Dolly

First appearance: Magic — S1 Ep2 — Mageic v Amren · watch it on YouTube

Dolly is the arena’s most persistent and least welcome guest: a small porcelain doll with glassy, unblinking eyes who floats up out of the ground, a sarcophagus, a cracked rock or a portal, holds out her hands and asks to be your friend. Accepting gets you a rune burned into your palm and a tiny, devoted ally with a jaw full of poisonous teeth. Attacking her tends to go worse. She has been shattered, crushed, burned and blown apart more than once, and she always comes back. The Arbiter is openly afraid of her.

Story

Season 1: Mageic v Amren

Dolly first turned up during the duel between Mageic and Amren in an old abbey, as an ominous doll who sang lullabies, whose eyes turned solid black, and who sealed any friendship with a death-grip handshake that left a rune behind. Mageic went invisible, sat on a stool holding her hand and whispered his plan. The whole abbey heard it echo, Amren included. Dolly floated up into the air and Mageic christened her “Dolly Parton.” The Arbiter was thoroughly creeped out: “Everywhere I go, she goes.”

When his attempt to calm Amren failed, Mageic held Dolly up “like Simba” and sent her floating over to give Amren “a nice big old hug.” Dolly explained her technique, “I hug with my teeth,” and bit Amren’s ankle with black-tipped teeth. Amren swung her staff like a golf club, launched the doll back at Mageic, and Dolly shattered. The rune on Mageic’s hand burned away. “Dolly. What’d you do to Dolly?” he demanded. “I sent her away permanently,” said Amren.

It was not quite permanent. During the next chaos event, the spectators pelted the arena with anything they had on hand, and Dolly’s head was among the projectiles. Later Mageic conjured an illusion of her, crying and angry, perched on Amren’s shoulder and whispering her lullaby. Amren broke down (“Go away, dolly. Please”) and fled across the scaffolding, until the Grandmaster lost patience with everyone’s terror and crushed the illusion in her hand: “Two Dalis is too much.” Amren was left to complain, “I had to watch Dolly die twice, Mageic.” Mageic went on to win, and the Grandmaster’s victory speech honored him for the way “Dolly Parton, you took hand by hand.”

Season 1: Grorx v Lord Xiren

Billed as “a classic friend of the arena,” Dolly rose from a tiny glowing sarcophagus in a desert temple during the fight between Grorx and Lord Xiren. Xiren, who had a strategy of making as many friends as possible (“I read the contract and didn’t see Deathmatch in it!”), took her hand. Her fingers closed in a death grip, a small circular burn marked their shared palm, and she would fight at his side.

On her turn her jaw dropped eight inches, rows of sharp teeth slid into view, and she snapped at Grorx “for funsies.” She missed twice, and her eyes glowed and her hair floated up in frustration. Grorx punched her, though necrotic power did nothing to her. Xiren snarled, “Don’t you touch Dolly,” and later urged her on: “Dolly, you better charm that mother trucker.”

When the next chaos event came up, the Grandmaster made one thing clear: “We’re not doing another dolly. There will not be two dollies.” That event brought the temple down. Both champions scrambled out into the sunlight, but Dolly did not follow. The Grandmaster said they had seen her “reaching out as the rocks crushed her.” Xiren insisted he had been about to petition to go back for her, and the Grandmaster delivered the eulogy: “The doll has done her job. We will remember Dolly in our hearts.” Xiren’s answer was a battle cry: “For Dolly! For Dolly!”

Fate of the Arbiter: Sands of the Arena

In Sands of the Arena, a small porcelain doll floated up beside Locket and held out a hand: “Play with me.” Locket was curious by nature and picked her up, while Toddleheim muttered, “Curiosity killed the cat.” Dolly’s head spun all the way around and she smiled: “We’re going to be friends.” She burned a necrotic rune into Locket’s skin and bonded to her, obeying her commands. Ordered to attack a vampire, she missed, and Locket consoled her: “It’s all right, Dolly. You’ll get him next time.”

