T w e n t y S i d e d
The stadium is one big mossy Blood Bowl ball, and at long last, after many abuses and grim spectacles, it’s been punctured. It drains slowly in the moonlight. All that action–all that potential for action–vanishing into the night. But there’s still one bug hiding under that vast deflated canopy, and as I enter the subterranean locker room, there’s two.
“Perv,” I say. “Everybody’s gone home.”
“This is home.”
“That’s a bit maudlin, don’t you…” Then I notice the battered Morg n’ Thorg patterned sleeping bag. “Oh. That explains a lot.”
“I’m a long way from Potatoeville, coach.”
He scoots an inch down the bench. That’s more accommodation than I’d expected–I sit down.
“It’s never going to get any better,” he says, “is it.”
Should I tell him? Hell, why not. I’d been planning to wait until he was in a more stable frame of mind, but just look at the little bastard. He’s stable, alright–he’s sunk to the nadir like a big fat cannonball and I wouldn’t task ten men and an elephant to budge him. Not without the right leverage.
“Perv, you know…I made quite a bit of money over the last two tournaments. Big Moot capital. Trophy fees. Misrouted inducement cash. I’d been building it up for one big get-out-of-town fund that’d let me blow this team forever. And you know what happened?” I looked down at his wide wet eyes and smiled. “I bet every damn penny on this match.”
“Oh.” Red eyes throbbed with the effort of wringing one last tear. “Coach, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t…I should have….”
“I bet you’d lose.”
I was worried about that bit. He’s still got a few spiked things hooked around a few deceptively-hard points of halfling anatomy and I’m still a rattling grease-trap scarecrow in a tissue paper suit. But the explosion is so deep underwater that the surface Pervince doesn’t more than ripple. His fat bloodied lips part and his brow tightens.
“I’m selling off the Skeeters,” I say, before anything can bubble up. “I’ve taken you boys as far as I can. Most of you can win every once in a while and seem to be at peace with that, and you need victory and glory that I’m genuinely sorry to say I’m never going to be able to give you.” Is he ready to hear it? He has to be. It’s now or never. If I leave he won’t speak to me ever again. “Unless. I’d like to make you a deal.”
“A deal.”
“Perv…where did you say you come from? Potatoeville?”
He nods distantly.
“So tell me: what else comes from around Potatoeville?”
—
“And it’s a wonderful day for the Creator Cup finals!”
“Sure is, Jim! Clear skies means you’ll be able to see the wood elf blood from the cheap seats!”
“Interesting way to put it, Bob, when everyone else is sure the Arrows are going to win this match handily.”
“That’s what everyone said about Pervince’s boys versus the high elf Dragon Princes in the first round of playoffs–right until the last forty seconds of the game and ten minutes of overtime, when those pointy lugs got their entire elaborate heraldic headdresses shoved up their…”
“And it looks like The Arrows will be kicking off! It’s high and outside…NEARLY outside! Oh, the Skeeters are going to have to scramble to get it into play!”
“For the last time, Jim, you’re a professional! It’s pronounced Skeet-az!”
“Well, then, I suppose it’s the Skeetaz who are struggling to get the ball midfield while elves leak through their defensive line like…”
“Blood through a wardancer’s nose! Now that’s the kind of punch that gets nominated for the Bob Bifford Merit of Pugilistic Dishonor, folks!”
“Yes, but the Arrows still harassing the ball carrier, aren’t they?”
“Doesn’t matter, Jim. In severely injuring at least one elf, the Potatoeville Skeetaz are already winnaz.”
Pervince howls from the sidelines, throws haymakers to nowhere, sends his assistant coaches–all at least twice his size–scattering for the benches. I’ve got a pretty good view from the owner’s box, and let me tell you, it’s usually more interesting than watching the game–you can usually tell what’s going on an a Skeetaz match from the cries of orc-engineered agony and the shades of color on Pervince’s cheek. But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tense. We haven’t cracked Wood Elves yet, and at our bracket, this is the Wood Elves team. Suddenly Pervince goes bright red, and stamps his feet…
“Touchdown! That’s one for the Arrows, and from the lack of celebration, I think they’re settling in for many more!”
“I wouldn’t count on that, Jim. Few more of those and I think Pervince might strap on his old spiker and wade in himself!”
“Haw! That’d be a sight, wouldn’t it, Bob!”
Every indignity Pervince has ever suffered is about to blow a stack of bad sponsor food and nirate-soaked halfling blood fifty yards out his ears. But he is gracious.
