First appearance: S2E10 — Filicide — Glassy v Thornabub · watch it on YouTube
Thornabub is a winged, hooved, tailed dealmaker from the Nine Hells who rules “a small demiplane of hell” and sells timeshares and soul coins on the side. He first came to The Void to drag his runaway daughter Glassy home, and he won by contract rather than by killing her. That earned him a pub crawl and a fast friendship with The Arbiter. He returned for the final round of Battle for the Crown as the Arbiter’s champion, where his secret insurance policy turned a certain loss into a brutal last-man-standing finish.
Story
S2E10 — Filicide
Thornabub arrived in the Grandmaster’s bedroom in The Dread Fortress, where the Arbiter had summoned both champions. He had come, he explained, to retrieve “Glassy Bear” and bring her back to the Nine Hells, “where her mother is worried sick.” He offered the Grandmaster a timeshare (“quite affordable… just a little bit of paperwork”), sneered at her dirty laundry, asked whether her David Copperfield poster showed young or old David Copperfield, and asked where the infernal pitchforks were kept. He was told there is a pitchfork closet. His real plan came out mid-fight. He meant to take Glassy home to Avernus and marry her to Mahadi, “a very nice rakshasa,” so she could “spawn for me an army of infernal creatures to take over the material plane.” He and her mother, Violtha, had already made that decision for her. He had also spent years trying to teach her to torture people properly, because “it’s the family business.” The Arbiter took his side at once and promised him a drink if he survived.
In the Grandmaster’s fluorescent forest garden (“This color palette is so gauche”), Thornabub fought with wings, a warhammer and a talent for long, punishing charges. Glassy’s lightning yanked him across a river, so he spread his wings, circled away and came diving back at her. Another charge landed with a touch of death that left her reeling. “Have you learned your lesson yet?” His luck with Gerald was poor. A blood sacrifice produced the Sun Sword, which he said was probably burning his hands, so he shoved it back into the box: “It’s my son’s sword. The one I used to beat him with earlier today.” When he complained, Gerald handed Glassy a divine helm instead. Thornabub then tried to bribe the box by raising some dead forest animals, and they scampered inside. Gerald was delighted with his new zombie raccoon, Francisco. In return, Gerald gave Thornabub an undersized breastplate that he wore over his own armor. “It’s a shmedium. I used to be a shmedium back when I was interning for Asmodeus.”
His cruellest trick was spending the Acolytes’ gift to strike Glassy blind out of turn. “I’m not heroic, daughter. I’m an evil devil from the Nine Hells.” He threw his voice around the forest so she couldn’t find him, and told her she would stay blind “until you accept defeat and come home.” Then a giant magnet descended from the sky and ripped his chainmail, breastplate, shield and hammer away “like tearaway clothing.” Glassy rode the magnet into the air. Thornabub flew up after her, landed on top of it and dispelled whatever was holding it aloft, riding it 70 feet down onto her. She rolled clear and drifted away under a falling spell. As she floated past, he caught her with a bare-handed strike, a natural 20, and spent his last touch of death on it. “I will see you in hell, daughter!”
Glassy went down, dying, and begged for a pact. Her father had just the thing: “It will cost you Jerry’s soul.” She signed his infernal contract with her last breath without reading it, and he healed her. “Your mother and I and Jerry will be looking forward to seeing you at Christmas.” The Grandmaster honored the contract and the win: “From one ruler to another, I applaud you and I respect your dominion.” The Arbiter then took him on the promised pub crawl, with a stop in Luskan to pick up Jerry’s soul. In a seedy neon dive bar afterward, the Arbiter told him about Gerald’s old girlfriend, Veronica, whose memory he had wiped and who now worked on The bee farm. Then the Arbiter confided that he had been trying to overthrow the Grandmaster “for years.” Thornabub was happy to help: “We have infernal legions that my daughter’s gonna give birth to in a few years.”
S2E20 — Battle for the Crown Round 3
Thornabub returned for the final round of Battle for the Crown, martini in hand. The Arbiter introduced him as a close friend made “after we shared several drinks, talked about our family struggles,” and was setting up a guest room for him down the hall. Thornabub’s verdict on the Arbiter’s redecorated throne room was short: “I don’t like it.” His teammate was the perpetually miserable Mcswiggins, who greeted him as Satan and never stopped. Thornabub took the name in stride and offered to show the Grandmaster all of his anatomy. Against them stood Flynry and Prof. Stabbz. When Stabbz suggested couples therapy, Thornabub vouched for the arena: “We worked out things between my daughter and me.”
