First appearance: S2E15 — Black Hole Sun — Professor Stabbz v Mad Cass O Weary · watch it on YouTube
Professor Stabbz is a goblin academic from the University of Stabbz. He taught stabbing without ever actually stabbing anyone, until he came to The Void to earn tenure in the bloodiest way available. Cowardly, gullible and very dainty about the ankles, he survived a drunken, furious monk, a floor of lava and a black hole. He won thanks to a box that took his side and a sun he pulled out of a scroll.
Story
Black Hole Sun
Professor Stabbz arrived in Black Hole Sun through a water portal that The Arbiter had flicked off a soaking-wet Grandmaster. That put him in her freshly remodeled bathroom in The Dread Fortress, just after a failed attempt to bathe Doug. He explained that he taught Stabbing 101, theoretical stabbing and stabbing in Spanish, “just a few of the basic stabbing curriculum.” He had requested tenure, “and I guess this is how one acquires tenure.” His opponent, Mad Cass O Weary, promised to put his foot so far up Stabbz’s ass that he could pick his toenail clippings from Stabbz’s mouth, and Stabbz politely said he would rather be stabbed. The arena turned out to be a quaint little town that smelled of dog, and the Arbiter explained the name of the show. Stabbz then learned the deaths were not “just for flavor.” His first tactical request was “Put me far away from the angry man, please!”
He opened from the rooftops, where a goblin can stab without being stabbed. He conjured a glowing purple and green psychic dagger, landed his first hit, then fled screaming, “I don’t wanna get hurt! Pain is bad!” He weathered a dodgeball barrage from The Acolytes and tried to stage an intervention for Cass’s drinking. He was horrified when the lava rose and Cass simply walked across it. By then he had watched Cass headbutt a barrel open and eat a glass, and now Cass was dragging Gerald around by the ring on its side. So he turned invisible with a spell he named on the spot: “I would like to cast fuck this at third level.” He then crossed a tightrope between rooftops with such grace that he had “clearly been in the circus before.” Gerald had been insulted by Cass one time too many, and he could see the invisible professor anyway. He decided Cass was a dick and floated Stabbz a spell scroll as a gift, no sacrifice required.
Pride came before the fall. After a gentlemanly stab from the tightrope, Stabbz missed his footing with the worst possible luck and landed head first in an alley (“Like Icarus, I have fallen by my hubris!”). He heard “both the left and right cheek simultaneously,” and announced, “I would like to hold my own butt cheeks at second level.” Cass grabbed his dainty ankle, then switched tactics and declared them friends. Stabbz believed every word. “I’ve always wanted a friend!” he cried, and he told Cass his entire life story. It covered his droning reviews in the tome Rate My Professor and his secret crush on Vanita, the professor of slashing. Then he strolled happily past his new friend and was hip-thrown straight into the lava. “I trusted you! I listened to you!”
The betrayal changed the fight. Stabbz froze Cass in place with a spell, but Cass simply knocked himself unconscious and kept brawling on drunken autopilot. Fuelled by the betrayal, Stabbz spun out of the way like a bullfighter and let Cass tumble into the lava himself. Then the Arbiter got bored and opened a black hole in the middle of town. Stabbz wriggled free of Cass’s grip, got caught in a leg-lock around his neck, then broke loose again and swapped places with him. Then he was yanked forty feet straight back toward the vortex. At the edge of oblivion he unrolled “a sheet of paper that I received earlier today”: Gerald’s scroll, an eighth-level Sunburst. “I told you everything about my life, you son of a bitch!” A small sun engulfed Cass and the black hole swallowed it. Cass laughed as his flesh stripped from the bone, gave Stabbz the middle finger as his bones burned, and swore to haunt Stabbz’s nightmares before his face became a laughing skull and his jaw fell off. The Grandmaster praised the professor for teaching them all “a new lesson in the art of battle.” She hoisted him onto her shoulders before the crowd.
The nightmares came true. In Dried Blood, it was declared canon that Stabbz hears Cass’s laughter from another dimension as he dozes off. Stabbz said he never wanted to do this again and just wanted to stay home. The Grandmaster suggested he could train her own goblins instead, and the Arbiter informed him that he had signed a six-show contract.
Into the Mirror
Stabbz appears in a different history that surfaced in Flynry’s mind during Into the Mirror, Session 1. In those new memories, Flynry did not die in the Battle for the Crown but came out of it triumphant alongside Professor Stabbz.
Personality and Abilities
Stabbz is small, polite and openly terrified. He prefers arguing his case to taking a punch, and he talks his way through danger with nervous running commentary. He is also deeply lonely and easily fooled: one sincere-sounding offer of friendship was enough to make him spill his childhood. He carries student loans, dreams of his PhD, and admits that the only superpower he gets from booze is “regret and tears.” He says he used to do interpretive goblin dance, and he moves like it.
In a fight he is a slippery rooftop skirmisher. He hurls conjured psychic daggers from high ground, strikes hardest when his enemy isn’t looking, and darts away before anyone can catch him. He can make an enemy’s luck turn sour at the crucial moment. He also turns invisible, freezes foes in place and shrugs off most of what is thrown at him. His agility borders on the acrobatic: tightropes, bullfighter spins, flourishes that make him harder to hit and let him switch places with his enemy. Being tiny only makes his stabs angrier. His teaching philosophy is simple: “The first lesson is stab. The second lesson is don’t get stabbed.”
Relationships
- Mad Cass O Weary: His opponent, who befriended him, heard his whole life story, then threw him into lava. Stabbz killed him with a sun, and Cass’s laughter still haunts his sleep.
- Gerald: Fed up with Cass, Gerald gave Stabbz the winning scroll for free. Stabbz’s verdict: “He was nice.”
- The Grandmaster: Crowned his victory by carrying him on her shoulders and offered him a job training her goblins.
- The Arbiter: Explained, loudly, that it is “D20 Deathmatch, not D20 Lovematch,” and later told him he had signed a six-show contract.
- Flynry: In a different history Flynry remembers, the two won the Battle for the Crown together.
Memorable Quotes
- “I don’t wanna get hurt! Pain is bad!” (Black Hole Sun)
- “I would like to cast fuck this at third level.” (Black Hole Sun)
- “I just saw this guy headbutt a barrel, eat glass, yell at a demon, and now he’s doing push-ups for no reason! I wanna go home, please!” (Black Hole Sun)
- “Like Icarus, I have fallen by my hubris! I flew too close to the sun, and now I pay the ultimate price!” (Black Hole Sun)
- “I’ve always wanted a friend!” (Black Hole Sun)
- “I told you everything about my life, you son of a bitch!” (Black Hole Sun)