S3E5, Edge Lords - Captain Fable v Verryn Ruth

Champions and players	sensei_suplex as Captain Fable; Ascension_Matt (Matt Taylor) as Verryn Ruth
Result	Captain Fable (decapitates Verryn Ruth)
Arena	the ruins of an old cathedral and graveyard, long overgrown, in a fog-covered swamp
Hosts	Caustic Phoenix (Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer); Mudcat narrates and plays the Arbiter
Watch	YouTube

What happens

Opening: the Dread Fortress and the five thrones

1. 0:00:10 The show opens with the Arbiter out of breath (“Not a young man anymore”). The GM asks how old he is. Arbiter: “four, four and a half thousand years old.” She thought he’d say four and a half years, and muses about celebrating his birthday (“but who cares?”). Drew: “Despite the fact that he does have an age, he’s also timeless and has no birthday.” Asked where he came from: “Don’t ask questions.”

2. 0:00:49 In the halls of Elusia Skypiercer in the Dread Fortress, the Arbiter walks the hallway with chains clanking behind him, “a prisoner in this domain now of the Grandmaster’s.” He follows the commotion to the giant wooden doors of the throne room and peeks in.

3. 0:01:40 The GM says she sent a raven hours ago because she needs his opinion. He asks her to remove the chains so he can move faster. She refuses: “just get stronger… You got like weak little chicken legs.” The chains are “a gift… like ankle weights,” and he should do sprints up the staircase. “It’s like you skipped leg day for those 400,000 whatever years you’ve been alive.”

4. 0:02:29 The thrones. Five different thrones stand at the front of the throne room, because she couldn’t decide which to get:

   • A throne made of swords. She finds it “a little too overdone… I feel like I’ve seen that before somewhere.” The Arbiter calls it garish.
   • A purple velvet high throne reaching to the sky with a diamond sun at the top. Regal, but it makes her look short. Arbiter: “that diamond says I’m richer than you are and I know it.”
   • Three more of varying size, colour and gaudiness.

   The poor goblins keep shifting the thrones around so she can compare them. She wants to put it to a vote of the Acolytes: “They have good taste in everything.” The Arbiter mocks trusting “the common man… they’re not uncommon.” She insists: “Only the most amazing individuals worship me.”

5. 0:04:26 She decides it’s time for a Deathmatch, after which the Acolytes can vote on the chair. The Arbiter claps; sound waves visibly ripple as he rips open a portal and introduces “Verryn Ruth versus Captain Fable.”

6. 0:05:18 Captain Fable’s entrance. “Seems to be that I have wandered upon this strange land. However, if the gods want me to play their games once more, then I must abide if I wish to slay them all. I raise my sword in this individual’s name and blood will be shed.”

   • He is an eight-foot minotaur in pirate attire with a necromantic, deathly aura.
   • He was a paladin “until the gods screwed them over”, and carries a chip on his shoulder.
   • He is a fortune teller and storyteller who loves to tell fables: “we will see whether this fable will be that of someone’s death, or even theirs.”

7. 0:06:40 Verryn Ruth’s entrance. A tiefling man struts forward, his hooves clacking on the cobblestone “like a couple of coconuts.” To the GM: “It is a blessing to look upon you, Grandmaster. Your visage is fabled.”

   • He calls himself “but a humble, forlorn soul”, “thirsty for glory.”
   • He fights with “Only that which my patron bestows upon me… blessed by the shadow.”
   • Matt reveals he is a hexblade warlock. The table mocks this (“Tieflings are never warlocks”).
   • He stretches out bat-like wings, then folds them back into his back. The GM: “Beautiful, majestic, love it.”

8. 0:08:57 The throne question. The GM asks each champion which throne he would sit on.

   • Fable wants a throne of riches, skulls and “lots and lots of alcohol,” on a ship “worthy of sailing all of the seas” rather than in a castle. The Arbiter asks where she’d get a ship this time of year. She’d have the goblins build one, “like a cute little treehouse.” The Arbiter: “You saw how the kitchen renovation came out.” She loves the idea of a built-in bar in the throne. Fable says a major image or hallucinatory terrain would also do: “I’m not hard to please.”
   • Verryn casts Minor Illusion and holds up a bust of Doja Cat: “Do you have any thrones that look like this?” The GM: “It’s magnificent! Why have I been missing this? This is an immediate choice.” Several goblins start drooling. Fable: “Is this some strange divine power?”
   • The GM orders the goblins to cover it, take a picture, and sculpt one like it.

9. 0:11:16 The GM: “Arbiter, we all know the only throne you’ll have is a toilet.” Arbiter: “I’ll have a throne and I’ll make it out of your bones.” Annoyed that Verryn was showing off his wings, the Arbiter flares one of his giant glowing white wings to beckon them into the portal.

