Good morning, Monsters,

Shakey, the head bartender of the Great Hall on two has announced that if any team of up to three goblins can, together, best him in arm wrestling they can have a free drink each. This has led to come great moments, and made Gumpt, a certain freakishly strong (for a goblin) goblin a best friend to all (and very very drunk.). Shakey says he just does it for the game.

In other news, a record for throwing a surface gnome was set by Hizzenface Monty, a troll tinkerer on 6. He managed to toss the little fellow 1500 feet! Now, don’t get worked up if you’re a cave gnome - non-sticky webbing has been donated by level 4 to catch these rascals so no gnome has been hurt. In fact I hear the surface gnome community is rallying around this and it’s becoming an honor.

I’ve got 10 gold that says in the next few years we’ll get a prophecy drop about how some gnome is supposed to visit the moon! I’ve been around, I know how these things work.

Viva La Dungeon!
Lich

If this is your first time back to reading the Dungeon Bump and are confused by the new format please see this article.

Tonight!
Mi Lady Cyto joins us on Viva La Dungeon.

MiLady Cyto is the Dungeon Master and Pirate Captain of the ship Insanity, spinning 5e tales over on twitch.tv/MiLadyCyto

For those who noticed, last week’s game was cancelled due to life. We are back with Mi Lady tonight!

The Viva Battle-Royale Adventure Game Show

One of the experiments with the Game Show has been a set of Characters we’ve followed through three seasons of Viva. These seasons comprised a three act story for each of those characters.

This is the final season with these characters.
Their arcs conclude now.

Ben Stove, aka The Ascendant, aka the ApocaBitch.

The night after Bobby Manchester punched her in the nose for calling him a needle dick, after he had threw mud all over Steffy Meirs awesome pink dress, ten-year-old Emily Muse had a dream.

In it, she sat across from a flying, talking armadillo named Budd.
They shared snacks.
They talked.
And Budd told her a story about a terrifying bully named Benjamin Stove, and how Emily and her friends had defeated him.

The dream felt real. Too real. The story stuck. The villain stuck.
Emily never forgot Ben Stove.

Years later, Bobby “Barb” Manchester was beaten to death while walking home from work. (Bobby had transitioned after high school.)
Emily decided to run for local office.
She ran under the name Ben Stove.
If the world was going to be cruel, she would answer it with something crueler.
She would become the scariest thing she could imagine and aim it at injustice.

On the morning of her first day in office, she woke up in the Dungeon.

In this new world, Ben found that the same fire that fueled her campaign worked just as well here.
But killing people was different.
She had fought to save people. Not to slaughter them.
And yet, she did not want to die.
So Ben split.

In one mind, she became the villain.
She conjured the worst version of Ben Stove and let it loose.
Budd sat beside her in that space, reminding her how terrible she was, urging her forward, pushing her toward becoming the Apex Predator of the Dungeon.

In the other, she heard the Woods Whore.
Not commands. Promises.
Love. Forgiveness. Salvation.
If she survived, she could be cleansed. She could be loved. She could love.
Blood could be washed away.

In the mushroom marshes of Level 5, something changed.
The two minds stopped fighting.
Wrath and honor found each other.
Emily, Ben, became whole.
Through the Woods Whore’s love, she learned to forgive herself. Through her own wrath, she discovered the full reach of what she was capable of.

She entered the next season as The Ascendant.
In the steam-choked corridors of the Mad Bomber’s murder dungeon, Ben realized something else:
She didn’t need salvation.
She didn’t need forgiveness.
She didn’t need anyone.
She was enough.
A queen. A little broken. A little divine. A little unhinged. Still capable of summoning a flying armadillo, which felt like proof of something important.

When she surrendered fully to the kaos, another warrior queen, Mao, gifted her something unexpected:
Budd.
And Budd told her stories again.
Stories about Mao.
Stories about how Mao had once kicked Ben Stove’s ass.

And in this final season, the name Ben Stove is gone.
The Ascendant is gone.

The Apocabitch has stepped into Kanji.
A sister in kaos to Mao.
A blade in motion.
A katanado tearing through the lands of Kanji.
A savior of self.
And, if she feels like it…
a savior of anyone.
she.
damn.
well.
pleases.

Viva La ApocaBitch!

Hope to see you tonight at 9pm EST on Twitch.tv/theLichingHour for some Viva!