“Another kickoff…another successful pickup from the Skeetaz! And the blood is flying up on the central line…is that a channel through to the end zone I see?”
“Not likely, Bob! Look at those wardancers mobilize…”
“And look at those backs break! They’re pushing the defense back to the middle and that runner is squeaking through like a half-ton mouse! He’s fending off the late-fielders…he’s breaking tackles left and right…he’s going…going…HE’S GONE FOR IT! TOUCHDOOOWN!”
“It’s rare to see an orc play that relies so much on mobility, isn’t it, Bob?”
“Maybe that’s Pervince’s halfling sensibilities on display, Jim.”
“Ha!”
“Yeah, that was a good one. Coming into the second quarter, Skeetaz are kicking off…looks like the Arrows are rushing the ball back. I think they’re hoping to run a pain train from beyond harm’s reach, but they’re gonna have to get some catchers through…haha! Hope they can catch those teeth!”
“Yes, but three of them have made it through, Bob! All he has to do is pass the ball up the field without an interception…”
“Correction, Jim. All he has to do is keep the thrower away from those orcs! Look at those Skeetaz punching up the left side of the field!”
“He’s throwing–it’s tangled up in center field! The catcher’s fumbled and it’s popping around like a gadfly in the melee. It’s…”
“It’s in the Skeetaz hands! They’re muscling through, they’re weathering an elf blitz…not much longer on the clock…Arrow blitzer goes for the tackle and HE’S GOOD, HE’S OVER THE LINE! SKEETAZ BRING THE SCORE TO 2-1 AND WITH LITTLE TIME REMAINING, IT LOOKS LIKE THEY’VE WON THE CREATOR CUP!”
- POTATOEVILLE SKEETAZ — ORCS — PRESTIGE 36
- THE ARROWS — WOOD ELVES — PRESTIGE 28
- DRAGON PRINCES — HIGH ELVES — PRESTIGE 20
- DEAD WOOD HOWLERS — NECROMANTIC — PRESTIGE 12
- MOOT MIGHTIES — HALFLING — PRESTIGE 5
- DWARF ANVILS — DWARF — PRESTIGE -2
- NIGHTMARE NUFFLERS — UNDEAD — PRESTIGE -10
- BLACK SNAKES — DARK ELVES — PRESTIGE -18
I find Pervince in the locker room later, one placid pink halfling in a grunting, unbroken mass of green muscle. Burning orc eyes and dilating nostrils follow me as I try with all of my accumulated panache and professionalism not to scream and drop fetal.
“I erase any linger doubts, boss?” says Pervince.
“Doubts? Never. You’re the best damn coach in the world, Pervince, and that’s a fact.”
He yields a very rare grin. “We did okay.”
“You sure did.”
“Think we’ll do better next time?”
“Do I? You bet your kneecaps.”
–FIN–
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Thanks for sticking with me, folks! The matches were frustrating–but the posts were a blast to write. Now, let’s answer some reader questions:
1.) Did you play out all the games at once, or did you play a game, write a post?
Little of both –it depended on which way frustration was fueling me that week. Sometimes I’d play one match and ragequit and that’d be it for the week. Sometimes I’d be like, “no, I can reverse this if I play ONE MORE MATCH” and I’d end up churning through a dozen at once. Obviously I had to play an entire season as the Potatoeville Skeetaz to get them into the Creator Cup, so that gives you an idea of how much buffer I had at the end there.
2.) Would you say the protagonist was the Coach, or Pervince?
The Coach for the first half, Pervince for the second half. Both had arcs–the coach learned to put forward an actual honest-to-goodness effort and bet on yourself, but once he’d done that, he was pretty much settled–he didn’t need to win every match, he just needed to feel good about himself. That’s when Pervince and his need to win took over.
3.) Any plans to do this with a different team?
Nope. I’ve written about as many color commentaries of Blood Bowl matches as I’m up to for a good long while.
4.) Why only elves, amazons, etc?
Because the game is sapient and sadistic, that’s why. It frustrates your desires with startling situational awareness. When I play for the internet it gives me the same formulaic bullshit over and over again; when I started an orc franchise to blow off steam, it gave me a bunch of ogres, dwarves, and chaos.
5.) What’s next?
The game I chose to go next ended up laying an egg distressingly late in my buffer-building sessions. So probably some D&D posts until I’ve picked another game and verified that it’ll work.
6.) Do you feel the game comes down to player, dice, or team tiers?
Let me put it this way: team tiers are not fucking around in this game. It’d take a LOT of amazingly good rolls for a really good halfling coach to beat a mediocre dwarf coach in a full sixteen-round match. But skill means a lot–and it’s not that rare for the dice to frustrate good plays or elevate asinine ones.
