First appearance: Playtest 1 (Pre-Launch) — Silky Slim v Escanor the Echo · watch it on YouTube
Escanor the Echo is a minotaur fighter who was ripped from his own plane to fight in the Grandmaster’s arena. He is also a self-described “world-class hide-and-seek player.” He fought Silky Slim in the rain-soaked Forest of Death in Playtest 1 (Pre-Launch) — Silky Slim v Escanor the Echo. He won with brute strength, lightning-charged horns, unexpected gentleness toward ducklings, and the help of Cream, the echo of himself he treats as a twin brother. He left the arena crowned Champion of the Death Forest.
Story
Escanor was summoned to The Void when the Grandmaster, bored after eons of absolute power, asked the Arbiter for blood. He arrived full of confidence: “Escanor has all the power. Escanor will crush this weak little man.” His opponent was Silky Slim, a bugbear barbarian with luxuriously oiled fur and a glaive named Bernice, who greeted him as “Bessie the milk cow.” The arena was the Forest of Death, a muddy, rain-lashed stretch of trees and hills still littered with old hunters’ traps. In front of a floating grandstand packed with Acolytes, Escanor opened with a thrown hand axe and a flurry of longsword blows, then lowered his head and charged with his horns. Silky barely blinked (“More like a steer instead of a bull”). Then he grabbed Escanor by the horns and drove them into the mud.
The fight quickly became a war against the terrain as much as against Silky. Escanor took a faceful of flung mud and swallowed some (“Good. I like it dirty”). He also tried a dramatic leap from a column and slid down it on his butt into the mud instead (“This terrain is absolute crap”). His luck turned when the Arbiter called down a storm of lightning. Escanor absorbed the bolts, and his horns crackled with electricity for the rest of the match. Silky answered with a vicious stab to Escanor’s eye. Escanor answered back by conjuring his echo in a tree, which swan-dived onto the bugbear. A menacing follow-up from Escanor sent Silky fleeing, and Escanor put a sword in his side as he ran. When he needed patching up, Escanor simply had his echo touch him and pulled it back into himself.
Midway through, a flash flood washed eight ducklings into the arena. The Grandmaster swore to smite anyone who harmed a single feather. When Silky stepped into a bear trap, Escanor produced a second echo “from my loins,” which he christened Cream: “I call this the cream of Escanor.” Silky lifted Escanor’s skirt with his glaive to investigate. A roll of the dice revealed that Escanor’s testicles were the size of volleyballs. While Cream pressed the attack, Escanor turned and pretended to poop on the trapped Silky, then turned his attention to the ducks: “Little ducks, do not get caught in these traps.” He sent Cream to guard them. Silky then used his gift for speaking with animals to tell the ducks that Escanor wanted to kill them, their mama, the Grandmaster and the Arbiter. Only the runt believed him, and it quacked furiously at Escanor’s feet. Escanor carefully stepped around it (“Little duck, why are you mad? It’s only game”). The Grandmaster swooped down to rescue her runt and rewarded Escanor with a small healing potion for protecting it.
The last stretch was pure chaos. Silky pulled a bottle of hibiscus lube from his briefs and squirted it in Escanor’s face, the Arbiter wiped it away and flung it into the crowd, and then the lube caught fire on Escanor anyway. Escanor drank the duck potion. He and Cream Naruto-ran across the field holding hands, crying “We are the divine bovine.” The brothers showed off matching tattoos that read “fam” and “illy.” When a dam burst and a wall of water swept both champions away, the Grandmaster blew a kiss to the runt. It grew enormous and carried them to safety, a reward for neither of them attacking her ducks. Finally Escanor swapped places with Cream (“Cream, teleporto!”) and landed three longsword strikes that dropped Silky, his intestines peeking out. Escanor promised to carry out the fallen bugbear’s last requests, and Silky’s parting tribute was “You have large balls, and they are luxurious.” The Grandmaster spared Silky’s life but kept him in the Void. She crowned Escanor Champion of the Death Forest amid fireworks, balloons, flying snacks and one released bag of snakes.
Personality and Abilities
Escanor is a big, boastful minotaur who often speaks of himself in the third person. Underneath the bluster he has a soft heart. He is fiercely devoted to family above all, and to Cream most of all, his echo and “brother.” That devotion stretched to the Grandmaster’s ducklings, which he went out of his way to protect even mid-fight. His humor runs crude: he once pretended to poop on a trapped Silky while Cream did the fighting. Even so, he ended the match with sincere, if odd, wisdom about family and dry cleaning.
In battle he is a heavy hitter armed with a longsword and three hand axes, and his horns serve as a battering ram. After the lightning storm, those horns sparked with electricity. His signature power is his echo, a duplicate of himself that he can summon, send into combat, swap places with, and reabsorb to heal his wounds.
Relationships
- Silky Slim: His opponent in Playtest 1. Their rivalry ended in mutual respect, with Escanor promising to honor the bugbear’s last wishes.
- Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: She rewarded him with a healing potion for protecting her runt duckling, saved him from the flood, and crowned him Champion of the Death Forest.
- The Arbiter: Summoned him to the arena, struck him with the lightning that charged his horns, and wiped Silky’s lube from his face.
Memorable Quotes
- “Escanor has all the power. Escanor will crush this weak little man.” (Playtest 1)
- “I call this the cream of Escanor.” (Playtest 1)
- “Little duck, why are you mad? It’s only game.” (Playtest 1)
- “We are the divine bovine.” (Playtest 1)
- “Family conquers all. And also pick up your own dry cleaning so you don’t have your enemies do it.” (Playtest 1)