The chinchillas of The Void, sometimes called “chinkillas,” are the workforce of The Dread Fortress and one of the arena’s most dependable sources of chaos. They are cute, fluffy and armed. They are also fiercely unionized. Over the seasons they have served as security, waiters, towel boys, hibachi chefs, a heckling government and a rolling ball of death, and they have a habit of taking their breaks at the worst possible moment.
Story
Season 3: The Ball of Death
The chinchillas had already rolled through the arena before. On their first outing, a champion tried to talk them down, and the lead chinchilla answered by citing union rules: “Maybe after my break.” At the table, the players admitted the event started life as a “hamster ball of death” until someone asked for chinchillas instead.
Their big return came in S3E3 — Couples Therapy — Chade v Kairen. A drilling sound came down through the cavern ceiling, and a giant plastic ball holding 203 chinchillas dropped between the two champions. “The Chinchillas have returned,” said Chade. Each one had tiny knives strapped to its back, ready in case the ball ever cracked open. Riding in a chariot at the back was a lead chinchilla smoking a cigarette, and The Arbiter cheered him on: “That’s right, get him, boys!”
The Arbiter reminded everyone that these were unionized chinchillas who had to take their breaks, and the Grandmaster confirmed that the Dread Fortress is a union shop. Chade realized at once why the kitchen still wasn’t finished. The ball rolled back and forth like a rolling pin and kept missing, because 203 chinchillas had “not practiced this very much.” Then a whistle blew, and half of them went on lunch break in the middle of the attack. At the table, the hosts mused that chinchillas might become a small theme for the season.
Season 4: Blood Donors
Under The Shadow King, the chinchillas kept working. In S4E4 — Death Dealers — The Scourge v Bone Daddy, the Shadow King revealed that the arena’s paint was made of blood. The source turned out to be a line of chinchillas who had been donating. “None of them were killed. No chinchillas were harmed in this. I hope,” said the Grandmaster. The Shadow King added: “Yet.”
The Scourge asked what the deal with the chinchillas was. The Grandmaster explained that they were an employee perk: every goblin who works at the Fortress gets health insurance, pet insurance and a pet chinchilla for their mental health. The Shadow King added that the chinchillas have their own union, “so we’re very pro-union here.” The Scourge asked whether he could join the payroll afterward for a mental health chinchilla of his own and was told, “We’ll see if you’re worthy first.” Bone Daddy planned to add his winnings to his army of the undead. The Grandmaster pointed out the bonus: the chinchillas come with adorable tiny armor and tiny rapiers, because they take fencing classes.
The Season of Fate
In the Season of Fate, the alternate timeline only the Arbiter lived through as the Lord of Fate, the chinchillas were everywhere. In S5E1 — Rise of the Lord of Fate — Atlas v Killy Yesman, the cans on Killy Yesman swelled and burst in a shower of Double Sun Cola, and chinchillas handed tiny towels to the soaked Acolytes. One chinchilla supplied a battery “from the Void.” Later, a chaos event sent chef chinchillas rolling out carts to build a flaming onion volcano on a flat grill. They catapulted shrimp into the champions’ open mouths. Atlas, who reminded everyone yet again that he has no mouth, failed spectacularly.
In S5E2 — Identity Crisis — Kopy Katt v Professor Alonzo Quixote Cervantes, Thea lost her clipboard, found it under the Lord of Fate, and blamed a chinchilla anyway: “Those chinchillas are the absolute worst.” During the fight, Kopy Katt blew a whistle and summoned a stampede of towel-carrying chinchillas who accepted her as “the original Thea.” Their union benefits include full health care, free gym memberships and a fully stocked kitchen, so they were jacked, and each towel tip was “just a little wet.” They towel-whipped Professor Alonzo Quixote Cervantes until he went pale. He was then ordered a haircut with chinchilla-fetched clippers, which his sentient mustache dodged. Elsewhere, a lone frozen chinchilla came in from the blizzard and refused to trust Kopy Katt.
