First appearance: S2E14 — Shrooms — Ulfgar Greyblade (Mcswiggins) v Snoop & Dog · watch it on YouTube
Mcswiggins, also called the Everthirsty and, according to the sign-up sheet, Ulfgar Greyblade, is a broad, axe-swinging dwarf who has never been fully sober in the arena. He lost his first Deathmatch by falling down a hole. The Arbiter then caught him in mid-fall and kept him, promising “a use for you very soon.” That use turned out to be the deciding round of the war for the Grandmaster’s crown, where Mcswiggins stumbled, swore and quit his way through a fight that his own team won.
Story
Shrooms (S2E14)
Mcswiggins arrived at Shrooms disoriented and clearly several drinks in. He delivered his grand introduction to Dog, a scaly “dog” he mistook for the Grandmaster, and then started it over from the top, losing track of whether he’d already said it. When “Ulfgar” appeared on the bill, he insisted his name was Mcswiggins. The Arbiter blamed friends who sign people up for fights to the death. Mcswiggins accepted the biggest of Snoop’s magic mushrooms, and only afterwards learned he was facing two opponents, Snoop & Dog, when he asked Snoop about Dog’s fighting style, having taken Snoop for a member of the audience. When the Arbiter promised to make it up to him “if you’re not dead,” Mcswiggins announced: “No one ever dies.”
The arena was a lost plane of squishy, membrane-like ground that looked like a testicle, under a fog of The Acolytes’ falling farts, and Mcswiggins felt right at home. The opening chaos event caught him mid-piss against the wall, when the Arbiter clocked him with a metal folding chair. He answered by calling his ancestral protectors out of his axe, sprinted across the arena, and spotted Snoop by the edge of an Italian leather boot. When one of Snoop’s summoned golden lions pounced, Mcswiggins planted his axe in its jaw, twirled it around and slam-dunked it into Gerald, the Box of Chaos. Gerald ate the lion and burned a protective lion tattoo into Mcswiggins’ arm. Later Mcswiggins offered Snoop a conciliatory handshake and turned it into a sucker punch: “Gotcha. They said to the death.”
The fight took a turn when the arena summoned an Aeorian Reverser. Mcswiggins, with “an idea brewing in the old brain box,” tried to ride it as his steed. The monster grabbed him, threw him at Snoop, missed, and left him on the floor cursing it out. He forgot Snoop existed and fought the beast alongside him until Snoop finished it off. The two called a polite timeout so Mcswiggins could go “rock a piss into that hole,” and the Arbiter reminded him that “You can’t just whip your dick out anywhere in this arena.” When the fight resumed, Snoop shield-shoved him over the edge. Mcswiggins clung to the rim, his hands soaked with the dribble from his own piss, ended up holding hands with Snoop, and was dragged down when Dog latched onto his feet. He fell into the dark abyss: “I peed so far, and fought so hard, and in the end, it was fucking awesome. I’m at peace.” Then Dog popped back beside his master and left Mcswiggins to fall alone: “No longer at as much peace, but whatever.”
As he spiraled into the abyss of the forgotten, the Grandmaster told the Arbiter to clean up the mess, and he dove into the hole with a plunger. Falling through space and time, Mcswiggins finally took his mushrooms and looked up to see a winged figure closing in. “Mom?” he asked. The Arbiter stuck the plunger to his head, flew him through a portal into his lair, handed him a tankard of ale, and said: “You stay right there. I’m going to have a use for you very soon.”
Battle for the Crown Round 3 (S2E20)
That use came in the final round of Battle for the Crown, when the Arbiter fielded him for “all the marbles.” Mcswiggins stepped through the portal with the plunger still on his face, sure he had finally reached hell after “falling for 30 hours.” The Arbiter’s hideous new couch did nothing to change his mind. His teammate Thornabub struck him as Satan himself, and he greeted him that way. The two faced the Grandmaster’s champions, Flynry and Prof. Stabbz, at an ancient jungle temple. Mcswiggins rested a hand on “Satan’s” shoulder before the fight. Thornabub then opened the match by shoving him off their cliff.