The arena: the swamp cathedral

10. 0:11:36 They step into dank, musky air: the ruins of an old cathedral in a swamp, long overgrown. The GM: “Know that this place is long forgotten, but you’ll never forget the bodies that decay here.”
    • It “smells like farts and death everywhere.”
    • Feet sink a couple of inches, and rib cages and skulls pop up. Wet socks for anyone without waterproof shoes.
    • Old, fragile tombstones make good rocks for hitting people.
    • Ten-foot ruined walls give cover but aren’t stable enough to walk on.
11. 0:13:13 The GM’s wings clear the stench for a moment as she flies up above the green fog that devours the land. High in the sky, colourful, brightly decorated Acolytes scream the champions’ names and wave flags. “Make sure that it’s worth the memory.” Doug jumps up to join her on her temporary throne, the Doja Cat bust, and sits at her feet.
12. 0:14:28 Placement. Fable starts near graves whose headstones have been pushed out by years of overgrowth (“assuredly there are bodies beneath your feet”). Verryn starts behind a wall with half cover.
13. 0:15:40 Initiative: Fable 14, Verryn 8. The Arbiter flies to the stands, where Acolytes spill beer and shovel in popcorn and cotton candy, pointing at the field and telling their children “someday this could be you.” It’s “a family-friendly event”; “these are very mature kids.” Matt: “They’ll need therapy later in life, like the rest of us.”
14. 0:16:49 The fog. The Arbiter flies around the arena at lightning pace and stirs the low fog up to waist height. From the waist down, nobody can see where they’re stepping.

Round 1

15. 0:17:38 Fable’s question. “I ask this all to who face the end of my blade. Where exactly does your strength come from?”
    • Verryn: “I pull from the abyss, from chaos itself. Its whims carry to and fro, as do mine.”
    • Fable asks whether he draws on the foul entities that seek to control him. Verryn: “They seek to control, but they’re quite poor at it. They give me their power and I do as I will.”
    • Fable: “Then you are a fool for accepting such power. It is not strength, but it’s strings attached to a puppet. If I need to show you true strength, I will beat it out of you.”
16. 0:19:13 Divine Sense. Electricity coagulates in Fable’s eyes as he scans for undead (“In a graveyard?”). He senses something moving under the ground, worming its way under the moss, hidden in the fog.
17. 0:19:56 Spirit Shroud and the presidents. Fable moves 25 ft toward it. A small thunderstorm forms above him as he drags his massive buster sword through the dirt, and a necrotic shroud forms over him: Spirit Shroud. Skeleton arms writhe out of the ground and grasp at his feet.
    • The GM: the dead crawling up are well dressed, in clothes from many time periods. The closest has wooden teeth, and its tombstone reads George Washington. Andrew Jackson lies further down, and “Abraham Lincoln, the vampire hunter,” is a couple of rows over (“Zombie Abraham”).
    • Fable: “I do not know your name, nor your presidential history. Regardless, you will aid me in this fight whether you like it or not.”
    • The GM suggests Taft, the one who got stuck in the bathtub, “if you’re looking for one with some girth.” The fat “did not dissipate around his hips”; he has “bathtub-shaped bones” and giant hip bones.
    • Fable ends his turn glaring at “the patron-worshipping individual.”
18. 0:23:00 Verryn takes to the air. He raises an eyebrow at the “hoisting of the presidents,” unfurls his wings and flies straight up 30 ft above the fog. To the Acolytes: “Is this what you wanted? Two ruthless individuals tearing each other limb from limb for your enjoyment, for your capitalist endeavors? Then you shall have it.”
19. 0:23:53 “Bitch, I’m a cow.” Minor Illusion makes the voice “Bitch, I’m a cow. Bitch, I’m a cow” come from Fable’s direction. Verryn: “Seems my opponent has different ideas.”
    • Fable: “What the hell is this? Damned tricks… I’m not a cow. I don’t even know what I am. The gods took that from me as well. Stop saying. I have feelings, you know.”
    • The GM awards a d4 of emotional damage (“Emotional damage!”). It’s 1. The Arbiter: “the cold grasp of emotional damage spiking through your brain.”
20. 0:25:44 End of round 1. The Arbiter’s roll is a 10 (“good enough”). Half the Acolytes cheer for each champion, so both get a hero point.

The Box of Chaos arrives

21. 0:26:19 The Arbiter swirls the fog into a 10–20 ft clearing, and the Box of Chaos slams into the sludge with a squish. The lid flips open, pink and yellow flames shoot a column to the sky, two dark shadowy hands creep over the side, and yellow-eyed Gerald peeks out. The GM: “this is Gerald… he will grant you something magical if you give him something.”

Chaos events: the mushrooms and the mean children (0:27:33)

22. “Chaos!” Two events trigger, and one roll is doubled.
23. 0:27:55 The mushrooms (roll 2). Six glowing mushrooms of various colours and sizes pop up across the mossy ground. “What they can offer you will be a surprise.” The Arbiter places them.
24. 0:28:24 The mean kids (nat 20, doubled). A group of children on the far north side of the stands start roasting both champions.
    • They mock their hooves and mimic them with coconuts: “look at me, I’m just like them.”
    • The jeers: “Duck, duck, geese. That guy’s a cow.” “Your wings aren’t that special. Anyone can fly.” “Your mother of a mountain kissed a horse.”
    • Both make a Wisdom save against 3d8 psychic damage, doubled.
    • Fable: “I am not a cow. I am a bull. Fear me.” He fails.
    • Verryn calls back: “If you can fly, then please vault to the side of the wall and fly over to me.” The GM: “You’ll have to yell louder for those poor little deaf children… Because their words hurt, you just whisper that almost to yourself.”
25. 0:31:08 Fable: “I know you are, but what am I?… Kids are mean… I’m just trying to mind my own business, you know, culling the gods and everything in between… I didn’t choose to be this way, you know. I have feelings.”
26. 0:31:39 The Arbiter on mean words. The GM suggests he can empathize. Arbiter: “It’s only through the mean words that you really reach your full potential. Isn’t that right, you piece of shit?” He says it while looking at Doug. The GM: “Don’t speak to Doug that way… I thought you’d be more welcoming compared to how many mean words have always been spoken to you.”
27. 0:32:55 The nurturing side. Ordered to be encouraging, the Arbiter tells Verryn: “You’re much taller than those children… Don’t listen to them. They’re short.” He heals Verryn 10 HP: “That’s the most kind words he could come up with.” He adds that the children’s moms “are probably very promiscuous.”
28. 0:33:26 The mom. One mom in the crowd winks back, “just waiting for her opportunity.” The Arbiter: “It’s that one mom that’s really into my chains.” Verryn rips his top a little to show a tattoo reading “MOMS ONLY.” She blows him a kiss, granting +2 HP.

