First appearance: Pieces of a King Ep 2: The War Council · watch it on YouTube
Grim is the leader of the Redcaps, a squad of gas-masked, red-bereted commandos fighting for the Rust Blood Alliance in its long war against The Warmind in Dämmerung. He found Grimnar, Nehebka and Muffy out in the wastes and brought them into the war camp. He rescued them, talked them up to the brass and gave them the honest version of things when the officers would not. Cheerful, blunt and good with a fireball, he became one of the party’s few clear allies in a camp full of secrets.
Story
The War Council
In Pieces of a King Ep 2 — THE WAR COUNCIL, Grim and his squad found the three travellers from The Dread Fortress out in The Blastlands, “neck deep in Warforged.” He led them up a ladder-stairway into the Rust Blood Alliance war camp, which was crowded with peoples of The Underdark. When the strangers appeared, the whole camp stopped and stared, and Grim hurried them past the gawking soldiers and the smell of the mess hall to the command tent. “I want to introduce you guys to the big wigs,” he said, and he walked in with a showman’s flourish: “Hey, everybody, look at what I found out in the Blastlands.”
When the war council eyed the newcomers with suspicion, Grim vouched for them. He described each of them in glowing terms: Nehebka had “total mastery over the earth,” Grimnar called “lightning from the sky,” and Muffy was “one of the most dexterous and nimble things I’ve ever seen.” “This could be our chance, guys,” he told the room. He was one of only three people War Mistress Trissavin let stay in the tent, along with herself and Gund Ashbrow, when the talk turned to the grim truth that the Warmind had been built, literally and physically, from pieces of the alliance itself.
Afterwards Grim gave the party a tour and some straight talk. “Don’t let Gund get you down. Dude’s grumpy. He’s always been grumpy,” he said. “And Triss, love her to death. But she’s got a lot of stuff on her shoulders.” He explained that he and his Redcaps rescued people from the Blastlands and ran commando operations, because “this is our home.” He also spelled out the stakes. There was a city with a gate, and if the Warmind got through it, “it could spread everywhere.” Asked whether the Warmind already knew everything its stolen minds knew, he guessed it did not know about the alliance’s new weapon. That weapon had only been started a couple of months earlier. “It’s genuinely last ditch,” he admitted, “and don’t tell anybody I said that.”
The Warhead
In Pieces of a King Ep 3 — The Warhead, the Redcaps waited outside the command tent while Grim joined Trissavin, Gund and The Physician inside. When Nehebka confessed that she had once been “the war mind” for her own domain, Grim let out a low whistle. When Grimnar answered the Physician’s doubts with “We will do what chaos allows,” Grim approved, as did the Physician. Trissavin and Gund were less pleased. Grimnar then asked to have breakfast before anything else, and while Gund rolled his eyes, Grim smiled: “Let him eat… full bellies, before we decide to go touch weapons of mass destruction.”
He rode with the council and its retinues to the corpse of a fallen Solar, where the alliance was harvesting an angel’s body to build its warheads. While Gund looked proud and Trissavin stood tight and still, Grim simply waited, uninterested. The plan put him at its centre. A strike team would travel through tunnels under the mountain, in an operation led by Grim, and deliver a warhead to bury the Warmind or blow it apart. Muffy and Nehebka suspected they were being set up as sacrificial lambs. They read Grim as not out to use them. Gund named only “the squid” or Grim as the ones who would go with them, and Grim was to hand the party a map of the tunnel network.
Then the alarms rang. As the Redcaps geared up, Grim offered, “need anything? We’ll be on the field with you.” Before the fight, Muffy painted a mustache on the Solar’s corpse, and Grim told her, “you get cooler and cooler every day.” He took the back flank with three of his Redcaps, promising “we’ll do our best to keep the chaff off you.” Muffy told him “Don’t die,” and he answered “same to you too.”
Grimnar hurled a fireball some 300 feet into the enemy lines. Grim was impressed and a little cheeky about it: “That was a hell of a fireball, man… couldn’t you have done that the first time?” Then he copied the trick and threw a fireball of his own, carefully placed to miss Nehebka and Muffy. It blew the enemy lieutenant apart and left a smoldering crater, and Muffy, ears ringing, gave him a thumbs up that he returned. He asked Grimnar how he liked it. Grimnar replied “It was fine. Six out of ten,” and Grim promised to try to make the next one “a ten out of ten.” His confidence lasted until two of the Warmind’s colossal Titans strode in to destroy the Solar, and he summed up the moment in two words: “Oh, fuck.”
Personality and Abilities
Grim and his Redcaps stand out in a camp of uniforms. They wear spiked boots, heavier plated armour, thick metal-plated gloves, gas masks and red berets, and no other squad wears red. He is a hobgoblin “Devastator,” a fighter who mixes spellcraft with close combat and makes the allies around him stronger. His squad handles rescues and commando raids in the Blastlands.
He is casual and warm, and he talks to newcomers like old friends. He is quicker than the officers to say what is really going on, even if he follows it with “don’t tell anybody I said that.” He likes daring and style. He approves of chaos, cheers on Muffy’s vandalism, and takes Grimnar’s teasing as a challenge rather than an insult. Under the banter he is steady and protective. He calls the camp home and keeps promising to stand with the party on the field.
Relationships
- Grimnar: Grim found him in the Blastlands and praised his lightning. He copied Grimnar’s fireball in battle and got a “six out of ten” for it.
- Muffy: A fast friend; they traded “don’t die” wishes and thumbs up, and he loved her mustache on the Solar.
- Nehebka: Grim vouched for her “total mastery over the earth” and was careful to aim his fireball around her.
- Gund Ashbrow: Grim treats him as a grumpy colleague and warned the party not to let him get them down.
- Trissavin: The war mistress he serves under. He says he loves her “to death” and worries about the weight she carries.
- The Physician: A fellow member of the inner council. Gund named the two of them as the only ones who would go with the party, and both approved of Grimnar’s appeal to chaos.
Memorable Quotes
- “Hey, everybody, look at what I found out in the Blastlands.” (Pieces of a King Ep 2)
- “They were neck deep in Warforged by the time we got to them.” (Pieces of a King Ep 2)
- “It’s genuinely last ditch, and don’t tell anybody I said that.” (Pieces of a King Ep 2)
- “Let him eat… full bellies, before we decide to go touch weapons of mass destruction.” (Pieces of a King Ep 3)
- “That was a hell of a fireball, man… couldn’t you have done that the first time?” (Pieces of a King Ep 3)
- “I’ll try to make that a ten out of ten.” (Pieces of a King Ep 3)