S5E6 — American Amphibian — King Man Frog Bofus v Richard Knottley revealed that the chinchillas work Dread Fortress security, “highly unionized,” and lift weights in the Fortress gym alongside the goblins. King Man Frog Bofus joked that Richard Knottley had a chinchilla on his lip. Knottley, a conspiracy theorist, warned of “the overthrowing cabal of the chinchilla government.” He claimed the chinchillas were buying up the food supply and that the arena was rigged by a Lord of Fate in their pay. The Lord of Fate corrected him: “Actually, the chinchillas work for me.” Knottley replied, “That’s what they want you to believe.”
S5E11 — Appliance Adversaries — Atlas v Frigidoom opened deep in the Fortress caverns. Thea was counting seven chinchillas over and over and kept coming up one short. The Lord of Fate walked in holding the seventh by the scruff and reminded her that she was in charge of them: feed them, take them out, unionize them. Thea protested that they poop a lot, and he replied, “I’m running an entire realm. I can’t be dealing with the chinchilla poop.” She stomped her feet, and the chinchillas stomped theirs. Her plan was to release them into The Chinchilla Forest for a sabbatical, since the Deathmatch was there anyway.
The seven chinchillas were a varied crew. A plump grey one held a cigarette, and Atlas fussed over a ginger-striped one. A radical chinchilla in “2000” glasses wore tattoo sleeves and snap bracelets and owned 40 limited-edition pogs; it ended up given to The Box of Chaos. A chinchilla called Concordae ended up helping Frigidoom, who had first asked, “Are these snacks?” The chinchillas fanned away the stench of Frigidoom’s rotten food with giant leaves, while Thea hopped behind a bush and vomited. Later, Thea licked the orange mist off the leaves and the chinchillas. When Atlas’s radioactive sweat turned the forest floor to wasteland, the Lord of Fate sighed that he’d have to find them a new house. Atlas settled what a group of chinchillas is called: “It’s a herd of chinchillas, little lady.”
In S5E15 — Cosmic Collision — Teddy Oso v Ragu, a shivering chinchilla begged each champion for warmth. Teddy Oso tucked his into his jacket pocket with a sweat rag and kept it. Ragu had lost so much blood that he had no body heat to share, and his chinchilla slowly turned into an ice cube. The puns that followed included the claim that they’re Chilean. Ragu later tried to trade “chinchilla hairs that came from my areola.” Thea, called in as resident chinchilla-hair expert, authenticated them as “a clear, true Chilean chinchilla.”
The Season of the Trials
In S6E5, Tip to Tip - Part 2 (Richard Knottley v Richard S. Skelman, the leadership Deathmatch), the chinchillas escaped. Thea had changed their cage because “they went poo poo” and forgot to set up the tube to the new one. She also left the door open, because “doors are heavy here.” The Arbiter claimed they were exercising for cheaper healthcare, and the Grandmaster lifted her skirt to watch them scurry underfoot.
Knottley and Richard S. Skelman agreed that “chinchillas run the government.” So the Grandmaster clapped, and twelve chinchillas paraded out in fake mustaches. “It’s the Parliament!” cried Skelman. The Chinchilla Parliament had been on its best behavior, so it got the front row of the floating grandstands, and several top Acolytes were bumped back to make room. The Grandmaster flew up to sit with them. Later, a chaos event had the Parliament pull out translators hung around their necks and heckle the champions with painfully accurate insults. Both men failed to shrug it off and took more psychic damage than they’d dealt all night. “Why is our government so mean? Fuck the government,” Skelman said.
In the × Wounded Warrior Project, Capture the Flag charity crossover (title not in metadata), donors could buy a healing “chinchilla’s kiss” or a damaging “chinchilla kick.” The chinchillas were said to be excellent kickers, trained by a man in the parking lot who calls himself “the Chuck Norris.” Both teams had to cross the chinchillas’ room, where the creatures slept cuddled together, each snuggling a kitchen or steak knife like a stuffed animal. One of them gets up at night for hot milk.
