of last week in the sewer system fixing the toilets. He has “risen above the shit” and is clacking through the halls again in his Italian leather shoes. Bec calls them tap shoes. Drew: “Italian men like… for you to know when they’re coming.”
  2. 0:00:57 The Arbiter enters the Grandmaster’s throne room and calls out: “Grandmaster, are you home?” There is silence. On a perception check of 23 he hears struggling far in the back, from the Grandmaster’s master bedroom and bathroom. It sounds like someone is being strangled (“would you stop?”).
  3. 0:02:00 The Arbiter draws a dagger and runs toward the noise. He hears a shriek “more like a pterodactyl.” The bedroom is empty, and the struggle is coming from the bathroom around the corner. The door is open, so he bursts in with the dagger. He slips on the wet tile but catches himself (Dex 15).
  4. 0:03:04 — Doug’s bath. The screamer is Doug, “the absolute symbol of D20 Deathmatch,” howling while the Grandmaster, fully soaked, tries to hold the very angry pug in the bathwater. “Would you just hold still? This would be over so much faster if you quit moving!”
  5. 0:03:46 The Arbiter puts the knife away and stands there smiling at Doug’s torture: “Yes, perfect.” She orders him to help. He says there’s a Deathmatch to run. When she looks up, Doug slips out of her hands and runs off, still full of soap. “Thanks. Thanks a lot.”
  6. 0:04:24 The Arbiter offers to clean Doug magically. She refuses: prestidigitation (“prestidigitization… too many sounds in it… the P spell”) doesn’t get the oils out of his fur, so it has to be done by hand. Drew: “You gotta do the P stuff by hand.” She tells him to at least get the water off her.
  7. 0:05:01 — The water portal. The Arbiter flicks the water off her, it lands on the wall and forms a water portal, and he presents the champions: “None other than Professor Stabbz versus Mad Cass O Weary. Welcome to the Grandmaster’s bathroom, champions.”

The champions, in the bathroom

  1. 0:05:34 — Mad Cass: “Where the fuck am I? Who the fuck is this? Who the fuck are you, lady?” The GM is annoyed that the Arbiter didn’t explain things again (“sign a contract, promise them whatever they want”). The Arbiter explains that one champion’s “portal provider was down,” so he had to fill in with Cass at the last minute.
  2. 0:05:57 — The contract. Cass: “That fucker came in with a bit of paper and stuck it in my face. I used it to wipe my ass and then staple it to his head. Does that count as a signature?” Someone says he’s “very upset.” Cass: “I was upset when McDonald’s got my burger order wrong. I am pissed the fuck off.”
  3. 0:06:08 Cass sizes up his opponent: “Who the fuck is this short guy?… Professor of what? Kissing the ground?” Stabbz: “Stabbing.” Cass: “I’m gonna put my foot so far up your ass, I can pick my [toenail] clippings from your mouth!” Stabbz: “Please don’t.”
  4. 0:06:46 — Professor Stabbz: he comes “from the University of Stabbz” and teaches Stabbing 101, theoretical stabbing and stabbing in Spanish, “just a few of the basic stabbing curriculum.” He hasn’t put any of it into practice yet. He requested tenure, “and I guess this is how one acquires tenure.” He would rather Cass stab him than do the foot thing (“For research purposes,” says the GM).
  5. 0:07:52 — The bathroom is not the battlefield. The Arbiter says it could be, since it’s “kind of spacious.” The GM: “I just got the sinks done. This is all new marble. If you get any of this broken, I will make you pay for it.” The Arbiter: “Blood works as a great sealant for the grout.”
  6. 0:08:10 — Cass’s introduction. He grabs a glass of mouthwash from the sink and chugs it “like a freaking boss.” “I’m Mad Cass and I’m here for, I don’t know, a fight probably.” He likes the name Professor Stabbz, “I hate people with cool names.” He promises to “disassemble someone with nothing but a stern gaze, a very, very high blood alcohol content, and these!” He is holding nothing: he means his fists. His neck audibly cracks as he tenses.
  7. 0:09:09 Stabbz: “You should see a chiropractor.” Cass: “Actually, I do have an appointment coming up.” The Arbiter: “He’s so angry, and I really like that about him.” The GM praises the Arbiter for a “fantastic contrast.” Are they ready? Cass: “Fuck yeah!” Stabbz: “Kinda?”

The arena: a small town

  1. 0:09:56 The Arbiter swirls the water portal into a small town. The GM: “It smells like dog!” It’s the dog bathwater, and there’s dog hair everywhere.
  2. 0:10:11 The GM calls it “a little favorite of mine, a nice little town, a quaint little town.” They start on a roof about 20 ft up over the center of town, probably a tavern or restaurant, with barrels likely full of drinks, cobblestone streets, rooftops, and a small clock tower to the right. “This town may be demolished, but it is only through your own hands or weapons… Please tear this down and we will build something grand in its place. Perhaps a memorial to your greatness.”
  3. 0:11:01 The GM flies up to the Acolytes: “Show me those devil horns if you’re ready for a fight.” A small, very wet and soapy Doug creeps out from behind and takes his seat beside her.
  4. 0:12:09 The Arbiter: “You will bleed here and one of you will die here.” Stabbz: “Wait, what?” “It says D20 Deathmatch, not D20 Lovematch.” Stabbz: “I thought it was just for flavor.” The Arbiter: “Why does everybody seem to think that?… I’m sorry for yelling. I got a little heated.”
  5. 0:13:18 — Placement. The first d4s tie (3 and 3). Cass: “Oh, don’t take me from the piss!” [unclear]. Stabbz: “Put me far away from the angry man, please!” The Arbiter first places them on the wrong side (“I’m an idiot and I can’t do numbers right”), then fixes it. Stabbz: “You’re in the slop.”

