First appearance: S1E5, The 2v2 - Chuck Solid Gold Dragon Biff & Richardo v Steely Dan & Thass’Lok · watch it on YouTube
Thass’Lok is a whispering lizardfolk killer from the black water bays, where he drowns people in the name of the Lady of the Ocean. He was summoned for the first 2v2 Deathmatch ever held in the Void. He paired with a warforged, decided at once that the warforged was the real threat, and spent the whole match trying to kill his own partner. His dark speeches charmed the hosts. His end was gloriously undignified: he was beaten to death with his teammate’s corpse, or, as his player put it, “turkey slapped.”
Story
The 2v2
In S1E5, The 2v2 - Chuck Solid Gold Dragon Biff & Richardo v Steely Dan & Thass’Lok, The Arbiter tore open space and four champions stepped out into The Dread Fortress. Asked why he was worthy, Thass’Lok described his own arena: “The bays. The black water bays. And I drown those and serve the mistress in there.” The Arbiter admitted he didn’t know what any of that meant “but I like all of it.” The Grandmaster called him “an excellent pick.” When the Arbiter proposed a 2v2, Thass’Lok objected that “we wouldn’t be fighting alongside others.” The Grandmaster suggested he simply be “less inclined to murder them first.” The dice paired him with the tape-playing warforged paladin Steely Dan against Chuck Solid Gold Dragon Biff and Thass’Lok’s fellow lizardfolk Richardo.
The fight took place in The Clock of the Lost, a column of grinding, spinning gears. Thass’Lok went first and opened by telling Richardo, “You are the same breed. These numbers mean nothing. These teams mean nothing.” He then declared the clockwork the warforged’s domain, said “Let’s bring him down,” and raised his shield toward his own partner. Soon after, he vanished from the field. The Grandmaster tossed a sheet of invisibility over him from her perch and kept him under her protection until a gust from her wings blew it off. Invited to make the arena his domain, he replied, “This isn’t my domain. This belongs to the Warforged.” Then he threw a dagger into Steely Dan. The Arbiter asked whether Thass’Lok knew the warforged was on his team. The Grandmaster was delighted: “I think he does, and he does not care. Oh, I love the heartlessness… This is better than the goblin soaps.”
He kept at it. He rode a rush of wind straight through a poison cloud of mushroom spores and stabbed at the little windows where Dan’s tapes turned: “I know what the Grandmaster said, but you are way too loud. It’s time to shut you up.” Dan’s tape shot back, “You might as well face it, you’re a dick with a glove.” Dan answered by beating him over the head with a four-foot mushroom, then cutting him open with a glaive. Thass’Lok turned and stared, blood drenching his mostly naked body. Richardo then caught them both in a wall of wind. After a haunted doll joined the fight on Dan’s side, Thass’Lok tried to patch things up with the other lizard: “The nations are bonding together. We should do the same despite your betrayal, Ricardo.” He drove his rapier into the joints of Dan’s plating, and a compartment burst open, spilling 1990s greatest-hits CDs everywhere. He hammered the blade deeper with his shield until Dan was badly broken. As he limped away, Chuck grabbed him by the belt (“Get back here! I’m not done with you!”). The half-shattered Dan announced, “I would like to execute the traitor,” and slashed him, though Thass’Lok twisted aside to take only part of the blow.
After the Arbiter jammed the gears with a giant wrench, Chuck pulled a great club out of his trunks and battered both Dan and Thass’Lok. Thass’Lok concluded, “I can trust any of you. Very disappointing.” He slipped away and hid in a bank of conjured fog. Then a chaos event turned every weapon into a fluffy pillow, and Richardo’s spectral bull body-slammed Steely Dan to death. In the final round, Chuck found his club had become an anime pillow with a girl on it. He threw it away, hoisted Steely Dan’s corpse over his shoulder and charged into the fog. Thass’Lok saw it coming: “There’s nothing I can do. I’m going to be clobbered by Steely Dan. Might as well face it.” Dan’s tape had one more jab for him: “You’re a dick with a glove.” The blow landed, Thass’Lok’s body crumpled, and his blood spewed onto the gears. His last words:
“Lady of the Ocean, take me.”
Chuck and Richardo were crowned the winning team.
Personality and Abilities
Thass’Lok is grim, cryptic and nearly naked, a lizardfolk who speaks in low, whispery pronouncements about the ocean, blood and his “mistress.” His name proved hard to hold onto: at the pairing he was “the other guy whose name is really hard to say… the whispery guy.” He sees the world as “its own arena,” with himself as the ocean’s “product.” He came to the Void, he said, because “the bloods have not been thick as they need to be.” His instincts are territorial and survival-driven. At the table, his player explained that Thass’Lok kills people himself, in his own environment, so landing among gears beside a warforged made him feel threatened by someone else in their element. The same player cheerfully called him “the most stupidly edgy character I’ve ever played… killed by getting… turkey slapped.” The joke had a second layer: Steely Dan is named after a steam-powered dildo from William Burroughs, so Thass’Lok was quite literally slapped around the face by a Steely Dan.
In a fight he moves with fancy footwork and carries a rapier, a shield and throwing daggers. He fixes his quarry with a hunter’s focus and hits wounded foes harder. He can put on a burst of wind-borne speed, twist away from a blow so only part of it lands, and vanish into a cloud of fog. His Dried Blood advice summed up his philosophy: “Stay out of range, stay out of sight.”
Relationships
- Steely Dan: His assigned teammate, whom he attacked from the first turn and never stopped trying to silence. Dan returned the favor, called him “the traitor” and, in death, became the weapon that killed him.
- Richardo: A fellow lizardfolk Thass’Lok told to “stay out of my way,” then tried to recruit once the other side started bonding.
- Chuck Solid Gold Dragon Biff: Grabbed him by the belt, clubbed him, and finished him off with Steely Dan’s body.
- Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: Hid him under a sheet of invisibility and adored his heartlessness.
- The Arbiter: Found his introduction dark, baffling and entirely to his liking.
Memorable Quotes
- “The ocean, it has made a choice that it would send me to you, but the bloods have not been thick as they need to be. I will find it for her.” (S1E5)
- “My own arena. The bays. The black water bays. And I drown those and serve the mistress in there.” (S1E5)
- “This isn’t my domain. This belongs to the Warforged.” (S1E5)
- “I know what the Grandmaster said, but you are way too loud. It’s time to shut you up.” (S1E5)
- “There’s nothing I can do. I’m going to be clobbered by Steely Dan. Might as well face it.” (S1E5)
- “Lady of the Ocean, take me.” (S1E5)