First appearance: Playtest 4 (Pre-Launch) — Mudcat Mahomes v Thunk · watch it on YouTube
Thunk is a Goliath monk from a mountain, where he picked berries, hung out with goats and wore necklaces made from the fingers of everyone he’d killed. He fought Mudcat Mahomes in Playtest 4 (Pre-Launch) — Mudcat Mahomes v Thunk, a bout in which he died, came back younger, died again and finally returned from another timeline as Octothunk. That last Thunk walked away a winner, a friend of his killer, and six arms lighter.
Story
Playtest 4: Mudcat Mahomes v Thunk
Thunk arrived in the Void straight from the berry bushes. He introduced himself to the Grandmaster by way of his jewellery: “I have a collection of necklaces… They’re fingers from everyone I’ve killed. I have more than I can count because Thunk can’t [count] very well.” The Grandmaster immediately wanted a finger necklace of her own. The arena was The Isolated Keep, a circular platform ringed by walls about 15 feet high and four portals. Each portal sounded harmless until you learned that stepping through one dropped you out of a random portal and hit you with its effect on the way out.
Mudcat opened by putting two arrows in him. Thunk flexed them straight out of his skin (“Thunk never miss leg day”), charged, and cracked his opponent’s ribs with a punch to the gut. When Mudcat bent an arrow into the Grandmaster’s arm, Thunk turned gentleman. “You should not have shot at lady,” he declared, and swaths of the Acolytes swooned and began chanting his name. Then he slipped on the rain-wet floor twice in a row. While he lay there, Mudcat crowned him with a conjured dunce cap and filled him with arrows. Thunk drank the rain, sprang up with a 42-inch vertical leap, punched Mudcat in the shin, grabbed him low (“That’s not my whisker!”) and rained punches between his legs. When the Grandmaster called for a grab to the catfish-man’s balls, Thunk couldn’t find them (“They were too small”). A singing chaos event lured both champions through the portals and out the fire portal, burning. Mudcat then glued himself to the wall with fish slime and shot Thunk down. The original Thunk bled out from something like 45 arrow holes.
The Grandmaster was not finished with him. She stopped the time portal’s clocks and sent them backward, and a younger Thunk walked out alongside a past Mudcat. Mudcat killed the young one too, and the Grandmaster was furious with the Arbiter for bringing “a small child.” So she demanded “Thunk, just from a different timeline… I want Thunk the Octopus.” Octothunk arrived with eight arms. He hurled the huge stone table at Mudcat and punched holes in the Grandmaster’s brand-new wall, which she promptly billed him for. Mudcat mooned him. Mudcat talked him into a truce (“I don’t have to kill you a third time”). Thunk agreed while secretly planning to betray him, and he did, with eight-armed punches between Mudcat’s legs. A loyal pocket of Mudcat fans pelted him with crushed beer cans as “medals.”
Through portal monsters, a blood elemental the Grandmaster named Hamster, and her pet dinosaur Helena, Octothunk held on. Late in the fight the Grandmaster offered to spare them both if they survived to the end of the eighth round. Then Mudcat dabbed, Octothunk dabbed with all eight arms, and the Grandmaster removed six of them: “Don’t you ever dab here again.” By the end the rivals were planning an after-party at Mudcat’s townhome. Thunk would bring the Old English, and Mudcat would supply Budweiser and Top Gun. Charmed, the Grandmaster spared them both on the condition that she be invited, and she had the Arbiter enter both champions in the ledger as the day’s winners. Octothunk was to be sent home to his octopus world, his arms returned eventually. “Me and Fishman go home!”
Personality and Abilities
Thunk is a Goliath who speaks of himself in the third person and is proud of his legs. He is a brawler-monk who fights with his fists: punches to the gut, rains of blows, a ferocious leap. He shrugs off arrows by simply flexing. He can’t count, which makes his finger collection difficult to inventory. Under the menace he is courtly toward “lady” and forgives easily. He planned a betrayal during the truce, but he ended the fight telling the man who’d killed him twice, “You deserve to go home.” As Octothunk he had eight arms and could act twice as fast, at least until the dab incident.
Relationships
- Mudcat Mahomes: His opponent, who killed two versions of him. The final Thunk betrayed their truce, then made peace and accepted an invitation to Mudcat’s after-party.
- Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: Thunk defended her honour, and she coveted his finger necklace. She billed him for her wall, took six of his arms for dabbing, and finally spared him as a winner.
- The Arbiter: Took the blame from the Grandmaster for bringing the young Thunk, then suggested they “just pretend that those other Thunks never existed and had no families.”
- The Acolytes: Chanted “Thunk!” and swooned at his chivalry, though Mudcat’s fans threw beer cans at him.
Memorable Quotes
- “Thunk never miss leg day.” (Playtest 4)
- “They’re fingers from everyone I’ve killed. I have more than I can count because Thunk can’t [count] very well.” (Playtest 4)
- “You should not have shot at lady.” (Playtest 4)
- “You’ve killed me before. You deserve to go home.” (Playtest 4)
- “Me and Fishman go home!” (Playtest 4)
- “I’ve never just had two arms before.” (Playtest 4)