The Box of Chaos arrives

  1. 0:14:04 The Acolytes demand chaos. The Arbiter snaps his fingers and the Box of Chaos slams onto the field with a thunderous roar. The lid flips open and yellow, pink and purple flames shoot up in a column. It sits on the far side, right below the clock tower. Make a sacrifice to it and it gives a magic item. Stabbz: “Can I stop by the bank first?” GM: “Your sacrifice can be anything. Just put some thought behind it.” Stabbz: “Can I sacrifice my opponent?” “That has happened.” Cass: “You can fucking try.”
  2. 0:16:13 — Initiative. Cass gets 22 and Stabbz 20. Stabbz uses silvery barbs to make Cass reroll (“Please don’t hit me!”). Cass drops to 17, so Stabbz goes first. The crowd loves the reaction, and it triggers the first chaos event.

Chaos event — dodgeball (0:17:23)

  1. Stabbz rolls a 16, “a fan favorite.” “Empty your pockets. Whatever you have brought to this arena, I need you to throw it at the ground. This now becomes a game of dodgeball.”
  2. 0:18:15 — What the Acolytes throw: swords, lightning bolts (“We got Thor out here”), dogs, pizza with pineapple, pasta, possibly a Yeti, unopened cans of Coke, special mushrooms, “these nuts… tons of nuts,” a moose, cheese, green little frogs, hot dogs and milk. Stabbz: “I put these nuts on my head.” Stabbz dodges most of it (24). Cass, in his anger, never looks up (10). Milk pours down his back, and Stabbz yells “I’m lactose intolerant!”
  3. 0:19:58 — Deflect missiles. Cass sways like a drunk and slaps the projectiles away, negating all of it. He catches one thing, a glass of milk: “Who the fuck is throwing milk?” He points at a dwarf sitting in the stands: “Once I’m done with this fucker, I’m after you next.” Stabbz: “You can skip me. You can go straight to him.” The GM: “We’ll see if you survive this match first.”
  4. 0:21:02 Cass drinks the milk, then eats the glass. The Arbiter calls for a Con save, then rules: “You do eat that glass. You’ve done this before. Not your first time.”

Round 1

  1. 0:21:54 From 20 ft up, Stabbz has advantage on ranged attacks, “the best way to stab and not get stabbed.” He concentrates, and “a very shiny knife appears… this glowing purple and green dagger” (a psychic blade) flies over and hits with sneak attack. Stabbz: “He’s still alive!” Cass: “Come down here!… dead people don’t talk!” [partly garbled]
  2. 0:23:38 Stabbz runs, then uses cunning action to run again, keeping the high ground (“He’s gonna make you use all that monk movement”). He’s out of sight, still screaming: “I don’t wanna get hurt! Pain is bad!”
  3. 0:24:33 Cass looks down at the wound, a psychic cut with no real dagger in it: “Good thing I didn’t wear my fucking good shirt today. Shit! I’m too fucking sober for this shit.” He runs 60 ft, ki-steps another 60, and stops at a barrel by the Arbiter’s spot. He smells the oak (“fuck yeah”) and headbutts the barrel open (14). He rips the wood off, spits out splinters, cups the alcohol in his hands and drinks: “Fuck, I needed that.”
  4. 0:26:10 The GM asks why, after headbutting and eating everything, he chose to cup it gently. Cass: “I would have used my broken glass, but I ate it.” GM: “Should have planned ahead.”
  5. 0:26:36 The Arbiter: how drunk was he coming in? “On a scale of one to 20, I was 19 drunk.” How long has he been an alcoholic? “Well, it all started when my dad went out for some cigarettes.” Stabbz: “Don’t give him a compelling backstory! I have to murder him!” The Arbiter gives Cass advantage on his next attack for “feeding the demon.”
  6. 0:27:30 — The intervention. Stabbz: “I’d like to cast Intervention at third level.” The GM: “We all stop for a second, even the acolytes come down. We’re concerned about you. We form a circle of metal chairs.” The Arbiter: “The material components are six to eight of his loved ones and some cookies.” Stabbz: “This death battle was just a ruse. We got you.” Cass: “Damn it.” (This is a gag. The fight continues.)

Chaos event — the floor is lava (0:28:01)

  1. Cass rolls a 14. On the roofs the temperature rises, humid and engulfing. It’s a cloudy day with a breeze, so the heat isn’t from the sun. It comes from below: lava seeps up through the cracks in the cobblestones until the whole ground is lava, for four rounds. Stabbz: “Holy shit, the floor is lava!”
  2. 0:29:45 Stabbz: “This sucks!” Cass: “No, you fucking suck!” “Words hurt, you know!” “Not more than I will hurt you! I’m so angry!”