Things got worse from there. Both opponents turned invisible, so Mcswiggins called out “Marco!” and blamed last episode’s mushrooms. When every weapon became the champion’s own pillow, he fought with a cushion stolen from the Arbiter’s couch. Stabbz dropped an invisible mama duck behind the pair and it exploded into a fireball, catching Mcswiggins at the worst possible moment. After Stabbz cut Thornabub down, a battered Mcswiggins demanded “some sort of talking treasure chest,” and the Box of Chaos slammed down beside him. He offered Gerald, whom he called Greg and then Jeffrey, “actual Satan’s corpse” for his collection and threw Thornabub inside. In return he got a weapon of fate that finally let him land a hit, then another. He shouted “Fucking Christ, I quit. I quit… I hate it here!” before connecting at last.
When the Arbiter erupted the arena in lava, Mcswiggins ended up in the box with his teammate. It turned out that Thornabub had secretly cast a spell to ward off death on both of them when he put his hand on Mcswiggins before the fight, and both came back out alive. When Thornabub threatened to tear the box apart from the inside, Mcswiggins stood up for it: “Wait, no, Jim is cool.” His weapon of fate later shattered, so he stabbed Stabbz with one of its shards and hid behind a rock. Flynry closed in, and Mcswiggins sealed himself in a tomb of beer-colored ice. Flynry’s tongue promptly froze to the top of his head, and he complimented Mcswiggins on his very straight hair part.
Then Thornabub read a spell scroll from the box and called down a storm of meteors on everyone, his own partner included. Trapped in his melting beer-ice, Mcswiggins watched it come. He took one last sip, lay down, watched the meteors fall and gave his last chance at survival to his teammate. Thornabub was the only one left standing, so Team Arbiter took the victory point. The Acolytes voted for Flynry and Stabbz, and the Grandmaster kept her crown 4–2. Thornabub carved a slushie out of what was left of Mcswiggins’ ice tomb.
Personality and Abilities
Mcswiggins is about four foot eight, broad as a barrel, and drunk enough that, when the arena shook, he had to ask whether it was really happening or he was “just fucked up.” He calls himself “the pride of the drunken master” and treats his mental health with drink and the motto “Eat, drink, be merry.” The Grandmaster once offered him whiskey if he lost, and he accused her of trivializing his lifelong struggle with alcohol. He was born in fart air, by his own account, and he pisses wherever he likes, arena walls and bottomless holes included. He never got Gerald’s name right: it was Greg, Jeffrey or Jim. He is also a fan of “the men of Italy,” a band of bards with magnificent mustaches.
In a fight he is a raging barbarian with a greataxe that houses his ancestral protectors. He calls them with a chant: “Oh, hear me, Jamison, Johnny, and Jack. I call upon you, we’re on the attack.” He layers dark warlock power over his swings, styles himself “Mage Bane,” and can encase himself in a protective tomb of amber beer-ice to wait out a beating. He carries an enchanted flask that refills itself, and he wore a lion tattoo burned into his arm by the Box of Chaos.
Relationships
- Snoop & Dog: His first opponents. He took their mushrooms and sucker-punched Snoop, and the two briefly teamed up against a monster before Snoop shoved him down a hole.
- The Arbiter: Caught him in the abyss with a plunger, kept him in his lair, and fielded him in Battle for the Crown.
- Thornabub: His Battle for the Crown partner, whom he believed was Satan. Thornabub pushed him off a cliff, saved his life in secret, and then dropped meteors on him. He called Mcswiggins “McWackles.”
- Gerald: Gave him a lion tattoo and a weapon of fate. Mcswiggins never once got his name right.
- Prof. Stabbz and Flynry: His opponents in the final round. He landed blows on Stabbz with the weapon of fate and later one of its shards, and Flynry ended up with his tongue frozen to Mcswiggins’ head.
Memorable Quotes
- “Ulfgar Greyblade. You may know me as Mcswiggins, the Everthirsty, the toughest son of a bitch in Drakboldor, and the pride of the drunken master.” (Shrooms)
- “You merely adopted the farts. I was born in them. Molded by them.” (Shrooms)
- “My mental health is just fine. I’ve got drink for that… Eat, drink, be merry. I do all three of those all the time.” (Shrooms)
“I peed so far, and fought so hard, and in the end, it was fucking awesome. I’m at peace.” (Shrooms)
- “Oh god, I’m finally in hell. I feel like I’ve been falling for 30 hours.” (Battle for the Crown Round 3)
“Well, this wouldn’t be the first time I’m outclassed. It feels like it might be the last one.” (Battle for the Crown Round 3)