Round 2

30. 0:34:27 Fable and Doug. Fable eyes the mushrooms: “Ingot, Philo, is that you? What the hell are you doing here?” Then he asks Doug whether the “puppy dog” is able and willing to fight: “you’re pretty cute, I’m not going to lie, but I’m trying to understand your purpose here.”
    • Doug hops down. Fable pulls out a necromantic bone from a corpse: “Hey, little buddy.” Doug runs after the bone but won’t bring it back. He ends up 10 ft away, toward the Box of Chaos.
31. 0:36:16 Control Undead. Fable: “Strength coming from higher powers and higher beings, that is the strength of pawns… Let me show you the true power of strength and unity.”
    • He slowly takes off one glove, revealing a necromantic skeletal hand. Electricity surges around him and his face turns briefly undead and wicked.
    • “I think you’ll do. Now join my crew.” With his Oathbreaker power he takes control of the Taft skeleton, “the one with the mammoth bones… just in the hips” (“dude could twerk”).
    • He puts a little pirate captain’s hat on it.
    • He points at Verryn (“Baron” — he forgets the name mid-line): “Drag them down to hell.” He orders it to fire its short bow.
32. 0:39:04 Fable pets Doug. To the jeering crowd: “Don’t look at me like that. I may be like angry all the time, but I have a soft spot.”
33. 0:39:29 Gerald and the blunderbuss.
    • Gerald: “You come to my house, who are you?”
    • Fable: “I’m Captain Fable… the whole person that’s like gather around the table, let me tell you a fable.” Gerald: “Sorry, I don’t get TV here.” The table jokes he’s on PBS (“The more you know”).
    • They shake hands. “Name’s Gerald. Now… did you have something to give me or what’s your deal?”
    • Fable tosses in a blunderbuss he’s barely used: “They never really explained this in… pirate school.” Verryn wonders where he pulled it from.
    • Gerald: “This is a perfect [match] with some stuff I got from a guy named Martin.” Fable: “You know, Martin…” Gerald: “I know a lot of Martins, bud.”
    • The box rumbles. Meanwhile Doug finishes the bone, and his noxious fart rocket-propels him back up to the Grandmaster’s throne, trailing “a green line of air, kind of like how the Wicked Witch used to fly.” Fable makes a Constitution save: “I’ve been around dead people… We all smell terrible.”
    • 0:42:51 The lid flips open again in cold magical fire. Gerald: “Ah, well, it’s not a gun, but it’ll fuck someone up.” He floats over the Far Realm Shard, a crystal that can tear a slimy tentacle through reality to strike and frighten a creature. (“Avert the children’s eyes!” “Suddenly we’re on Crunchyroll.”)
    • Fable: “Thank you, Gerald. Pleasure to meet you and get free shit.” Gerald: “It’s not really free. I had that blunderbuss appraised. It was… kind of a collectible.” Fable: “I found that thing in just some random abandoned haunted house. Ah, son of a bitch. I’m going to have to yell at Moana eventually. All right. [Verryn], fight me.”
34. 0:44:39 The skeleton’s first shot misses (“I didn’t take him through… basic training yet”). Verryn dodges with a barrel roll. Fable: “Form on me!” The skeleton slogs over to stand in his aura, to imagined lumbering “toddle” elevator music.
35. 0:46:20 Verryn arms up.
    • He casts Mage Armor, “the armor of chaos.”
    • He reaches into the abyss beside him and pulls out a shadowy greatsword, a gift from his patrons.
    • To Fable “and his army of skelly bones”: “It is with this, Fable, that I will rend your soul from your body.”
36. 0:47:03 The nipple ring. Verryn takes one of his nipple rings from inside his tunic and tosses it toward the box. It’s bejeweled and bedazzled.
    • The toss lands short, on the ground next to Gerald. Gerald, “prone to looking for shiny objects,” spots it and slithers out of the box as a legless shadowy snake to grab it.
    • When he pops back up, Gerald is wearing the nipple ring, balanced with a second one: a pink glittery tassel.
    • 0:50:33 With flames shooting up through the fog, Gerald gives Verryn a Sentinel Shield (an eye emblem, +2 AC, advantage on initiative and perception). It can look like anything, so Verryn makes it a codpiece. “Someone hand buffed this thing. They spent a lot of time hand buffing it.”
37. 0:51:27 Hexblade’s Curse. A tight shadowy vision of Verryn’s eyes and nose fills Fable’s mind, and Verryn’s voice: “Thank you for the real estate inside your mind. I’ll be sure to put it to good use.”
    • Fable: “And I’ll make sure to make use of your corpse when you are dead.” Verryn: “Kinky, I like it.”
    • The GM: “We recycle here, it’s good.” The Arbiter: “We here at [the Dread?] Fortress believe in a green world.” Fable: “Reduce, reuse, recycle people.”
38. 0:53:17 End of round 2. The Arbiter rolls a 20 (“two in a row! He’s heating it up!”). The GM: “Suck it, Doug.” Because the Arbiter insulted Doug, Doug farts in his direction, and he makes a Constitution save (“Is Doug a Frenchie?”).
39. 0:54:13 Break. The Arbiter “almost had a heart attack” from the 20. Before the break, Matt pitches his documentary (see creator notes). The break is cut. 0:56:01 “And we’re back!” The GM: “Surprise!”