Round 2

  1. 0:30:20 Stabbz has the sharpshooter feat: “I’m going to sharpshoot your body with sharp pointy things.” The first dagger misses (12). The bonus attack, “with 30% less suck,” hits (24).
  2. 0:32:20 Cass asks whether deflect missiles works on psychic daggers. It does (“If it’s material enough to hit you”). He lifts the barrel lid he smashed and catches the dagger in it, then tries to pull it out and throw it back, but it vanishes in his hand: “Fuck, this stuff is strong!” Stabbz: “It’s not fair! You’re not supposed to catch him! You’re supposed to get killed by him!… Monks, man. Friggin’ monks.” He moves back.
  3. 0:33:52 — Walking on lava. Cass’s improved unarmored movement lets him walk on liquid. The GM: walking on it doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt. Cass: “monks can walk on hot coals… I am a tiefling.” As a tiefling he resists fire and takes half. “The important thing is that I’m not sinking into it.” Stabbz: “This is fucking ridiculous!”
  4. 0:35:13 — Stealing Gerald’s house. Cass grabs the ring on the side of the purple trunk and starts dragging the Box of Chaos. A shadowy figure with yellow, beady little eyes and claws peeks out: “Where the fuck do you think you’re taking me?… What the fuck are you doing with my house?” Cass: “Shut the fuck up! If I want to listen to an asshole, I’ll fart!” He slams the lid shut and drags the box across the lava, under an underpass and around a building.
  5. 0:36:36 The box is smoldering. It’s surprisingly light, just the weight of the wood and the metal trinkets outside: “Inside, it almost feels like it should be empty.” The Arbiter: “Isn’t it always about the weight of the wood?” Cass has 20 Strength and isn’t worried. He doesn’t open it; he shut it “because it was mouthy.”
  6. 0:37:32 — “G plus V.” On the lid is a small carved heart that says “G plus V.” Cass: “Gin and vodka. I got it.” The GM: “Yep. How did you know?”
  7. 0:37:58 End of round 2. Doug scoffs, but stays put, afraid that moving from his safe zone will get him another bath.

Round 3

  1. 0:38:27 Stabbz: “I would like to cast fuck this at third level.” It’s invisibility at 2nd level. The GM: “Fuck this, I’m out. We’re renaming invisibility.” Stabbz: “I just saw this guy headbutt a barrel, eat glass, yell at a demon, and now he’s doing push-ups for no reason! I wanna go home, please!”
  2. 0:39:08 — The tightrope. A rope runs between the rooftops. Stabbz (“one hot and ready acrobatics… Yeet!”) rolls a 30. “You have clearly been in the circus before.” He walks it upright with his arms out, then hides on the roof tiles (stealth 28). “Maybe this is all a dream.”
  3. 0:40:33 Cass climbs the wall one-armed, parkour style, dragging the box. Someone says: “Jesus Christ!… It’s like being hunted by Chuck Norris.” [speaker uncertain, probably Stabbz] He didn’t see Stabbz turn invisible, so he slams the box down where Stabbz was last standing and throws it open.
  4. 0:41:44 — Gerald. The lid flips and heatless flames shoot out. The shadowy figure stands up waist-high in the box: “You’re a real fucking dick, you know?” Cass: “You’re kinda like my fucking mom.” Gerald: “Well, maybe your mom was on to something. You need therapy.” Gerald turns and looks straight at the invisible Stabbz. He can see him. Cass, who can’t, looks where the creature is looking. The Arbiter has Noir roll a d10, a d100, then a d20 (16), and needs a minute.
  5. 0:42:59 Meanwhile Cass takes another small lava singe. The GM: “You’re so hot.” She adds a small group of cheerleaders fawning over him. Stabbz: “It’s fucking bullshit… We can’t even see him.”
  6. 0:43:48 — The scroll. “As Gerald, the Box of Chaos, stands there staring at you: you know what? This guy’s a dick. I’m gonna help you out.” He reaches into his box, pulls out a spell scroll and floats it into Stabbz’s general area: an eighth-level Sunburst. (In Dried Blood, Drew says the Gerald gift needed no sacrifice because Gerald was so angry at Cass.)
  7. 0:44:32 — The boomerang. Cass reaches behind him and pulls out a boomerang. The GM: “You Australian!” He spends ki on “drunk luck” to cancel the disadvantage from Stabbz’s invisibility. The GM rules that he is “so drunk” that it applies. Cass: “Getting drunk does not give you superpowers, it gives Cass superpowers.” The GM: “Disclaimer for everyone, this is a unique instance.” The Arbiter: “He’s trained his liver his entire life for this.” Stabbz: “The only superpower I get from booze is regret and tears.”
  8. 0:45:41 The boomerang clips Stabbz in the jaw (he uses Uncanny Dodge for half), swings back into the air, and Cass catches it: “Sixth time pin the tail on the asshole winner.” The GM: “You don’t have a mirror, but you know it’s red.” Stabbz: “I’m not an asshole.” The Arbiter: Cass is “lacking a significant amount of anatomical knowledge about where tails actually go.” Stabbz: “He’s so drunk, yet still so competently mean.” GM: “He might have his own professorship going on here.” Stabbz: “I don’t know if tenure is worth this!” Cass takes the Dodge action.
  9. 0:47:26 The Arbiter’s end-of-round roll is 11: “Adequate is what I’m aiming for.” The GM wants to move on “because that is not entertaining enough.”