There was no next time. A fire storm swept the arena and caught Dolly in the blaze. The rune faded from Locket’s skin as the doll screamed “No!” and was obliterated. “Dolly!” cried Locket. “I’m so sorry, I failed you.”

Season 3: Coen v Alfucius

Dolly had her finest hour in Homunculus. A dark cloud gathered over a rock, the rock cracked open like an egg, and two small hands reached out. A porcelain doll with raggedy hair peeked out and asked both champions, “Will you be my friend?” The Grandmaster gasped, “Oh my gosh!” and the Arbiter approved: “That’s the correct reaction.”

Coen said yes. Dolly burned a “best friend rune” into her palm and became her familiar, and then she changed. Her porcelain arms and legs stayed, but fur grew over her whole torso, and her eyes became bigger and glossier. A beak full of tiny poisonous teeth was hidden under the fur. “You just had to do it, didn’t you?” sighed the Arbiter. Coen gave her a new name: “I will call you Aragorl.”

The two worked as a team. They turned invisible and teleported together, turned their heads toward Alfucius “in a very creepy unison,” and Aragorl gnawed on him with poison until “Alfucius ain’t looking good.” The Grandmaster issued a public safety notice: “Let it be known, do not let ancient, demonically possessed dolls ever bite you.” Alfucius protested, “I’ve seen one before. What was I meant to do?” Over the fight Aragorl’s fur shifted from gray to black-and-white spots and her legs grew longer. A hot rock she threw at the dragon passed straight through it and magically reappeared in her very big pocket, and she shrugged off a full blast from Alfucius’s jealous cannon because she is immune to fire. The only damage was singed fur, and the tuft on her head turned from white to black.

Coen then summoned a greater demon that looked exactly like Aragorl, only twenty feet tall, with bug-like legs and crab-claw arms. This big Aragorl wore pink Barbie stilettos and a little tutu, and she kicked the ghost dragon in the face with a ballerina spin while the Acolytes threw roses. When the two champions moved to stab each other at the same moment, invisible little Aragorl reappeared and gnawed Alfucius’s arm until blood dripped down onto the ground. “Well… that will do.” Yellow tulips with teeth sprang up where the blood fell, and both Aragorls helped Coen tear them apart, petals fluttering and juice running down their beaks. The Grandmaster kept her distance and was a little afraid of the big one, whose every blink landed like a thunderclap. The show closed with Goblins hurling stuffed Aragorls into the crowd. One of them stabbed someone in the eye.

Season 3: Talbot Cage v Seth Kaiser

“Dolly returns to the arena,” the Arbiter announced, summoning “the great being… who calls this playground home.” This time she came “with a twist.” She sat up out of the ground like a rising corpse, grew larger and necrotic, and gave off a putrid green cloud. “Do you wanna be my friend?” she asked Seth Kaiser and Talbot Cage. Seth shrugged off the stench, while Talbot was left gasping, “Put me out of my misery.” Dolly stomped closer on creaking plastic, fists in the air, her smile souring to a frown, and screamed “One candy!” When the Grandmaster finally landed in the arena like an asteroid, Dolly took fright and skittered back down her hole.

Season 4: Griff v Cappin Fodder

Under The Shadow King’s rule, the tiles of the arena shifted as if a gopher were digging underneath, small laughter escaped, and two glassy eyes with long lashes peered out of a hole. “It’s Dolly, our favorite haunted doll.” Cappin Fodder decided “This thing needs to die” and shot three of her fingers off with his blunderbuss. Without moving her shoulders, Dolly turned her head toward him and her eyes glowed. He tried to punt her and missed, so she rose into the air and burned his toes and fingers with unholy fire, “as she had lost hers.”