Round 3

40. 0:56:25 The Arbiter recaps: “trading quips, acquiring codpieces, and other stuff.”
41. 0:56:54 Javelins. Fable: “Why do you fly so high? Are you scared what you will find on the ground? Very well. Let’s see if we can ground this simple bird.”
    • He charges javelins with electricity. “You skeleton, fire!” A Commander’s Strike sends Taft’s arrow first (“He is only as good as his crew”), but it misses.
    • The javelin whiffs completely. Fable: “I’m not suited for this aerial battle… Come to the ground and face me if this is your true strength.”
42. 0:58:45 The mushroom. Fable wanders into a mushroom’s area. The mushroom seems to grow, but he is shrinking: one size smaller for a turn.
    • Still raging: “Fight me! I’ll take you all on! Screw the gods!” He flips everything off.
    • The table: “It’s finally a minotaur!” The GM: “minitaurs are also a chaotic event in and of themselves.”
    • Taft picks him up and holds him aloft in one hand while Fable bellows “CHALLENGE!”
43. 1:01:16 Summon Shadowspawn. Verryn cocks his head and mutters about the “very small cow” on the ground. “It’s a fight face to face, is it? Tell me, Fable. How do you deal with [shadow] daemons?”
    • He points at Fable’s shadow, and a shadowspawn rises from it in roughly Fable’s shape, smoke-like, flowing in and out of form. It is also mini.
    • Then Verryn dive-bombs to the ground beside Fable (“like Thor”).
    • Tiny Fable: “I’ll cut your wings off and I’ll shove it down your throat.” “It’s so cute when he’s angry.” “Don’t make fun of me.”
44. 1:04:25 Despair, and Fable’s past. Verryn chooses despair for the spawn: it reaches into Fable’s innermost sadness, regrets and baggage, and slows anyone near it. The GM: “What just scared you, Fable?”
    • Fable (sensei_suplex): he was once a pirate captain and a normal paladin, happy, “causing chaos and mischief across the lands.”
    • Then one day he bit off more than he could chew. Enemies surrounded his ship and killed his crew on all sides until he was the only one left.
    • He called out to the goddess of the sea and the god of the storm, and to every pantheon. They all failed him.
    • That hatred and despair at losing his crew fuels his path of revenge: “I will kill every god that will do it.”
    • The Acolytes bawl, and their salty tears rain down on the arena. The skeleton does a rain dance.
45. 1:06:45 Chilling Rend. The spawn’s first strike misses; the second hits for 16, and Fable’s fear responses explode inside his brain.
    • Fable sees the spawn hurting too: “You strike me, yes, you don’t even know… your power and how it works. The things that you seek, the things that you control, they still damage you from within. You’ll pay for this, insolence boy.”
    • Verryn: “Good, you remind me I’m alive.” One of them: “That’s why we hurt. We bleed to know we’re alive.” The GM: “Feels like we could start an emo band any minute now.”
46. 1:09:44 End of round 3: the plush d20s. The Arbiter rolls 11 after two 20s.
    • Doug hops up with his plushy d20, rolls it and ties, then gives the Arbiter a matching plush d20 squeaky toy.
    • The Arbiter rips it in half, rewinds time so it’s whole again, and rips it again, over and over in front of Doug.
    • The GM opens the closet behind her throne, and hundreds of plush d20s tumble out. It’s “just the spare overload”; there’s a whole basement full of them.
    • The Arbiter: “Looks like I’m taking a trip to the basement.” He winks at the mom (“That’s the Arbiter’s pickup line”). On his persuasion roll she swoons, and her girlfriends catch her.