Round 4 — the fall

  1. 0:47:57 Stabbz crosses the rope again (24): “I used to dance. Interpretive, interpretive goblin dance.” He stabs the very angry man (“Hi-yah!”; the GM: “That sounded like Mickey Mouse”). It hits with sneak attack from invisibility, and he adds a Defensive Flourish that raises his AC. The Arbiter: “A rogue and a gentleman.” The invisibility drops when he attacks.
  2. 0:50:17 He disengages and runs back across the wire, and rolls a nat 1. His foot misses the rope, his pinky toe barely holds, and he falls head first about 10 ft and lands prone. Stabbz: “Like Icarus, I have fallen by my hubris! I flew too close to the sun, and now I pay the ultimate price!” The Arbiter: “a little dramatic.” Stabbz: “I’ve been humbled!” “I heard both the left and right cheek simultaneously.” The GM says he may hold his butt cheeks for comfort. Stabbz: “I would like to hold my own butt cheeks at second level.”
  3. 0:53:02 — The second pair of butt cheeks. The GM had been asking some Acolytes: if you had a second pair of butt cheeks, where would you put them? Stabbz: “On both shoulders… so you look good and strong, and when you lean on the wall, it’s like you’re sitting.” This leads to table jokes about “butt boobs” (see Table talk).
  4. 0:54:18 — The ankle. Cass puts his hands in his pockets and steps off the roof. With slow fall, he lands gracefully next to the crumpled rogue. In the alley shadows only his glowing yellow eyes and a very wide, puckish grin show. Stabbz: “Please don’t hurt me.” Cass grabs his ankle to throw him into the lava. The ankle is easy to grab. Stabbz: “It’s so dainty, though. Please be careful with it.” GM: “You shouldn’t have had your ankle showing in the first place.” Stabbz: “I dress this way because it’s how I feel.” Cass drags him over, but Stabbz clings on and stays out of the lava. Cass spends ki to stay defensive. Stabbz: “I don’t know what these key points are, but could you stop using them? Bad things happen when you do.”
  5. 0:56:26 — “We’re friends.” Cass: “Hey, man, listen. You don’t have to worry about me. You and I, we’re friends.” “Close friends.” Cass’s persuasion is 13. Dag frames it as a tavern bully putting his arm round you to get the next drink, with underlying aggression. Stabbz fails his insight check: Cass seems sincere. Stabbz: “I’ve always wanted a friend!” The GM: “Oh, that’s so sad.” Stabbz: “Can I tell you about my childhood?” Cass: “No, no, tell me everything about your childhood.”
  6. 0:57:58 The GM calls a break so they can “savor this little friendship moment.” The Arbiter: “Hopefully they’ll have killed each other by then.” Cass listens to every single word of Stabbz’s backstory, nodding intently. He doesn’t care and takes no notes, but he listens. (Break cut from the mp3.)

After the break — the life story

  1. 0:58:40 Welcome back: “Professor Stabbz spilling his entire life story to Cass.” Stabbz: “I didn’t get the name Stabbz until an unfortunate accident.” (Earlier: “My name is Lips before it was Stabs” [0:58:16, speaker uncertain].)
  2. 0:59:17 The GM asks whether he’s a dynamic lecturer, or whether they need to roll to see if Cass fell asleep. Stabbz: “There is a tome called Rate My Professor… former students and alumni alike, they all have said that I have something of a droning… teaching style… I don’t leave any crevice un-unchecked when it comes to stabbing, because stabbing theory is very important.”
  3. 1:00:11 The GM and the Arbiter act out dozing Acolytes waking up: “Where the fuck am I? Who the fuck are you? I remember something around my professor, maybe?” “It was a crevice and something about, I don’t know.” GM: “Wake up, everyone. Acolytes, wake up.”

Round 5 — betrayal

  1. 1:00:52 Stabbz suggests they could get out of this without fighting, and asks who they should talk to. He has already told Cass about Vanita, “my secret crush… she’s the professor of slashing.” Cass: “Sounds sexy.” The GM: “She cuts through hearts like nothing.” Cass: “That was a pun! I got that! Look, as soon as any dame gets bitten by a radioactive short sword, right, it’s just trouble from there on out.”
  2. 1:01:38 “Why don’t we take this conversation over here.” Stabbz walks right past Cass and gladly provokes the opportunity attack: “We’re friends, nothing’s gonna happen!”
  3. 1:01:51 Cass has Tavern Brawler and Grappler, and asks to swap the damage for hurling him into the lava if the attack and grapple both land. The DMs agree. The GM also explains hero points: one chance each to “go above and beyond… do something that shouldn’t be doable… You are chugging that energy drink and getting all the power. Just make sure you use it before you die.”
  4. 1:03:18 It hits (24). Stabbz: “What are you doing, buddy? I can’t help but notice that you’re approaching the lava.” Cass: “I’m gonna teach you a new stabbing technique from where I come from. First of all, I throw you down to hell. And then when you get there… you tell those naked angry imps that are gonna be kicking your ass harder than I do, those tiny pointed pitchforks aren’t good for stabbing.” He hip-throws Stabbz into the middle of the lava. Stabbz: “I trusted you! I listened to you!” “Poor little goblin.”
  5. 1:04:35 Stabbz drags himself out through the lava, which is difficult terrain, and burns again (“Every part of this is unpleasant!”). His dainty ankles are now bright red. He climbs back up: “How could you?” He casts hold person on Cass. “It’s a monk, you’re going to be fine.” “Well, you’ll be surprised.” Cass fails.
  6. 1:05:53 — The drunken autopilot (Cass’s hero point). Cass “is a naturally violent individual and has fought punch drunk and unconscious before.” He asks to take the blinded condition and keep fighting on reflex. The GM approves: “you knock your head against it real hard to help blind yourself and knock yourself into unconsciousness full throttle. What the fuck is wrong with this guy? He’s handling it all sorts of wrong, but it works.” The Arbiter: “That’s a great use of a hero point.”
  7. 1:07:38 Unconscious, swaying Cass leaps onto the wall with both legs and one hand, then swings out to punch, aiming to take himself and Stabbz into the lava together. He spends ki on drunken luck against the blindness and more ki for a stunning strike. Stabbz’s silvery barbs does nothing against drunken luck. It hits (28) and clocks Stabbz square in the jaw: “My body!” Stabbz saves against the stun (18).
  8. 1:10:19 — The bullfighter (Stabbz’s hero point). Stabbz can’t dodge the grab outright, so he spends his hero point on an enhanced Uncanny Dodge, sparked “by the betrayal.” He spins out of the way like a bullfighter, and Cass falls into the lava. His attempt to slip a dagger in during the spin fails (11). The GM: “that improv dancing comes into play as your quick feet do a beautiful twirl around.” Stabbz names the move: “Improvis raccoon!” [as heard]
  9. 1:12:55 Cass climbs up the beam out of the lava and goes for a strike to the back and a suplex. The first swing misses as Stabbz slides out of reach. A flurry of blows lands twice, then he drags Stabbz back into the lava (26), backflipping in with Stabbz underneath him. The GM: “Man, Mufasa didn’t fight this hard with Scar.” Both burn (“It burns, it burns!”). Cass, still unconscious with his eyes closed, looms over Stabbz, about to lay into him in the lava and the dirt. GM: “That’s terrifying.”

