First appearance: Playtest 2 (Pre-Launch) — Atlas v Bromir · watch it on YouTube
Bromir was a hulking, snow-rubbing, perpetually flexing champion who brought a pro wrestler’s swagger into the Void, along with a fondness for calling everyone “brother” and a pair of fists he called boulders. He fought the warforged Atlas on the frozen cliffs of Reaper’s Rock in Playtest 2 (Pre-Launch) — Atlas v Bromir. He lost, but he made it one of the noblest deaths the arena had seen, and the entire crowd saluted him as he fell. Then The Arbiter quietly took him for himself.
Story
Bromir started the fight low on the mountainside, below Atlas’s high ledge, and was not impressed by the lightning horse his opponent summoned. “You brought a pony to this fight,” he scoffed, rubbing snow over his body before magically swelling to twice his size: “I’m gonna grow up and come down on you, robot tin man.” He picked up the crackling horse, Halifax, and threw it bodily at Atlas. The throw missed. Things went worse from there. Halifax struck him as a bolt of lightning, and an electrified tidal wave left him complaining that only his boyfriend was allowed to shock his nipples. When he whiffed three punches in a row, the Grandmaster took pity and blessed him, spreading her wings and spotlighting him in purple light like a bodybuilder on stage. “An angel of my own,” he marveled. He landed his next blows, but Atlas’s protective wards soaked up every one.
A blizzard tore across the mountain. Bromir leapt thirty feet to elbow-drop the lightning horse and got blasted with radiant light for his trouble. Unimpressed by his menace so far, the Grandmaster injected him with the growth supplements she had put on her Amazon list, which made him big enough to stand eye to eye with Atlas on the ledge. Atlas answered by bringing the mountainside down on him. Bromir climbed out of the rubble and brought down even more of the cliff on everyone. When a bottomless chasm split the field, spanned only by a fragile ice bridge, he grappled Atlas and carried him onto it: “Let’s raise the stakes, Tin Man.” The ice gave way beneath them. Atlas didn’t struggle. He just stared, and Bromir was moved. “Respect. I show you respect,” he said, and threw Atlas clear before leaping to safety himself. The Grandmaster rewarded them both with healing potions. Atlas had no mouth to drink his, so he tossed it to Bromir. Bromir answered in kind: “Atlas, I respect you. You earned the right of your name.”
When Atlas transformed into a towering war machine, Bromir asked the Grandmaster to shrink him back to his true size “so I may face him on equal footing.” She drew the drug out with a wave of her jeweled hand. He charged screaming “Oh yeah!”, unleashed a thunderous shockwave and flexed, which prompted the Grandmaster’s dry verdict: “This was cooler when you were bigger.” Then the Arbiter’s chaos event arrived, a two-faced ice elemental spun together from water and air like a twisty ice cream cone. The rivals teamed up against it. Atlas spun at the waist and catapulted Bromir into a double-leg drop on the creature. The elemental whirled Bromir into the chasm anyway. He survived only because Atlas threw his sword into the cliff wall as a handhold, leaving him dangling ten feet down while Atlas blew a hole through the monster.
Hanging there, Bromir taunted the elemental (“Snow Cone… I’ll fight you all the way to the second level of hell”). He hauled himself up one-handed with a perfect pull-up, then blasted the cliff edge with thunder. The blast vaporized the elemental’s water and dropped it, and himself, into the ravine. As he fell, he saluted Atlas with Atlas’s sword, threw it back and flexed one last time at the Grandmaster. She and every Acolyte in the stands flexed back. Atlas tried to grab him through the rock, but his iced hands slipped. The Grandmaster let the death stand: “Some deaths must happen on this field, and there are few that come as noble as the one Bromir showed us today.” Far below, though, as Bromir tumbled past galaxies and stars, the Arbiter appeared out of nowhere, seized him by the throat and told him: “You may have fallen on the field, but I still have a use for you.” Then he vanished with Bromir, unbeknownst to anybody.
Personality and Abilities
Bromir talked like a wrestling promo and fought like one. He called people “brother,” roared “Oh yeah!”, promised “the smackdown” and flexed at every opportunity, including in midair as he fell to his doom. He mentioned a boyfriend and a place called “Mama’s Playland.” He admitted to some confusion about the word “mammal”: “What is a mammal? I don’t even know what that is, brother.” Under the bluster was a real code of honor. He refused to beat Atlas with an unfair size advantage and saved his rival from a collapsing bridge. He ended his fight with a sacrifice and a salute.
In combat he was a brawler with a touch of sorcery. His signature weapons were his “Boulder Fists,” and he could magically enlarge himself, leap enormous distances and release thunderous shockwaves. He favored grapples, sweeps, slaps and aerial elbow drops. He seemed untroubled by the cold, rubbing snow on himself as a warm-up. He also had a habit of answering problems with brute force, whether that meant hurling a lightning horse or bringing a chunk of mountainside down on everyone.
Relationships
- Atlas: His opponent at Reaper’s Rock. They started with insults, came to respect each other, fought side by side against the ice elemental, and traded salutes before Bromir fell.
- Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: She blessed him, pumped him full of growth supplements, shrank him back on request and led the crowd’s flexing salute as he fell.
- The Arbiter: He conjured the ice elemental that ended Bromir’s fight, then secretly plucked Bromir from the abyss, saying he still had a use for him.
Memorable Quotes
- “I’m gonna grow up and come down on you, robot tin man.” (Playtest 2 (Pre-Launch) — Atlas v Bromir)
- “No one shocks my nipples except my boyfriend, and I don’t like that, and he won’t like that either.” (Playtest 2 (Pre-Launch) — Atlas v Bromir)
- “Let’s raise the stakes, Tin Man.” (Playtest 2 (Pre-Launch) — Atlas v Bromir)
- “Atlas, I respect you. You earned the right of your name.” (Playtest 2 (Pre-Launch) — Atlas v Bromir)
- “Well fought, sir. You beat Bromir with a boulder fist. Go on to do better.” (Playtest 2 (Pre-Launch) — Atlas v Bromir)