Round 4

47. 1:11:48 The codpiece. Tiny Fable is at eye level with Verryn’s codpiece. “You are also blinded by the majesty that is my codpiece.” Light glints off it, so Fable’s first attack has disadvantage.
48. 1:12:28 His buster sword, now “like a toothpick,” stabs in for a hit.
    • Verryn’s Armor of Hexes fails. “I noticed a one is not the number you were looking for.”
    • Despair-fuelled necromantic energy adds Fable’s Aura of Hatred, but his tiny size subtracts the maximum (“Fable considers therapy for a moment”).
49. 1:14:19 Thunderous Smite. “He loves his thunder, he loves his lightning.” He raises the sword skyward: “Fear me!” The second swing misses and reverberates off the codpiece “like a bell.” Fable realises casting the smite dropped his Spirit Shroud, which still adds necrotic damage to the earlier hit.
50. 1:16:32 “These damned gods, they won’t let me enlarge again. But when I do, your corpse will be on this sword. I don’t know, I’m running out of shit to say.” Verryn: “I’ve heard that excuse before, in the bedroom.”
51. 1:16:50 Growing back. Fable regrows to his eight-foot height while Taft is still holding him up, hands cupping his butt cheeks, and the regrowth snaps one of Taft’s hands off. Fable: “Oh, sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean that, buddy. Well, quick, buddy’s distracted. Attack! Do it now!”
    • The damage breaks Verryn’s concentration, and the shadowspawn dissipates.
    • Taft throws down his bow and swings his short sword/scimitar, slashing at Verryn’s leg to bring him to a knee. The aura adds damage because Taft is undead and next to Fable.
52. 1:18:56 The GM reminds both champions to use their hero points: “The only thing that we hate is a hero point gone unused at the battle’s end.”
53. 1:19:47 Darkness. Verryn is shoved back and splays out in a crouch before standing tall. “Fable, I see the darkness in your heart, but how do you fare in true darkness?”
    • He casts Darkness in a 15 ft radius (“Turns out this is Kingdom Hearts”).
    • With his hero point he draws energy “from the crowd and the chaos gods that have given me power” for two greatsword attacks.
    • The Acolytes scream his name and beg for the darkness. They watch through special glasses, like 3D glasses. The Arbiter: “The entire Dread Fortress in the arena is like 4D, so they’ve got those little air jets and like water spritzers behind their seats.” “Every time blood splatters, they get like water in their face.”
    • Fable: “The darkness in my heart is enough.” He can’t see.
    • Verryn’s eyes flick a different colour, as if swapping lenses, with a night-vision-goggle sound effect (“All of my years of Call of Duty”; the Arbiter: “Enemy spotted in your area”). He can see in the magical darkness, so he gets advantage.
54. 1:24:05 The exchange. Pacing, Verryn: “Do you feel it, Fable? Your insecurities, your doubts, the weights of all of your past.”
    • Fable: “I don’t think you understand. They took everything from me. My name, my crew, my life. I have no past, but my future will be forged in blood. Yours.”
    • Verryn’s first swing whiffs despite advantage. The Arbiter: “Delivers one of the coldest lines of the whole Deathmatches and then just whiffs.”
    • The second hits for 14 “sadness damage,” plus the hexblade curse bonus, which Fable reminds him of honestly (“I might be chaotic evil, but I have a little bit of, you know, integrity.” The GM: “A bit. Just a few inches worth.”).
55. 1:28:21 The Arbiter’s chaos: the bats. The Arbiter rolls 18, and the GM lets him bring his own chaos.
    • He raises his hands, and bats pour from the trees and fog, flapping and pinging. They swarm the champions and dive-bomb in and out of the darkness.
    • Verryn can see them; Fable can’t. “Damned things, get away from me. What is even attacking me? I can’t see in this domain.”
    • “Beware of the batnado!” Fable takes 6 and Verryn 3.
    • The bats slam through Taft’s bones, biting and flapping, and destroy the skeleton (“They’re just busy right now devouring bathtub boy”). The bats keep swarming the area for the rest of the fight.
56. 1:31:16 Taft’s eulogy. Fable looks at the fallen crewmate’s little pirate hat on the ground: “You fought well and bravely, soldier. Even though I think you only hit once, but that’s perfectly fine. You will be remembered.” A bat smacks him in the face: “All right, now I’m angry.”
57. 1:31:49 Concentration. Verryn keeps his Darkness up. Fable rolls a nat 20 on his concentration; his muscles bulge as he writhes “with an unnatural and unholy strain.” Matt: if the bats had done more, he’d have been “Nicolas Cage in that movie with the bees.”

Round 5: the kill

58. 1:34:02 Fable’s hero point. Surrounded by darkness and bats, Fable looks at his fallen comrade, and memories of all his men dying wash over him.
    • Lightning surges across the ground. Skeletal and zombified hands burst out, grab Verryn where he stands, and chain him to the ground.
    • “Men to arms. This fool worships the gods, worships devils, doesn’t matter. His strength calls from a higher power. It is time to show him the true strength, strength in unity. Die by my blade, boy, and kneel before me.” He aims for the head.
59. 1:36:17 The first swing hits, but Armor of Hexes makes it miss. Verryn: “Varen sees the sword coming… you hear just like a… taunt, making you second guess yourself… ‘oh, he’s not there, he’s over here’… you end up in mid swing, changing your direction and going through air. And you hear like a small little cackle in your head.”
60. 1:37:21 The second swing. Fable shuts out every thought (“Death and Oblivion”) and swings again.
    • It hits, with Aura of Hatred and Thunderous Smite.
    • The GM gives Verryn her blessing on the Strength save: “Be strong. You have the Grandmaster’s blessing.” It doesn’t help. He is knocked prone.
    • A booming thunderclap echoes, and lightning strikes the blade “almost kind of like Thor,” embedding it in Verryn’s neck and clavicle.
    • The divine light dispels the magical darkness. Verryn falls, conscious but dying.
61. 1:39:39 Verryn’s last words. With his lifeblood flowing from the blade buried below his neck, panting: “I was born by chaos. I lived by chaos. And though you may not know it, you too serve chaos. It is to chaos I go, and by chaos I will return.”
62. 1:40:27 Fable’s offer. “I serve no one. My crew, we have no leader. We are all equal. We gather our strength from each other… I offer them the choice to instead stand with me in the afterlife. The choice is yours to join my skeletal crew in death. But if you seek to worship… a god or a devil… that is your foolish choice. Make your decision now or perish.”
63. 1:41:50 The refusal. Verryn: “That sounds like a pretty good deal. This isn’t my first life though. So I’ve got a better deal for you. I’m gonna give you the finger and you can rip your sword out of my chest.”
64. 1:42:23 Fable: “Devoted to your foolish ideals. Respect.” He cuts Verryn’s head clean off.