Chaos event — the black hole (1:16:25)

  1. The Arbiter’s 16 triggers his own event. He stands in the crowd: “This is kind of getting boring, honestly.” He reaches toward the middle of the arena and focuses. The wind starts to get sucked inward, the sound collapses into a vacuum, everything stops for a moment. He snaps his fingers. “A giant energy well bursts in that middle, sucking the entire building into a compressed black hole as the Arbiter opens a rift in space and time,” and it sucks in all of the lava with it.
  2. 1:18:06 GM: “Now this fight sucks.” Cass rolls a nat 20 on the save: his feet stay planted as he swings blind. Stabbz is dragged 20 ft toward the hole. Cass tries to hold on, and Stabbz wriggles free (acrobatics 30 against 11). As Stabbz gets pulled away, Cass grabs at him with his right hand, but Stabbz twists and tears free of the bit of cloth Cass held. Cass slams his hands into the charred, lava-warped road to anchor himself, kicks Stabbz in the neck, then locks him in a scissor hold around the neck with his legs (grapple 28). GM: “Foot meat face.”
  3. 1:21:14 “As the black hole sucks in all of the debris in this field of battle, it also sucks away your initiative.” Initiative is rerolled (“Mostly because I can’t keep track of the score or the rounds”). Stabbz 22, Cass 9.

The new round 1

  1. 1:22:08 Stabbz stabs the held, grappled Cass. It hits with sneak attack, plus Fury of the Small (GM: “Being tiny rocks!”).
  2. 1:22:59 — Hellish rebuke. Cass’s eyes open, though he’s still unconscious. His mohawk glows and rises into a long punk-rock mane of pure fire, orange, red and pink, and lashes out at Stabbz. Stabbz’s evasion means he takes nothing. GM: “This feels like a game of Uno where it’s like, draw two.”
  3. 1:24:08 — The mobile flourish. Stabbz spends bardic inspiration on a mobile flourish, breaks the grapple, swaps places with Cass, and runs off with cunning action. GM: “The builds on these, y’all are wild… We’re all getting a lesson here.” “That was a round in and of itself.”
  4. 1:26:32 At the end of his turn he saves against the black hole and rolls a nat 1. GM: “that nat one has come calling.” He is pulled 40 ft, right back toward the hole and toward Cass.
  5. 1:27:16 Cass uses the momentum for a kip-up kick to Stabbz’s jaw as he flies in. Stabbz’s silvery barbs doesn’t save him; it hits. Stabbz beats the grapple this time (19 vs 18). Blind Cass then misses twice, swinging his fist in completely the wrong direction and then turning to swing at another wrong direction, “completely on autopilot.” He stays held. The GM: “Some people think it’s like a hug, and if you haven’t been loved very often, maybe you might mistake it.”
  6. 1:31:43 Cass saves (27) but is still pulled 10 ft to the edge of the black hole. “You start to feel your body being torn apart.” His speed is halved, and getting out needs a DC 17 Strength save.

