Darkness in the Duqueswood
The Shocking Truthe Behind the Green Dukes’ Lost Season (NCBB Season 46)
A strange, dark blood-red mist hangs over the Duqueswood, shrouding much of the last season in mystery
Much of the
Duqueswood University Green Dukes’ last season in the
NCBB was shrouded in mystery. After the third game, no game reports were published, and all news of the team ceased, receding behind a wall of mist thick enough to hide even the tallest oak.
The problem was simple. After each game, the memories of all the players, coaches, and fans seemed to be wiped clean of all but one thing. The only quotes reporters could get from anyone after the game was “I bled, I cried. It was worse than Cats.” Furthermore, the reporters themselves could recall nothing other than that they were quite sure there were reports from another dimension that this “Cats” thing was highly over-rated.
Yet all became clear in a single moment during the Green Dukes final game of the season vs. the
Sacred Lentil State Shamblers. When the Duqueswood University apothecary inadvertently removed Curswyn Redgrass’s head while trying to heal his broken arm, suddenly the deep mist shrouding the memories and perceptions of all present cleared, and the shocking reality of the long season of blood and pain hit them like a falling branch.
Curswyn Redgrass lies injured on the field moments before the Duqueswood apothecary “heals” his broken arm by removing his head.
A Season of Death Explained
The stats tell much of the story. Finishing the season 3-1-6, the Green Dukes suffered more than three casualties per game and 8 deaths on the season, for an astounding 8-3 death-to-win ratio. Some might think this merely the result of Nuffle’s fickle favor or the classic ineffectiveness of leaf and bark armor. But the true tale goes much deeper … and much darker.
As one of the only surviving external game reports (
filed by the NCBB Special Investigative Dept.) indicates, the Green Dukes didn’t just suffer more injuries this season; they caused them as well. According to the report, filed after one of Duqueswood’s few wins, a 2-1 victory vs. the Notre Dame Fighting Alliance, “the elves [had] been found to have been using illegal sets of knuckle dusters, throughout the game, in order to get the edge.”
Wood elves brandishing knuckle dusters like a pack of brutish dwarves? Surely this couldn’t be true. Sadly, however, independent reporting by student-writers for the Duqueswoodian has found that the allegations hold up. And that reporting has revealed much more—violent game plans carved into trees, Green Duke subs rewarded with extra playing time for committing fouls, and all of it based on ancient Druchii blood magic bent on violent revenge.
Duqueswoodian student-writers confirm the NCBB’s reports when their own investigation turns up a cache of knuckle dusters stashed just outside the Green Dukes’ practice grove.
The central figure in all of this, our investigation has revealed, is the recently deceased junior wardancer
Curswyn Redgrass (independent study—vengeance). From the first moments he arrived in Duqueswood,
questions swirled about Redgrass’s strange appearance. His blood-red pallor, bald head, hideous face, and huge ears, which looked more goblin-ish than elvish raised many an eyebrow, as did the fact that annals of woodland ancestry held no records of his lineage. His outstanding play on the pitch, however, generating 3 TDs and 2 casualties in his first partial season, quickly silenced any skeptics. If they could run like the wind, leap over opponents, and send an orc to the pitch with a forearm to the throat, then, yes, wood elves could be red and as ugly as the hind end of a squig.
Highlights such as these kept many throughout the university from questioning why Redgrass looked more like an abomination than an elf.
Blood Magic Enters Duqueswood
Now, however, the truth can be revealed, as our reporters have found that Redgrass’s origins trace back to a
victorious yet sad day in the Florenwood. After winning the
Brawl XXXIV Tournament, the Florenwood Elk Riders’ wardancer Cragoran Windfoot was informed that his younger brother, then Green Dukes’ wardancer Angorn Windffoot had been killed in
a game against the Bama Bumpkin Tide by the dwarven troll slayer Larry Cableman. Buried in the final lines of the Florenwoodian (the four-part epic detailing the Elk Riders’ origins and championship run), are these curious lines:
“Cragoran fell upon his face and wept. It is said by some that as his tears and the goblin blood mingled and seeped into the soil, something foul and wicked there grew. What it was is yet to be seen, but there are some that claim that even today this beast born of grief and violence slouches on its way toward the Duqueswood.”