Aftermath: the ship

65. 1:42:42 The Grandmaster lands: “The decisions have been made and the blood has been spilled so there will be no going back at this point. Arbiter, clear my arena.” The Arbiter slumps Verryn’s body over one shoulder, grabs the head by the hair and flies off, “stuck with the fucking cleanup work.”
66. 1:43:21 Fable checks the deal: “they said that, hey, you just gotta kill this one person and then you can do whatever you want, and so [I] wound up in [the Void?] or whatever… We good? We cool?” (Who “they” are is not said.)
67. 1:43:46 The gift. GM: “Captain, we are very cool… Take my hand for I have one gift to bestow upon you.”
    • He offers his skeletal undead hand. “It’s fine, I’ve held worse. Strong hand.”
    • She flies him up to a ship in the sky: black hull, black sails, a gold crown emblem.
    • “I gift you a new ship. To remain true to you. That will always remind you that the strength comes from unity, yourself, your own values that have won you the victory today. That it may sail you to more seas and more winds and more than will be able to sit at your table.”
    • Its name, whatever he chooses, will be embroidered in gold along its side. The GM and all the Acolytes nod to him, then scream and pop champagne for his maiden voyage.
68. 1:45:42 Fable settles into the ship’s throne, gathers his crew, cracks his neck: “Everyone gather around the table and let me tell you all a D20 Deathmatch fable.” The GM: “Welcome and goodnight to our bedtime story of D20 Deathmatch.”

Dried Blood (after-show)

In-character (canon, Dried Blood)

• 1:57:41 Captain Fable’s closing words (in Fable’s voice): “Always remember. Your strength does not come from outside forces. You determine whether you are strong or not. If you feel as if you are weak, then begin to become strong… look towards others around you to bolster your resolve, but never outside omnipotent forces. It will screw you over and drag you through the dirt all the same. This is true strength, strength in unity.”
• 1:58:28 Verryn’s post-show appearance.
  • He walks out of the locker room, still sweaty and bloody, carrying his own head under his arm like a helmet, with a towel over his shoulder.
  • The mic is held to the head under his arm. “I suppose the best advice that I would be qualified to give is it’s important to feel. Your feelings are… powerful things. They remind you you’re alive. You should feel good things, but in your pursuit of feeling good, be mindful of the way your pursuits are impacting those around you.”
  • He stares off into the distance.
• 1:59:36 sensei_suplex pictures Fable in the background: “Hey, does anybody know where Doug is? I still have a bone.” (Player aside, half in character.)

Out-of-character: creator notes

• Sensei is returning; this is Matt’s first time on. Matt stepped away from Twitch for two years. The show reminded him of watching WWE at a wing shop with friends.
• Drew: the show’s influences are professional wrestling, Celebrity Deathmatch and Mystery Science Theater 3000. He stresses building a real narrative inside PvP, and would watch both characters in a dark “edgelord campaign.”
• Matt: both characters were “uncannily edgy”: “the most stereotypical liners from the dark, moody characters… but then we got two of them.” The GM: “You get a shadow. You get a hex. Here’s a dead guy. Here’s darkness.”
• Sensei is taking the ship into his own campaign. He says “Martin, the previous character” once referenced the show in his campaign (“Is this the arena? Where’s the Arbiter?”).
• Verryn is from a campaign where he was higher level and has died several times. Matt compares the arena to Goku’s afterlife tournament in Dragon Ball Z: a temporary stop before he is thrown back into the world to resume his hedonism. Verryn is “emotionally unhealthy.”
• Drew, on “this isn’t my first life”: “we need a prequel one-shot, a very origin story.”
• Matt’s Kickstarter: “Beyond the Game Dice” from Dice Roll Studios, a feature documentary about tabletop RPG players.
  • Goal: $65,000. Talks with Amazon and Netflix.
  • Five segments: cosplayers/LARPers, homeless shelters and prisons (maybe library programs for children), collectors, the community, celebrities.
• Sensei’s Project Aurora / the Auroraverse: a shared living world run by several DMs, where viewers affect weather, inspiration and worldbuilding. On Twitch as Sensei_Suplex.

Who and what appears

Characters

Captain Fable (sensei_suplex).

• An eight-foot minotaur in pirate attire with a deathly necromantic aura.
• A fallen paladin: Oathbreaker, with Battle Master manoeuvres. A fortune teller and storyteller (“let me tell you a fable”).
• Gear:
  • A massive buster greatsword.
  • Javelins charged with lightning.
  • A skeletal necromantic hand under one glove.
  • Bones of corpses carried as treats.
  • A blunderbuss from “an actual campaign”, traded away.
  • Gained the Far Realm Shard and a black ship with a gold crown emblem.
• Powers: thunder and lightning; Divine Sense, Spirit Shroud, Control Undead, Commander’s Strike, Aura of Hatred, Thunderous Smite.
• Backstory (stated this episode):
  • Once a happy pirate captain and paladin.
  • His crew was slaughtered while every god and pantheon (the sea goddess, the storm god) ignored his prayers.
  • “They took everything from me. My name, my crew, my life.” He doesn’t know what he is: “the gods took that from me as well.”
  • He now aims to slay/cull all the gods.
  • Creed: strength in unity, never from higher powers. His crew has no leader; all are equal.
  • Insists he’s a bull, not a cow, and has feelings.
• Has “a soft spot”: pets Doug.
• Claims he found the blunderbuss in an abandoned haunted house. Mentions “Ingot, Philo” and “Moana” (unexplained).
• Says “they” told him to kill one person and he could do what he wanted.
• Winner.