She then turned to Griff: “Will you be my friend?… Please be my friend.” Griff agreed, asked whether she liked party tricks, and told her to imagine a birthday party. He sang happy birthday (“the non-copyright version”) and blasted her with three rays of fire that singed off her hair and took away half her face. Dolly soaked up the fire, glowed an unholy green and exploded in a poison bomb that ate at Griff’s throat and lungs. “How’s that ceramic Dutch oven?” asked the Grandmaster, and she logged it for history: “this is the first time Dolly has been attacked by both players.” The Shadow King was appalled (“It really shows a couple of psychopaths here, attacking a doll”) and denied all responsibility. The Grandmaster’s verdict: “Dolly has a mind of her own.” At the table, the hosts recalled that Dolly was the show’s very first chaos event, and that “people hate her.”

Season 5: Bob the Barbarian v Richard Knottley

In Patriotic Punch Up, Bob the Barbarian rolled a natural 1 against Richard Knottley, and the warm lava field went cold and drained to greyscale, leaving only a circle burning red between the two fighters. Through a portal came a fragile hand, a worn cloth body and a cracked porcelain face framed with matted blonde hair, her black glass eyes searching for life. Bob couldn’t look away, and her unblinking stare drained his fighting spirit. As the arena put it: “Somebody snuck over into the box of chaos and decided to steal a little bit of your health.”

Personality and Abilities

Dolly looks like a child’s porcelain doll: glassy, unblinking eyes (sometimes black glass, sometimes with long lashes), raggedy or matted hair, and a cracked face. Her shape is far from fixed. She has appeared as a tiny floating doll, as a furry beaked familiar in pink, white and black, and as a giant necrotic corpse-doll. She speaks almost entirely in invitations: “Will you be my friend?”, “Play with me,” “Please be my friend.” She has been heard singing lullabies and shrieking “One candy!”

Her friendship is literal and binding. Taking her hand brings a death-grip and a burning rune or friendship mark, after which she fights for her new friend for a while, or becomes their familiar outright. Her weapons are a jaw that unhinges to reveal sharp, poisonous teeth, unholy fire for anyone who hurts her, putrid necrotic clouds, a stare that saps a fighter’s strength, and finally, if she is broken, a poison explosion. As Aragorl she shrugged off fire, and necrotic power hasn’t touched her, but fire has destroyed her too, blunderbusses and staffs have broken her, and a falling temple probably crushed her. None of it has kept her away for long. She is frightened of the Grandmaster, and the Arbiter is frightened of her.

Relationships

• Mageic: Her first friend, who named her “Dolly Parton” and later used her likeness as an illusion.
• Amren: Bitten by Dolly, shattered her with a staff swing, and had to watch her die twice.
• The Arbiter: Openly scared of her (“You don’t know what I’ve been through”), though he has summoned her himself.
• Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: Crushed her illusion, eulogized her, and frightened her back into her hole.
• Lord Xiren: Took her hand, fought beside her, and mourned her with the cry “For Dolly!”
• Grorx: Dodged her teeth twice and punched her.
• Locket: Bonded to Dolly briefly and apologized as the doll burned.
• Coen: Her best friend, who made her a familiar and renamed her Aragorl.
• Cappin Fodder: Shot her fingers off and was burned in return.
• Griff: Agreed to be her friend, then destroyed her with a birthday-party fire trick.
• Bob the Barbarian: Lost some of his fighting spirit to her stare.

Memorable Quotes

“I hug with my teeth.” (Mageic v Amren)

• “Will you be my friend?” (Grorx v Lord Xiren)
• “Play with me.” (Sands of the Arena)
• “We’re going to be friends.” (Sands of the Arena)
• “One candy!” (Talbot Cage v Seth Kaiser)
• “Please be my friend.” (Griff v Cappin Fodder)

Appearances

• S2E6 — FoTA - Sands of the Arena (Fate of the Arbiter, Part 2)
• Magic — S1 Ep2 — Mageic v Amren
• S1E8 — Fireballs — Grorx v Lord Xiren
• S3E6, Homunculus - Coen v Alfucius
• S3E14 — Magic Duel — Talbot Cage v Seth Kaiser
• S4 Ep3, Swindlers - Griff v Cappin Fodder
• S5E9 — Patriotic Punch Up — Bob the Barbarian v Richard Knottley (Dick Twist)