Dan Kowalski is a satyr with “sick horns,” a wargong in a magic pocket and an unshakable surfer-bro serenity. In his words he is “Danimal on the weekends, Daniel to my mother.” The Arbiter found him at a bowling alley and brought him to the Void for the Grandmaster’s birthday, where he raced Gordy Gotta Get Em through her oldest training grounds. He came out the other side as the first champion to survive the Gauntlet, and he gave up a piece of his own horn along the way.
Story
Dan arrived at The Dread Fortress with a tidy explanation. At the bowling alley he had met “this rad dude” in a jacket, then found Gordy grabbing pins and shouting “I gotta get em!”, so he joined in. Asked what the Grandmaster’s party needed, he answered “Punch, pie, and Danimal!” and gave her a wargong solo, clip-clopping around the gong and striking it from every side. The Arbiter noted it had “been a while since we’ve had a gong solo in the Dread Fortress.” He then clapped open a portal to a jungle where the rules were simple: each champion ran his own lane, the first to finish would be crowned, and the last would die. Dan took the northern lane, hopped the first log like “an ibex,” and was promptly pelted by furious squirrels. He bound Gordy in hands of living earth, but then his own hooves slipped on the cliff and he slid to the bottom “just eating dirt,” declaring that it “tastes like kombucha.”
The race got personal fast. Gordy spent the climb shouting “gotta get em” straight into Dan’s head, a gang of middle-school hecklers in the stands mocked both of them, and Gordy discovered that Dan hates being called Daniel. Dan’s first attempt to put Gordy to sleep fizzled when Gordy faked a nap and opened his eyes again. Dan had better luck with a line of flying snakes: on a perfect roll he talked them into visiting Gordy’s lane instead. “They don’t speak common,” the Arbiter explained, “but those hips don’t lie.” At the river he bit his own tongue landing on a lily pad and failed to sell an alligator on hanging out with Gordy. He escaped through a magic door, flipping Gordy off on his way through, and then asked, “Can we be nice again?”
In the pollen forest Dan’s patience paid off. He noticed that nothing lived among the bright blue-and-yellow “farting plants” and waited while Gordy sprinted in and came out poisoned and glowing. Because “Dan knows his horticulture,” he called down a tidal wave that soaked the pollen into the ground and walked through untouched. At The Box of Chaos he hacked off a piece of his satyr horn as his sacrifice. The box gave an appreciative “mmm,” chaotic laughter rose from inside, and out floated a Sphere of Annihilation, which Gordy called a “cool bowling ball.” Dan shook off a crowd-borne curse of “the song that never ends.” He then presented the Grandmaster with Gerard the Dragon, a fiery red dragon spirit with antlers like Dan’s, one of them now short. Gerard fumbled his first attacks from stage fright, then torched the manticore. Gerard went on to carry Dan across the water and roast the troll’s stinking plate of vegetables so Dan could eat them. Dan bid him “farewell adieu” at the cave mouth, asking him to “assist that big pile of poo,” stuck a melted candle in his broken horn for a headlamp, and asked a ghost to pass his condolences to his friend James. In the cave he picked a padlocked chest and found an emerald that melted into his skin and healed him.
Both champions came through the portal into the same dungeon, where a Babau leapt down at them. Dan sweet-talked it until the grey beast blushed bright pink and would only attack Gordy. He then set the Sphere between Gordy and the Babau, and Gordy slashed his hooves for it as he walked away. A fire bolt into the Sphere blew it up on both of them before it collapsed into a singularity and vanished. The Babau’s “lover’s fury” dropped Dan to the floor, but he opened a door beneath himself and clung to life on the far side of the room. Gordy finished off the Babau with a wall run and was still celebrating when Dan staggered back up and put him to sleep, a feat no one had ever pulled off in a match before. “Seeing what you did to my beloved Babau,” Dan stomped his cloven hooves with Thunder Step, and Gordy’s particles dissipated into the energy. The blast flung Dan into the air, where the Grandmaster caught him with a single tear and a growing smile. She lifted him to The Acolytes, who chanted “Dan, Dan, Dan” until the stands cracked, and she named him “our first winner of the gauntlet,” while the Arbiter bagged Gordy’s remains and walked off whistling, “Got him.”
Personality and Abilities
Dan is a horned, hoofed satyr who is pure vibes. He loves partying, kombucha and bowling, and he has firm views on the six-pound pink ball. He explains his leaping by saying he’s “part mountain goat” because his mom and dad “fell in love,” and he dispenses made-up wisdom from “my friend” Socrates, Aristotle and Leonardo da Vinci. He is friendly to almost everyone, including squirrels, snakes, ghosts and the monster trying to kill him, right up until someone calls him Daniel. He has a cousin, Dan Koala.
He fights with charm and magic rather than blades. He is a performer with real talent, he can talk animals and monsters into turning on his rival, and he shrugs off magic better than most. His spells included grasping earthen hands, fire bolts, sleep, a magic door, a tidal wave, mage armor, Thunder Step and the summoning of Gerard the Dragon. He speaks Common and Sylvan and cannot see in the dark, which is why the candle went in his horn.
Relationships
- Gordy Gotta Get Em: His bowling buddy and Gauntlet rival. They traded insults the whole race, and Dan ultimately killed him.
- Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: He serenaded her for her birthday, summoned her a dragon, and was caught and crowned by her as the Gauntlet’s first winner.
- The Arbiter: The “rad dude” in a jacket who recruited him at the bowling alley.
- Gerard the Dragon: His summoned dragon spirit, encouraged through stage fright and sent off with a rhyme.
- The Babau: A dungeon monster he charmed into adoration, whom he called his “beloved Babau.”
- James: A friend to whom he sent condolences through a passing ghost.
Memorable Quotes
- “Hey, my name is Dan Kowalski, Danimal on the weekends, Daniel to my mother.” (The Gauntlet)
- “Don’t you call me Daniel, okay?” (The Gauntlet)
- “Hey, snakes. Why don’t you go to Gordy? Because he really wants to get you.” (The Gauntlet)
- “Grandmaster, for your birthday, I present to you Gerard the Dragon.” (The Gauntlet)
- “Are you trying to make eyes at me, bro? Because I think you’re cute, but I’m taken.” (The Gauntlet)
- “Like my good friend Leonardo da Vinci once said, happy, happy birthday from the Hooters crew.” (The Gauntlet, Dried Blood)