First appearance: S1E8 — Fireballs — Grorx v Lord Xiren · watch it on YouTube
Grorx, who introduced himself as “Grox the Great,” was a small goblin in heavy plate armor with a shield, a longsword and a startling amount of consumer debt. He was pulled into the Void to face Lord Xiren in the ancient halls of Kabehe’s Temple. He came for the money, tried to buy the Grandmaster’s crown, and ran away a lot. He ended the night as half of one of the strangest creatures ever to leave the arena: both champions survived, sharing a single two-headed body.
Story
Grorx stepped out of the Arbiter’s portal into The Dread Fortress with one concern: getting paid. The Arbiter promised a handsome reward if he survived and pointed out that paying a corpse would make no difference to him, so Grorx agreed on the spot. Told to bow before the Grandmaster, he checked first whether the goblin carrying a giant velour painting of Doug the Pug was the one he should bow to. Then he got to the point: “How much for the crown?” Once the Grandmaster’s opinion of the crown made it “out of Grorx’s price range,” he tried to pay on credit, only to learn that the Dread Fortress does not take Omnicard. He also admitted that he had used his contract as a napkin. The Arbiter assured him it was still binding.
In the arena, Grorx discovered that he was the only champion without wings (“I gotta fire that guy,” he said of his manager). When a Doug-triggered barking frenzy drowned out every spoken spell and a “bones day” brought rocks crashing down from the ceiling, he dodged every one. He explained that a goblin childhood of barking dogs and people throwing rocks had prepared him for exactly this. He opened the fight by hurling a javelin with perfect aim through Xiren’s shoulder (“I’d say I’m sorry, but I really want ice cream”). Then he ran, as promised, and noticed that the locking mechanism of a seemingly closed door had been designed by his own father. He tried to hide behind it in clanking plate and failed so badly that Xiren had been staring at him the whole time. The Acolytes loved the hit-and-run all the same and chanted both champions’ names. Grorx found the pressure plate and opened a hidden ceremonial chamber, a quiet, sunlit room of broken columns and old bones. He sheathed himself in a coat of protective ice there, glad to be away from the dogs.
The quiet did not last. Xiren befriended a mummy that burst out of a pillar, named it Michael Jackson, and turned it against Grorx. Grorx answered with what the Grandmaster called an “awesome, badass, superhero freaking landing,” a bow-legged, spider-like waddle that frightened Xiren. He then set his sword ablaze and cut into the mummy. The mummy’s dreadful glare did nothing to him, and the immunity, it turned out, covered his own mummy as well: his mother has a dreadful glare too. When it punched him, he warned everyone about the asbestos. Xiren pelted him with a swarm of magic darts, and Grorx threw up a shield that swallowed every one (“I will show him what D&D is”). With Dolly snapping at him from one side and the mummy from the other, he blinked away in mist and hurled his shield “Captain America style,” crackling with power. The blow broke Xiren’s hold on the mummy, which promptly turned on its former friend. Grorx withstood one fireball behind his shield but could not stop Xiren’s storm of scorching rays. When the temple began to collapse, he tried twice to escape cleanly, failed both times, was conked on the head by rubble, and still staggered out into the desert sun.
Outside, the Acolytes split exactly in half over whether both champions should live, and a coin flip demanded a death. Xiren answered by dropping a fireball right next to himself. Grorx was left one point from dying outright, and both champions lay broken in the rubble, sliding toward death together. A hot dog thrown from the stands landed in Grorx’s hand, and he closed his fingers around it. “This is how I always thought I would die,” he said. “I’m still the greatest.” Before either could die, the Grandmaster stepped down and declared that their souls were twins, “two phoenixes circling each other throughout eternity.” Grorx asked to live as the Magneto to Xiren’s Professor X. A second coin fused them into a single two-headed being with mismatched legs, which the Grandmaster raised before her crowd. Xiren begged to be killed, mourned his own lost legs, which had been replaced by Grorx’s “hideous bowed and green” ones, and wailed, “How can I touch myself?”
Personality and Abilities
Grorx was a cheerful, shameless operator with a philosophy of life: “you got to keep the standards low. That way you can always rise above the standards.” He proudly called himself “the greatest at running away.” He collected things to resell, could not do math, and kept so many credit cards that he simply threw each one away when it hit its limit. He was lactose intolerant. He also let slip that he “may or may not have slain seven or eight” of his siblings, which he insisted did not count because it happened at home.
He fought like a stubborn little tank. He wore heavy plate and carried a shield that could take the edge off a fireball, and he could set his sword ablaze. He threw javelins, cloaked himself in icy armor, blasted raw power from range and vanished in a puff of mist when cornered. His signature was the hit-and-run, and his surprise weapon was a bow-legged superhero landing; even his opponent called those bow legs glorious.
Relationships
- Lord Xiren: His opponent. Xiren deliberately mangled his name all fight and finally said it right as they lay dying. The two now share one body.
- Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: He tried to buy her crown on credit. She spared his life by fusing him with Xiren.
- The Arbiter: The recruiter who promised him payment and held him to the napkin-stained contract.
- Dolly: Fought alongside Xiren and tried, twice and without success, to bite him.
- The mummy “Michael Jackson”: Turned against him through Xiren’s charm, then turned on Xiren. It was burned up by Xiren’s own stray fire.
Memorable Quotes
“Grox the Great. Greatest of Goblin Kind, Troll Kind, Orc Kind, and Elven Kind. Not Dragon Kind though, I don’t fuck with that.” (S1E8)
- “See, you got to keep the standards low. That way you can always rise above the standards.” (S1E8)
- “You don’t take Omnicard?” (S1E8)
- “I have so many credit cards. They’re so nice… When they reach the top, I just throw them away. And then I get another.” (S1E8)
- “It was at home, so it doesn’t count.” (S1E8)
- “This is how I always thought I would die. I’m still the greatest.” (S1E8)