Verryn Ruth (Ascension_Matt).

• A tiefling hexblade warlock with hooves and bat-like wings that fold into his back. Calls himself “a humble, forlorn soul,” “blessed by the shadow,” “thirsty for glory.”
• Draws power “from the abyss, from chaos itself”; his patrons give him power, but they’re “quite poor” at controlling him.
• Gear and powers:
  • A shadowy greatsword pulled from the abyss.
  • Mage Armor (“armor of chaos”), Minor Illusion, Hexblade’s Curse, Armor of Hexes.
  • Summon Shadowspawn (despair), Darkness, and sight through magical darkness (eyes change colour).
• Body: bejeweled nipple rings (gave one to Gerald). A “MOMS ONLY” tattoo on his chest.
• Gained the Sentinel Shield as a hand-buffed codpiece.
• “This isn’t my first life.” Expects to return by chaos.
• Decapitated by Fable. Later seen leaving the locker room carrying his head (Dried Blood).

Taft’s skeleton (“bathtub boy”). One of the arena’s dead presidents, with bathtub-shaped, mammoth hip bones.

• Pressed into Fable’s crew with a pirate hat. Fired a short bow, then a short sword.
• Lost a hand when Fable regrew. Destroyed by the bats; Fable eulogized him.

The Arbiter (Drew).

• Now a chained prisoner in the Grandmaster’s Dread Fortress.
• Says he is “four, four and a half thousand years old,” yet “timeless and has no birthday.”
• Powers: claps portals open with visible sound waves; giant glowing white wings; rewinds time (the plush d20 gag); summons bats.
• Believes in mean words. Insults and bullies Doug.
• Possibly said “I should have killed you in my throne room. And I had the chance” (target unclear).
• Flirts with the “mom who’s into my chains.”
• Does the body cleanup.

Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer (Bec).

• Shopping for five thrones; picks a Doja Cat bust throne to be sculpted, and uses it temporarily in the arena.
• Plans an Acolyte vote on the throne. Keeps the Arbiter in chains as “ankle weights.”
• Protects Doug. Has a closet and a whole basement of plush d20s.
• Blessed Verryn’s save. Gave Fable a ship.

Doug (the GM’s dog). Breed not stated; pug-fart and Frenchie jokes.

• Sits at the GM’s feet. Took Fable’s bone and didn’t return it.
• A bone-fuelled fart rocket-launched him back to the throne, and he farted at the Arbiter for insulting him.
• Owns a plush d20 squeaky toy and gave the Arbiter one.

Gerald (Box of Chaos).

• Yellow eyes, shadowy hands. Can become a legless shadowy snake.
• Doesn’t “get TV.” Got stuff “from a guy named Martin” (“I know a lot of Martins”). Had the blunderbuss appraised as a collectible.
• Now wears two nipple rings: Verryn’s bejeweled one and a pink glitter tassel.

Others:

• The goblins: throne-movers and droolers. Earlier botched a kitchen renovation.
• The mean children in the north stands.
• The mom who’s into the Arbiter’s chains, and her girlfriends.
• The shadowspawn: Fable-shaped despair spirit, also mini.
• Dead presidents in the graveyard: George Washington (wooden teeth), Andrew Jackson, “Abraham Lincoln, the vampire hunter,” Taft.

Places

• The Dread Fortress: its hallways, the throne room behind giant wooden doors, and a closet behind the throne and a basement full of plush d20s. A kitchen was renovated by goblins.
• The swamp cathedral graveyard (arena): overgrown cathedral ruins, a green fog, fragile tombstones, unstable 10-ft walls, and buried bodies including dead presidents.
• The floating grandstands, which are “4D” with air jets and water spritzers. Acolytes wear 3D-style glasses to see through magical darkness.
• Fable’s new ship in the sky.
• The locker room (Dried Blood).

Items

• The five thrones: swords; purple velvet with diamond sun; three others. Plus the Doja Cat bust throne (to be sculpted).
• The Arbiter’s chains.
• The Far Realm Shard (Fable). The Sentinel Shield / codpiece (Verryn).
• Fable’s blunderbuss (now in the Box of Chaos). Verryn’s nipple ring (worn by Gerald).
• Plush d20 squeaky toys.
• Six chaos mushrooms (one shrinks you).
• Fable’s ship: black hull and sails, gold crown emblem, name to be embroidered in gold.

Lore statements

• The Arbiter is a chained prisoner of the Grandmaster in the Dread Fortress.
• The Arbiter’s stated age: about 4,000–4,500 years. The GM jokingly says “400,000 whatever years.” Drew says he is “timeless and has no birthday.”
• The Acolytes include children; the arena is “family-friendly.”
• The Box of Chaos can be fed from range (“keyword attempt”), and Gerald can leave it.