He opened by shoving Mcswiggins off their cliff. Then he flew over Stabbz, ordered him to “Surrender, give up, or perish,” and botched his first holy bolt so badly it knocked him backward. “I’m not used to attacking opponents this small,” he admitted, adding: “I will imagine it’s my daughter I’m beating.” When every weapon in the arena turned into a pillow, he blessed Mcswiggins’s stolen couch cushion into “a holy weapon of the nine hells.” When Stabbz dropped an exploding mama duck behind them, the fire simply washed over him. Then Stabbz rolled a natural 20 and stabbed him for 99 damage. “What the duck?” Thornabub fell. Mcswiggins traded his body to Gerald for a weapon.
That should have been the end. But before the fight, when Thornabub had placed a friendly hand on Mcswiggins’s shoulder, he had quietly warded them both against death. Inside the box, drifting in pink and yellow flames, his eyes snapped open. “Ah, yes, just as I planned.” He threatened to tear Gerald apart from the inside and to steal his precious collection of corpses until the box gave him its most powerful spell, a scroll of Meteor Swarm. Gerald also gave him back his life, on one condition: “Listen, just promise never to come back.” At the table, GloriousGe0rge had asked permission for the trick in advance, the first time anyone had asked to prepare a spell before a match.
Back on the field, Thornabub unleashed the meteors on everyone, his own teammate included. Then he blanketed the area in poison “just to make sure nothing stays alive,” explaining that he was “very worried about Flynry getting up.” Flynry, Stabbz and Mcswiggins all died. Mcswiggins gave his last chance at survival to his teammate, and Thornabub was touched: “That’s so thoughtful of you, McWackles. I’ll never forget you.” The Arbiter leapt up clapping: “Thornabub, you son of a bitch!” Thornabub won the fight as the last one standing. The Acolytes’ vote went to Flynry and Prof. Stabbz, though, and the Grandmaster won the tournament 4–2 and kept her crown. She told Thornabub he could walk out and “talk to your daughter or something.” He carved a beer slushie out of Mcswiggins’s frozen beer tomb and asked whether Glassy wanted a rematch yet.
Personality and Abilities
Thornabub is a smooth-talking infernal salesman with hands, wings, hooves and a tail, and a closing mantra: “Always be closing. On devil deals or deathmatches, always be closing.” He carries two claw-mark scars across his back beneath his wings, left by Glassy’s mother, which he considers a sign of a healthy relationship. He is petty, patient and theatrical. He drags fights out deliberately because “it’s the small cuts that cut deep,” and he never stops calling his daughter “Glassy Bear.” His sleeping pillow is red silk, “covered in the blood of my enemies and a few other fluids.”
In battle he is a flying holy-warrior type who uses his wings for long, crushing dive charges. His first time out he fought with a warhammer, shield and chainmail. He calls on necrotic touches of death, a tolling death knell, a summoned flaming spiritual hammer, blinding curses, healing auras and magic that raises the dead. He shrugs off fire. His greatest weapon, though, is the deal. He beat Glassy with a contract, bullied Gerald into handing over the box’s best spell, and won the fight in Battle for the Crown Round 3 with protective wards he had quietly cast before the fight began.
Relationships
- Glassy: His daughter (full name Glacia), whom he tried to drag home to the Nine Hells. He beat her and took her boyfriend Jerry’s soul by contract, and he still hopes for a rematch.
- The Arbiter: His drinking buddy and confidant after a shared pub crawl. The Arbiter confided his ambitions to overthrow the Grandmaster, recruited Thornabub for Battle for the Crown, and was readying a guest room for him.
- Mcswiggins: His Battle for the Crown teammate, who called him Satan throughout. Thornabub shoved him off a cliff, secretly saved his life, then blew him up with meteors.
- Gerald: Disappointed him with the Sun Sword, gained a zombie raccoon from him, and was later bullied by him from the inside.
- Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: Honored his contract “from one ruler to another,” and told him to shove it after he mocked her decor.
- Flynry: The opponent he feared most, which is why he made very sure Flynry didn’t get back up.
- Prof. Stabbz: Nearly ended him with a single 99-damage stab.
Memorable Quotes
“I’m not heroic, daughter. I’m an evil devil from the Nine Hells.” (S2E10 — Filicide)
“Ah, yes, just as I planned. Listen here, box! I’m going to tear you apart from the inside out unless you give me something good.” (S2E20 — Battle for the Crown Round 3)
- “Even as I’m trying to kill you in this death arena, you will always be my Glassy Bear.” (S2E10 — Filicide)
- “It’s my son’s sword. The one I used to beat him with earlier today.” (S2E10 — Filicide)
- “Always be closing. On devil deals or deathmatches, always be closing.” (S2E10 — Filicide)
- “That’s what I’m talking about! I could have healed all those guys and I didn’t.” (S2E20 — Battle for the Crown Round 3)