Round 2 — Black hole sun

  1. 1:32:45 GM: “Kill them. Make this our final round.” Stabbz: “I’m doing the best I can, boss.” GM: “Do you want your PhD or not?” “I really, really do. The student loans alone are killing me.” Arbiter: “Those loans are never going away. You might as well jump in this black hole, bud.” Stabbz worries about the Arbiter’s 14 roll: “for internal accounting purposes. Don’t worry about it.”
  2. 1:33:29 — The scroll. Stabbz “pull[s] out a sheet of paper that I received earlier today” and reads Gerald’s eighth-level Sunburst at “my very angry friend here who betrayed me.” Cass fails the Con save (9). Stabbz: “I told you everything about my life, you son of a bitch!” GM: “May your anger fuel you and shield you.” 45 radiant damage. Deflect missiles can’t touch it.
  3. 1:35:26 — Cass’s death. “Your body, racked with this elemental force, pushed into another elemental force. This small sun that he creates around your body, along with your body, gets sucked into the black hole.” Stabbz: “I’m sorry!”
  4. 1:35:55 The fire wakes Cass. He looks at his hands as the flesh strips from the bone and laughs like a lunatic. He gives Stabbz the middle finger as his bones burn: “Fuck you, Stabby Man! I’m gonna come for you in your nightmares!” His face becomes a laughing skull, his jaw falls off, and his head turns to particles as it disappears into the swirling vortex. The Arbiter adds: “all that’s left for a moment is just your middle finger sticking out before it is too, also consumed.” The last thing left is his boomerang, which lands on the ground, razor sharp and lifeless.
  5. 1:36:58 — Gerald pops up in the corner by Stabbz: “What the fuck was that guy’s deal?” Stabbz: “I don’t know, man! He says some really gnarly shit to me as he died and I don’t think I’m gonna be able to sleep well for a while!” GM: “Enough! Gerald, you’ve done your duty. Out.” She dismisses him. Stabbz: “He was nice.”
  6. 1:37:27 The GM asks the Arbiter to see if anything of Cass remains, or at least take his boomerang. The Arbiter picks up the boomerang and walks unscathed into the center of the black hole, then disappears. Stabbz: “You’re not better than me.” [addressee uncertain]
  7. 1:37:55 — The victory. The Grandmaster lands beside Stabbz: “You have shown yourself worthy and adept at not only stabbing, but being clever on the field.” Stabbz: “And stabbing.” “And stabbing. We have all sat here today in your classroom as you have taught us a new lesson in the art of battle.”
  8. 1:38:21 Her hand engulfs his small goblin hand up to the elbow. Her long, spindly fingers yank him into the sky with wind-tunnel face. She throws him up into the air and catches him on her shoulders (“you know, like good size butt cheek right there,” a callback). She holds him out to the crowd: “We have all sat within the lecture halls of battle. May you all have taken notes for one day the test may come for you all. Thank you and welcome and good night to D20 Deathmatch!”

Dried Blood (after-show)

Mostly out-of-character; creator notes. In-character lines and Drew’s canon ruling are marked.

  • 1:39:36 Drew opens: “I don’t know where the fuck I am after that battle ending in a black hole.” Dag, in Cass’s voice (Dried Blood): “Who the fuck is this? Where the fuck am I? Who the fuck are you, buddy? Don’t I have to fight again?”
  • Drew introduces Dag as “a favorite of ours, an old friend from the playtests, even dating back way back to the beginning of D20 Deathmatch”, and says he “has been in the arena a couple of times now.” This is Noir’s first time. Dag: “it sucks, but it’s a good time to suck.”
  • Noir got “a major assist from the chaos crew.” Monks are his favorite class. Professor Stabbz is an NPC from one of his home games. Noir and Dag riff that “somewhere in the multiverse they could be friends”: a high-school AU where the nerdy kid studies and Cass beats up whoever comes for his lunch money. Noir: “My lunch money belongs to him, damn it!”
  • Drew on Gerald: you normally have to sacrifice to get an item, “but Gerald was just so pissed at Cass that he’s like, fuck it, you take a spell scroll.” The roll came up an eighth-level scroll, and a second roll picked the spell. Noir: “That fucking anime ending though.”
  • Bec: the fight turned at the betrayal, after which every move got the best counter. “The quickest game of tennis.”
  • Noir: Defensive Flourish is more potent than he got to show. Dag answered his AC boost with athletics checks, since “athletics checks don’t care how much AC you have.” Dag plays 10 to 15 games a week.
  • Dag thought the Box of Chaos had despawned. Otherwise he planned to stuff Stabbz into the box, hold it shut and dive it into the lava, burying them both. Drew: “We’ve never had anybody try to bury Gerald before, especially not in lava.”
  • Drew’s favorite moment: Stabbz’s big escape followed by the nat 1 that pulled him 40 ft back. Noir: “I told y’all at the beginning, dice hate me.”
  • Dag on Cass: everyone plays monks as zen, but “Cass is actually really dumb and not wise. He is legitimately a violent sociopath.” His monk skill is just how good he is at beating people. He isn’t trying to stun; he hits you until you lose consciousness. Bec: “He’s the heart of a barbarian.” Dag: “His name is Mad Cass… the epitome of like drunk redneck energy.”
  • Canon ruling (Drew, 1:47:49): “I’m just going to go ahead and retcon that you have become Freddy Krueger now. Burned alive in a different dimension.” Bec: “You’re dead, but you’re still here. Forever.” Noir: “Why would you do that to me? I was supposed to be the winner!”
  • Canon ruling (Drew, 1:48:35): Dag pictures Stabbz up for days with coffee, playing the knife game, hearing laughter and slipping. Drew: “I want that to be canon… It’s canon. That happens. You hear the laughter from another dimension as you’re dozing off later on.” Dag: “Sleep well, Professor Stabbz.” Noir (as Stabbz): “I will not!”
  • Dag praises Noir for matching big, loud energy while keeping the cowardly character.
  • Behind the scenes: the show ran late because the scheduled player had internet trouble and couldn’t join. Dag stepped in about 10 minutes before the show, built his character and token, and “was mid-jog… sprinted home.” Noir credits Drew and Bec for redoing the show’s layouts and character sheets on the fly. Bec: “D&D stops for no one… The bonds we have now are forged in improv.”
  • Parting words:
    • Noir thanks everyone. As Stabbz (Dried Blood): “I don’t want to do this again. I don’t have to do this again. I just want to stay home.”
    • GM: “We’ll just bring you in to train our own goblins, okay?” Stabbz: “The first lesson is stab. The second lesson is don’t get stabbed.”
    • The Arbiter: “Sorry pal, you signed up for a six show contract.” GM: “Welcome for tenure.”
    • Dag gives a sincere message about alcohol addiction: help exists, and “It takes strength to reach out.” Then, as Cass (Dried Blood): “Fuck that! Give me another Guinness!… Stabby… I’ll see you real fucking soon.”
    • Stabbz: “that wasn’t actually sunburst, it was a teleportation spell to send you to AA.” Cass: “This was actually an intervention.” Stabbz: “This wasn’t an intervention.” The Arbiter: “Turns out, we’re gonna reverse.” Sign-off.