Quotes by character

Captain Fable

• 0:05:18 “If the gods want me to play their games once more, then I must abide if I wish to slay them all.”
• 0:17:38 “I ask this all to who face the end of my blade. Where exactly does your strength come from?”
• 0:18:48 “Then you are a fool for accepting such power. It is not strength, but it’s strings attached to a puppet.”
• 0:21:23 “I do not know your name, nor your presidential history. Regardless, you will aid me in this fight whether you like it or not.”
• 0:24:15 “I’m not a cow. I don’t even know what I am. The gods took that from me as well… I have feelings, you know.”
• 0:29:51 “I am not a cow. I am a bull. Fear me.”
• 0:37:22 “I think you’ll do. Now join my crew.”
• 0:39:08 “I may be like angry all the time, but I have a soft spot.”
• 0:56:54 “Why do you fly so high? Are you scared what you will find on the ground?”
• 1:24:39 “They took everything from me. My name, my crew, my life. I have no past, but my future will be forged in blood. Yours.”
• 1:31:24 “You fought well and bravely, soldier. Even though I think you only hit once… You will be remembered.”
• 1:42:23 “Devoted to your foolish ideals. Respect.”
• 1:45:42 “Everyone gather around the table and let me tell you all a D20 Deathmatch fable.”
• 1:57:41 (Dried Blood) “Your strength does not come from outside forces… This is true strength, strength in unity.”

Verryn Ruth

• 0:07:13 “It is a blessing to look upon you, Grandmaster. Your visage is fabled.”
• 0:07:59 “Only that which my patron bestows upon me, I am but a humble servant, blessed by the shadow.”
• 0:18:05 “I pull from the abyss, from chaos itself. Its whims carry to and fro, as do mine.”
• 0:23:00 “Is this what you wanted? Two ruthless individuals tearing each other limb from limb for your enjoyment, for your capitalist endeavors? Then you shall have it.”
• 0:47:03 “It is with this, Fable, that I will rend your soul from your body.”
• 0:51:55 “Thank you for the real estate inside your mind. I’ll be sure to put it to good use.”
• 1:01:16 “It’s a fight face to face, is it? Tell me, Fable. How do you deal with [shadow] daemons?”
• 1:09:21 “Good, you remind me I’m alive.”
• 1:19:57 “Fable, I see the darkness in your heart, but how do you fare in true darkness?”
• 1:24:05 “Do you feel it, Fable? Your insecurities, your doubts, the weights of all of your past.”
• 1:40:03 “I was born by chaos. I lived by chaos. And though you may not know it, you too serve chaos. It is to chaos I go, and by chaos I will return.” (first sentence diarized as 01; speaker clear from context)
• 1:41:50 “This isn’t my first life though. So I’ve got a better deal for you. I’m gonna give you the finger and you can rip your sword out of my chest.”
• 1:58:44 (Dried Blood) “It’s important to feel… They remind you you’re alive… be mindful of the way your pursuits are impacting those around you.”

The Arbiter

• 0:00:21 “You know, four, four and a half thousand years old.”
• 0:01:52 “If you would like me to be able to move around the fortress faster, perhaps you’d just remove these chains.”
• 0:03:14 “That diamond says I’m richer than you are and I know it.”
• 0:04:16 “You live in your own world, and that’s fine, because this is your domain.”
• 0:10:05 “You saw how the kitchen renovation came out. You don’t want them to build a ship.”
• 0:11:36 “I’ll have a throne and I’ll make it out of your bones.”
• 0:31:50 “It’s only through the mean words that you really reach your full potential. Isn’t that right, you piece of shit?”
• 0:32:28 “I should have killed you in my throne room. And I had the chance.” (target uncertain)
• 0:33:02 “You’re much taller than those children… Don’t listen to them. They’re short.” (diarized as 01; context = Arbiter)
• 0:33:41 “It’s that one mom that’s really into my chains.”
• 1:11:00 “Looks like I’m taking a trip to the basement.”

Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer

• 0:01:59 “No, just get stronger… It’s a gift that I give you these. They’re like ankle weights.”
• 0:02:13 “It’s like you skipped leg day for those 400,000 whatever years you’ve been alive.”
• 0:04:09 “They’re special. Only the most amazing individuals worship me.”
• 0:10:49 “It’s magnificent! Why have I been missing this? This is an immediate choice, yes.”
• 0:11:16 “Arbiter, we all know the only throne you’ll have is a toilet.”
• 0:12:25 “Know that this place is long forgotten, but you’ll never forget the bodies that decay here.”
• 0:32:12 “Don’t speak to Doug that way. He’s fine and he can handle this.”
• 0:52:43 “We recycle here, it’s good.”
• 1:18:56 “The only thing that we hate is a hero point gone unused at the battle’s end.”
• 1:42:42 “The decisions have been made and the blood has been spilled so there will be no going back at this point. Arbiter, clear my arena.”
• 1:44:06 “It’s fine, I’ve held worse. Strong hand.”
• 1:44:19 “I gift you a new ship. To remain true to you. That will always remind you that the strength comes from unity…”

Gerald

• 0:39:30 “You come to my house, who are you?”
• 0:39:41 “Sorry, I don’t get TV here.”
• 0:40:18 “Name’s Gerald. Now, I don’t know. Did you have something to give me or what’s your deal?”
• 0:41:29 “I know a lot of Martins, bud.”
• 0:43:10 “Ah, well, it’s not a gun, but it’ll fuck someone up.”
• 0:44:13 “It’s not really free. I had that blunderbuss appraised. It was, it’s kind of a collectible.” (diarized as 03, Drew; context = Gerald)

The heckling children (Bec/Drew)

• 0:29:37 “Duck, duck, geese. That guy’s a cow.”
• 0:29:39 “Your wings aren’t that special. Anyone can fly.”
• 0:29:45 “Your mother of a mountain kissed a horse.”

Canon notes

• Ages are jokes (“four and a half thousand,” “400,000”). Nobody truly knows how old they are.
• “He’s timeless and has no birthday” is a lie. The Arbiter has a birthday (see S1E3).