First appearance: S2E11 — Secrets — Blaktoof v Zorhel · watch it on YouTube
Zorhel, who introduced himself as “Zorhel the Gladiator… one of the most famous gladiators on my lands,” is a bugbear blood mage played by Drakoniques. He came to the Void to fight in “the biggest arena that anyone could fight” and drew the fearsome warrior Blaktoof as his opponent. Halfway through the match, he cut his foe open and learned that Blaktoof was three goblins hiding in a trench coat. He handled the surprise with good manners, a pair of shadow monsters and his blood halberd, and walked out the winner.
Story
Zorhel’s Deathmatch, S2E11 — Secrets — Blaktoof v Zorhel, began in the kitchen of The Dread Fortress. There he spotted the Grandmaster’s little coffee machine and asked for a cup, black, because daylight savings had ruined his morning routine. When Blaktoof swore that his next foe would be Daylight Savings Time, Zorhel answered, “You have my halberd.” The Arbiter then moved everyone into a giant cavern, abandoned as a mine after a few cave-ins too many, whose missing ceiling left The Acolytes circling above. The Acolytes’ first chaos event grew a foot-and-a-half-long bee stinger out of each champion’s butt, and Zorhel was delighted: “Ass dueling. I mean, it’s not too bad. I think it kind of looks good on me.” When the impatient crowd started hurling raccoons, hot dogs, an octopus and everything else in their pockets, he weaved through the barrage “like it is a dance that you came prepared for,” while Blaktoof ran face-first into all of it.
Zorhel opened on a shadowed ledge above his opponent and took a crossbow bolt to the left shoulder. In reply, he pressed his hand to the wound and drew the blood out into his weapon, a long halberd made of his own blood. Thanks to his long bugbear limbs and the halberd’s length, he could swing down from the ledge, and his second blow slashed across Blaktoof’s chest. “I haven’t felt this alive in a long, long time,” he said. “And honestly, that coffee’s kicking in.” When the stingers fell off, he kindly showed Blaktoof how to duct-tape a stinger back onto his butt, though he never noticed Blaktoof secretly taping it to his boot until Blaktoof proudly announced it. Later Zorhel slid off his ledge in a cloud of dust and wrapped himself in a sphere of magical darkness that only he could see through. Inside it he pinned Blaktoof in place and growled, “You’re in my domain now.” Remembering this was meant to be a show, he dropped the darkness and won the argument over whether it had been awesome. His next big spin went badly: the halberd’s weight dragged him to the floor and he landed on his butt, where the stinger still taped there punched straight into his tailbone.
While he sat on the ground, Zorhel still found time to recommend ergonomic chairs for Blaktoof’s uncle (“Posture is very important as a gladiator”). He also comforted Doug the Pug after the Arbiter mocked the pug’s height: “Big things come in small packages, okay?” When Blaktoof came in for the kill, the blood from his wound erupted from his chest as a shield. He then rose to his full height and answered with a thunderous blow, and three voices shrieked as Blaktoof burst apart into three Goblins: Gaz, Gork and Mork. “So did you really have an uncle… or was that also a lie? Because I feel kind of betrayed at this moment,” Zorhel said. The Grandmaster tossed him a vial of her Mountain Dew Major Melon, and he went to Gerald with something he valued. It was the crooked, chipped short sword his little sister forged as the first thing she made after recovering from the illness his arena winnings paid to treat. Gerald called it “a really boring story” and gave him an iron flask holding an obedient shadow demon, which Zorhel named “Blaktoof 2.0.” He then pulled a second shadow creature, Shadowtoof, from his own wounds: “So you brought friends over, so I’m going to bring some as well… Now this is a fair fight.”
Shadowtoof’s scream terrified all three goblins and sent the Acolytes’ front row stampeding into the upper stands. When Gaz kicked it in the “shadow nards” with the stinger boot, it took the poison like a champ. After the Arbiter flooded the cavern with acid, Zorhel offered to knock the goblins out and take them for drinks instead, but “they said knocking you out would be boring,” so he went for the kill. He cut down Gork and took a lash of flame as the goblin died. Then he shot a thin thread of blood from his finger that bloomed into a floating halberd and finished Mork. Shadowtoof’s chilling rend took Gaz, who went out with a long, dramatic death scene and a “Well fought, Zorhel.” The Arbiter wheeled the three goblins away in a wheelbarrow, and the Grandmaster flew Zorhel up to the Acolytes to toast “both for who used to be Blaktoof, but also for Zorhel.”
Personality and Abilities
Zorhel is a tall, long-limbed bugbear who carries a shield strapped to his back. His real weapon is his blood, drawn out into a reach-extending halberd, a shield, a floating halberd or a shadow creature. His philosophy of blood magic is simple: “You can rarely ever run out of blood. If you do, you’re probably dead.” His player later added that Zorhel learned from past fellow students who “ended up drawing a bit too much blood.” He casts in Draconic, in a gruff, low voice that sounds odd coming from a bugbear. He can turn the tip of his blade an oily, iridescent color with a curse. He also keeps a protective aura that he hopes will one day be visible as “the aura of awesome.”
He is unfailingly polite to the people he is trying to kill. He warned Blaktoof never to drink anything without checking the label, asked about allergies, taught him to use duct tape and offered to take his opponents out for drinks. His mother wanted him to be a doctor, and he went to medical school for a few years. As he put it, “I get queasy at death, but not at fighting to the death.” He turned to the arena because “when you’re a bugbear, they don’t really want you in most places other than an arena.” He is also firmly of the opinion that size matters.
Relationships
- Blaktoof: The famous warrior Zorhel thought he was fighting; his actual opponent was three goblins impersonating him. Zorhel admitted he “was starting to really like Blaktoof.”
- Gaz: The red goblin at the bottom of the stack who wore the stinger boot. Gaz was the last of the three to fall, to Shadowtoof.
- Gerald: Zorhel gave Gerald his sister’s first sword and got a shadow demon in a flask in return, along with a complaint about the story.
- Doug the Pug: Zorhel consoled the pug after the Arbiter’s height jibe and told him he was incredible.
- Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: She made his coffee, threw him her Major Melon mid-fight and flew him up to the Acolytes in victory.
- The Arbiter: The two traded jabs about Doug and about size. The Arbiter would take criticism from the Grandmaster, “but not from you.”
Memorable Quotes
- “I thought it made my butt look great.” (S2E11 — Secrets)
- “You can rarely ever run out of blood. If you do, you’re probably dead.” (S2E11 — Secrets)
- “You’re in my domain now.” (S2E11 — Secrets)
- “Doug, Doug, hey, listen. Big things come in small packages, okay? So Doug, you’re incredible.” (S2E11 — Secrets)
- “I often split my opponents, but this isn’t exactly what I had in mind.” (S2E11 — Secrets)
- “I can knock you out if you want. I can take you out for drinks afterwards.” (S2E11 — Secrets)