Who and what appears

Characters

Professor Stabbz (TheNoirEnigma). A goblin (“poor little goblin,” “your small goblin hand”) rogue/bard.

  • A professor at the University of Stabbz: Stabbing 101, theoretical stabbing, stabbing in Spanish. He had never used his stabbing in practice and entered the Deathmatch seeking tenure.
  • Gear and moves: a psychic blade (a glowing purple and green dagger), sharpshooter, sneak attack, cunning action, silvery barbs (three times), invisibility (“Fuck this”), hold person, Uncanny Dodge, evasion, Fury of the Small, and Defensive and Mobile Flourish.
  • Personality and lore:
    • Cowardly: “Pain is bad.”
    • Gullible; has “always wanted a friend.”
    • Has a droning lecture style according to the tome Rate My Professor.
    • Was once called “Lips” [uncertain] and got the name Stabbz “until an unfortunate accident.”
    • Has a secret crush on Vanita, the professor of slashing.
    • Says he used to do interpretive goblin dance and moves like he’s been in the circus.
    • Has dainty ankles.
    • Has student loans and wants his PhD.
  • In this episode: he told Cass his whole life story mid-fight. He won with Gerald’s eighth-level Sunburst scroll, and the Grandmaster carried him on her shoulders.
  • Dried Blood canon: he hears Cass’s laughter from another dimension as he dozes off. Gets a “six show contract” from the Arbiter (joke).

Mad Cass O Weary (DeadAussieGamer). A tiefling monk, resistant to fire. He has glowing yellow eyes, a wide puckish grin and a mohawk that becomes a mane of fire when he uses hellish rebuke. He fights with fists and a boomerang; the GM calls him Australian.

  • Joining the match: a last-minute substitute when the other champion’s “portal provider was down.” He wiped his ass with the Arbiter’s contract and stapled it to the Arbiter’s head.
  • Personality and lore:
    • Constantly drunk (“19 drunk”); his drinking “started when my dad went out for some cigarettes.”
    • Eats glass (he’s done it before) and drank the GM’s mouthwash.
    • Has a chiropractor appointment coming up.
    • Hates people with cool names.
    • Dag: “a violent sociopath,” not wise; “heart of a barbarian.”
  • Abilities: deflect missiles, walking on liquid and up walls, slow fall, “drunk(en) luck” (ki to cancel disadvantage), Tavern Brawler and Grappler, stunning strike, flurry of blows.
  • In this episode: he fought on after knocking himself unconscious under hold person.
  • Death: burned by the Sunburst and sucked into the black hole while laughing and giving the middle finger. “I’m gonna come for you in your nightmares!”
  • Dried Blood canon (Drew): Cass has become a Freddy Krueger figure, “burned alive in a different dimension.”

Gerald, the Box of Chaos (Drew). A shadowy figure with yellow beady eyes and claws who lives in the box (“my house”). Waist-high when standing in it.

  • Cass dragged him around, slammed the lid on him, and told him “If I want to listen to an asshole, I’ll fart.”
  • He could see the invisible Stabbz. He told Cass “You need therapy.”
  • Gave Stabbz an eighth-level Sunburst scroll without any sacrifice, out of spite for Cass.
  • Dismissed by the GM afterward: “you’ve done your duty.”

The Arbiter (Drew).

  • Spent last week fixing the Dread Fortress toilets in the sewers.
  • Wears Italian leather shoes (the GM: tap shoes).
  • Ran in with a dagger to “save” the GM, then enjoyed Doug’s suffering.
  • Made a water portal from the bathwater.
  • Opened the black hole: “a rift in space and time.”
  • Walked unscathed into the black hole with Cass’s boomerang.

Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer (Bec).

  • Bathed Doug by hand, because prestidigitation doesn’t get the oils out of his fur.
  • Has new marble sinks in her bathroom.
  • Took Stabbz’s “Intervention” seriously (metal chairs), and renamed invisibility “Fuck this, I’m out.”
  • Asks Acolytes where they’d put a second pair of butt cheeks.
  • Carried the winner on her shoulders.

Doug. The Grandmaster’s pug, “the absolute symbol of D20 Deathmatch.” He hates baths, escaped still soapy, and sat by the GM wet, afraid to move in case he got another bath.

Vanita. The professor of slashing, Stabbz’s secret crush. Only mentioned.

The milk-throwing dwarf. An Acolyte in the stands whom Cass threatened.

Places

  • The Dread Fortress: its sewer system and toilets; the Grandmaster’s throne room, master bedroom and bathroom (new marble sinks, tile floor).
  • The small town arena:
    • Rooftops 20 ft up, the central tavern/restaurant roof with barrels, a rope between the roofs, an underpass, a clock tower and cobblestone streets.
    • The GM invites the champions to destroy it and promises to build “something grand… perhaps a memorial” in its place.
    • By the end, the middle building is compressed into a black hole.
  • The University of Stabbz.

Items

  • The Arbiter’s contract (wiped and stapled).
  • The GM’s mouthwash.
  • The barrel of alcohol and its lid, which Cass used as a shield.
  • The Box of Chaos:
    • A purple trunk with a ring on the side and metal trinkets.
    • Light, and it feels empty inside.
    • Throws yellow/pink/purple flames, heatless when opened.
    • A carved heart on the lid reading “G plus V.”
  • The eighth-level Sunburst spell scroll from Gerald.
  • Cass’s boomerang, taken by the Arbiter into the black hole.