The timing of Redgrass’s appearance in Duqueswood leaves no doubt about his origins. That ‘foul and wicked thing’ that grew from the heady cocktail of goblin blood and Cragoran’s tears was no other than Redgrass himself, a cursed blood-gobble-elf, born from ancient dark elven magic and imbued with one purpose—to hunt down Larry Cableman and kill him.
There was only one problem. The
Bumpkin Tide had inexplicably withdrawn from the NCBB, and Redgrass had no chance to enact the vendetta for which he was born. As the games passed and the blood-gobble-elf’s thirst for vengeance went unquenched, it only grew stronger, and during Redgrass’s third season with the team it overwhelmed all of the Duqueswood.
Unable to find the target of this insatiable need for carnage and death, the blood curse that birthed Redgrass enveloped the team, the coach, and the fans. As the Green Dukes sought more violence on the field, they found only death, only pain. All the while, the bloody haze that enveloped their memories kept all trapped in this cycle, unable to break free—until finally that apothecary decapitated Redgrass while trying to set his broken arm in their
last game of the season.
Reached for comment, the apothecary, a human who has since returned to his successful night-bean brewery in
Gildvale, seems to have been unaffected by the perception and memory problems that afflicted the wood elves. “Oh yeah, I knew that guy wasn’t an elf,” he told our reporters. “I mean, you did see what he looked like, right? I’m not the only one who knew there was something off with this guy. Come on! His major was literally vengeance. Anyway, I figured if I ever got the chance to work on him, I’d do you all a favor and just kill him right there on the sidelines. So, yeah, you’re welcome.”
A Greener Path Forward?
Now, since the fog has lifted following Redgrass’s death, much has changed for the Green Dukes. Coach Gerric Smithson, who declined numerous requests for interviews, has been fired by the team for grossly exceeding his agreed upon death-to-win ratio targets, and for allowing an ancient dark elven blood curse to infect his players.
His replacement may be familiar to anyone who’s been following the Green Dukes over their five season in the NCBB. Former
Vice President of Student Safety Baerys Pondripple is returning to the university to coach the squad, and if his statement during his introductory press conference is any indication, the Green Dukes’ future should be much less violent than their past.
“I plan to stress one tactic and one tactic alone to all of my players,” he said with a broad smile. “The ancient elven art of running away from any and all contact.”
New Green Dukes Coach and former VP of Student Safety Baerys Pondripple promises a different approach to blood bowl at the university during his introductory press conference.
Farewell, Coach Smithson
Yet as we close this dark chapter in the Green Dukes’ history, we must acknowledge that there are many in and around Duqueswood University who will miss Coach Smithson and still hold that the odd human coach did his best to teach these wood elves how to block like men as he established the fledgling program into true point of pride for the university.
From his early
struggles to implement a playbook in a realm where paper was forbidden, to his program defining victory over the
Airforce Falconorcs, the establishment of the
Mirlin Spinleaf Memorial Elfletic Center, the
debut of a team fight song and his
vindication by a former wardancer reincarnated as a tree, Coach Smithson will long be remembered throughout the Duqueswood.
Coach Gerric Smithson says goodbye to Duqueswood University after having amassed a record of 14 wins, 10 ties, 26 losses, and 21 deaths.
Thankfully, though he would not consent to an interview, Coach Smithson did share these final words for the Duqueswood faithful in a prepared statement before the left the woods for his life back in the realms of men:
“If the human condition is truly based on frustration, suffering, and sadness, then I can only hope I taught those elves as much about blood bowl as they taught me about humanity.”