7.) Is the game worth it for casual play?
Sure, if you find a race you like and don’t mind getting frustrated by sporadic misfortune. Just keep in mind the game doesn’t make much of an effort to explain its opaque and sometimes outright malfunctioning ruleset.
Just wondering: what game were you hoping to do and what does laying an egg mean?
It means going pear-shaped, apparently.
Yes!! I had actually been disappointed it looked like the coach was going to end up right back where he was, but this was a pretty great ending that I probably should have seen at least partly coming.
Pervince, he really is an Ork in hearth.
It reminds me of that novel where a ex teacher leads a bunch of barbarians in conquest, despite not being a barbarian hero.
That sounds like Interesting Times by Sir Terry Pratchett (mayherestinpeace).
A similar concept was “The Eternal Champion”, by Moorcock.
In this case the dude was a teacher or proffesor in the “real” world, but he was the reincarnation of an eternal champion in a fantasy world, and he was suddenly transported to that world through some ritual, to lead an army into victory.
And after he comes to the point of besieging his enemy in their last city, he realizes he was fighting for the wrong side, turns around, and obliterates the guys who summoned him. I think. I read it quite a while ago.Yes, the lesson to remember; if you are ever summoned to another world to lead your side to victory, take a good long look at them and figure out who the bad guys are before you’ve conquered half the world. It’s just common sense.
My response to this is to go check out Erfworld, where The Perfect Warlord is summoned to the world to fight for… The bad guys? We’re not sure. It’s an online webcomic and doing well despite going through a few artists.
I really lost track of it after the first book was over. It just didn’t grab me as the first narrative, aand all the shifting of times, going into novel format, and that stuff, didn’t help it at all.
I fully reccomend reading the whole first book though, and possibly stop there.
Erfworld has always been better to binge read than to try to keep up with. The writer and some of his more vocal backers are outright dismissive of the idea that a webcomic should be written differently from a print book. Plus the artist often needed to be replaced partway through each book, leading to some stretches where pages were uploaded as text only book chapters, instead of actual comics.
Book 2 is an outright mess, but Book 3 really seems to be succeeding and mixing pages from a graphic novel and pages from an illustrated novel in a form where they don’t seem to be trying to murder one another.
Book 1 was great and well worth the read.
Book 3 I am loving enough, that I am making another attempt to soldier through Book 2, in order to enjoy it even more.
Book 2 is not so bad when you don’t get it at a pace of 0-3 pages a week. However for folks who want to skip it, there is a really good wiki, that will get you back into the groove for Book 3.
Great stuff! Magnificent!
Oh, wow! After being certain that Pervince would go down as the greatest to ever play the game, the epilogue reveals that he’ll also go down as the greatest to ever coach the game? This is like Christmas.
I do think it’s interesting that the Coach’s own race is never revealed, unless it just sailed over my head. I think we can gather from context that he’s not a halfling, nor an elf. For my own part- and maybe this says more about me than about the writing- I always imagined him as a greasy goblin with poor posture and a patched, out-of-date suit oversized bow tie. So, basically a goblin used car salesman.
I just understood him as a human, myself.
EDIT: Though with that said – are humans even in Bloodbowl as a playable group?
Yes they are. They are generally Jack of All trades masters of none.
As I understand it, the first Blood Bowl rules just had them and orcs, both of which are at least moderately able to do the entire bashing/running/passing triad.
I always imagined him as Rutskarn who got tired with American internet providers and decided to try his luck with goblins. In my mind, he looks like Rutskarn doing a LMA Manager cosplay.
I honestly did not expect a happy ending, but I’m very glad that it got one.
SKEE-TAZ
SKEE-TAZ
SKEE-TAZ
o7 God speed pervince.
it was a fun ride.
Thanks. Enjoyed it.
(A typo you might want to fix: “you can usually tell what’s going on an a Skeetaz match”, should be “on in a”.)
This whole series was much better than it should have been. Great dramatization of a game I’d like to have played.
Man I love reading Ruts’s stuff. Just like Vatsy and Bruno this has a very satisfying ending. The fake out “I bet everything on this match” moment was perfect, somehow Ruts always has a way of tricking me into thinking it’s going to be a sad ending.
Alos I’m legitimately hyped up for the D&D sessions.
And here I thought this was going to end the way most Blood Bowl coaches did (being killed by their supporters or sponsors, usually). This is good too.
Thanks for the story.
Fantastic end!