Lore statements

  • The Box of Chaos is Gerald’s house, and Gerald can see invisible creatures (this episode).
  • The Arbiter can open a black hole, “a rift in space and time,” in the arena and walk through it unharmed.
  • Champions can be fetched last-minute through portals. A champion’s “portal provider” can go down.
  • The GM says arena towns can be destroyed and rebuilt with memorials to the champions.
  • Hero points: one chance per champion to do something beyond the rules (“chugging that energy drink”).

Quotes by character

Professor Stabbz

  • 0:06:46 “I’m Professor Stabbz over from the University of Stabbz. I teach Stabbing 101, theoretical stabbing, stabbing in Spanish… I did request for tenure, and I guess this is how one acquires tenure.”
  • 0:12:29 “I thought it was just for flavor.”
  • 0:15:31 “Can I stop by the bank first?”
  • 0:27:03 “Don’t give him a compelling backstory! I have to murder him!”
  • 0:27:30 “I’d like to cast Intervention at third level… This death battle was just a ruse. We got you.”
  • 0:38:49 “I just saw this guy headbutt a barrel, eat glass, yell at a demon, and now he’s doing push-ups for no reason! I wanna go home, please!”
  • 0:47:03 “I don’t know if tenure is worth this!”
  • 0:51:40 “Like Icarus, I have fallen by my hubris! I flew too close to the sun, and now I pay the ultimate price!”
  • 0:55:37 “I dress this way because it’s how I feel.”
  • 0:57:39 “I’ve always wanted a friend!… Can I tell you about my childhood?”
  • 1:04:25 “I trusted you! I listened to you!”
  • 1:34:33 “I told you everything about my life, you son of a bitch!”

Mad Cass O Weary

  • 0:05:34 “Where the fuck am I? Who the fuck is this? Who the fuck are you, lady?”
  • 0:05:57 “I used it to wipe my ass and then staple it to his head. Does that count as a signature?”
  • 0:08:10 “I hate people with cool names… I can disassemble someone with nothing but a stern gaze, a very, very high blood alcohol content, and these!”
  • 0:20:41 “Who the fuck is throwing milk?… Once I’m done with this fucker, I’m after you next.”
  • 0:24:33 “Good thing I didn’t wear my fucking good shirt today. Shit! I’m too fucking sober for this shit.”
  • 0:26:47 “On a scale of one to 20, I was 19 drunk.”
  • 0:26:57 “Well, it all started when my dad went out for some cigarettes.”
  • 0:35:40 “Shut the fuck up! If I want to listen to an asshole, I’ll fart!”
  • 0:37:49 “Gin and vodka. I got it.”
  • 0:46:19 “Sixth time pin the tail on the asshole winner.”
  • 1:03:36 “First of all, I throw you down to hell… you tell those naked angry imps… those tiny pointed pitchforks aren’t good for stabbing.”
  • 1:35:55 “Fuck you, Stabby Man! I’m gonna come for you in your nightmares!”

The Arbiter

  • 0:03:46 “Yes, perfect.”
  • 0:05:01 “Welcome to the Grandmaster’s bathroom, champions.”
  • 0:08:02 “Blood works as a great sealant for the grout.”
  • 0:12:09 “It’s in the name. It says D20 Deathmatch, not D20 Lovematch.”
  • 0:21:22 “You do eat that glass. You’ve done this before. Not your first time.”
  • 0:27:43 “The material components are six to eight of his loved ones and some cookies.”
  • 0:45:20 “He’s trained his liver his entire life for this.”
  • 1:16:40 “This is kind of getting boring, honestly.”
  • 1:21:14 “As the black hole sucks in all of the debris in this field of battle, it also sucks away your initiative.”
  • 1:33:08 “Those loans are never going away. You might as well jump in this black hole, bud.”
  • 1:52:25 (Dried Blood) “Sorry pal, you signed up for a six show contract.”

Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer

  • 0:03:04 “Would you just hold still? This would be over so much faster if you quit moving!”
  • 0:07:57 “I just got the sinks done. This is all new marble. If you get any of this broken, I will make you pay for it.”
  • 0:11:01 “Please tear this down and we will build something grand in its place. Perhaps a memorial to your greatness.”
  • 0:11:01 “Show me those devil horns if you’re ready for a fight.”
  • 0:17:23 “Empty your pockets… This now becomes a game of dodgeball.”
  • 0:38:38 “Fuck this, I’m out. We’re renaming invisibility.”
  • 0:44:43 “You Australian!”
  • 0:55:34 “You shouldn’t have had your ankle showing in the first place.”
  • 1:07:07 “What the fuck is wrong with this guy? He’s handling it all sorts of wrong, but it works.”
  • 1:18:06 “Now this fight sucks.”
  • 1:37:15 “Enough! Gerald, you’ve done your duty. Out.”
  • 1:39:06 “We have all sat within the lecture halls of battle. May you all have taken notes for one day the test may come for you all.”

Gerald, the Box of Chaos

  • 0:35:31 “Where the fuck do you think you’re taking me?… What the fuck are you doing with my house?”
  • 0:41:44 “You’re a real fucking dick, you know?”
  • 0:42:09 “Well, maybe your mom was on to something. You need therapy.”
  • 0:43:48 “This guy’s a dick. I’m gonna help you out.”
  • 1:36:58 “What the fuck was that guy’s deal?”

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