Solid slipped through silently. On the other team, Dave strode in with no stealth at all and put the waking chinchillas back to sleep with a spell. Their knives glinted in the light before they flopped back down. When Solid’s teammate Grog came through, his belly was so full that every step let out a fart, and the stink woke the room “with murder in their eyes.” A barrage of tiny stabs followed, with a hard-hat chinchilla in the corner smoking and yelling “Get them, boys!” Solid later pulled a steak knife out of his own leg. Dave, meanwhile, pooped in front of every bed out of spite, and the invisible Pyxis quietly wiped it up because he wanted to keep the room clean for them. On his way out, Dave left the most massive poop he could at the door: “Clean that up!”
The Season of Vigilance
By S7E2 — Under the Oil Tree — Big Business v Bog Boy, the Fortress had a dedicated chinchilla room. The chinchillas were locked in a training simulator, “X-Men style,” fighting each other. “Don’t worry, they get a break. They are unionized.”
In S7E3 — Chinchilla the White — Akumu v Jinx, the Grandmaster refused to have blood in the throne room, because last time it took the chinchillas forever to get it out of their fur. The Arbiter added that under the new union rules they’re no longer allowed to clean up biohazard. A small group paraded Doug out on a little wagon. Then came a chaos event: two chinchillas popped out of holes with drinks for the champions, but their paws were turning blue in the cold of space.
Jinx tucked one into her onesie. Akumu tucked hers into the sun, assuming chinchillas were invincible. “That’s an assumption you’re making, and it’s definitely incorrect,” said the Arbiter, who feared the Union would murder them. The chinkilla flew like a meteor into the distant sun. Far away, a hard-hat chinchilla took off his hat and held it to his heart, because the fallen one “had six children.” A horde of chinchillas in the crowd turned on Akumu and flipped her a bunch of tiny middle fingers. The sun-kicked chinchilla, Chinchilla the White, came back platinum and fifteen feet tall. Jinx’s own chinchilla is named Wicked.
Chinchillas come in every size from tiny to moose-sized, and in the Chinchilla Forest they roll in pools of talcum powder. Their lead chinchilla is Frank, a cigarette smoker with sciatica.
In S7E9 — Necro-Nightmare — Squiggles v Ray S’urdead, Thea and the chinchillas hauled a giant pumpkin basket to the Fortress’s front door. Then the chinchillas went on break and demanded what they’d been promised: “We was expecting overtime… She said we was getting triple the pay.” Thea couldn’t read the contract and couldn’t take her words back, so she declared triple pay for everyone. The Arbiter covered it by shifting money from Stuart, who had recently taken a pay cut. During the match, one chinchilla walked onto the field to flag a safety violation.
Personality and Abilities
The chinchillas look exactly like chinchillas: soft, grey, big-eyed and adorable. That is what makes the tiny knives, rapiers and armor so effective. Most are small, but they range up to moose-sized, and at least one is now fifteen feet tall and platinum. They are tough little workers who lift weights, train in simulators and take fencing classes. They are also throwable, and by the Season of Vigilance they were held to be immune to magic, though not to the sun.
Above all, they are union. They take regulated lunch breaks at the sound of a whistle (“That’s lunch, boys”), refuse overtime, enjoy health care, gym access and a stocked kitchen, and are no longer allowed to clean up biohazard. As the running joke goes: “It’s canon. It’s been established.” When roused, they fight as a swarm, carry grudges, and are not above heckling champions or flipping them off from the stands.
Relationships
- Thea: Their handler, who lines them up with a clap, blames them for things and promised them triple pay without being able to read the contract.
- The Arbiter: Has claimed they work for him, and constantly reminds everyone of union rules while dreading the Union’s revenge.
- Grandmaster Elusia Skypiercer: Runs the union shop they work in, sat with the Chinchilla Parliament, and keeps blood out of the throne room for their sake.
- Frank: Their cigarette-smoking lead chinchilla.
- Akumu: Kicked one of them into the sun and earned a horde of tiny middle fingers.
- Jinx: Kept a chinchilla warm in her onesie; owns a chinchilla named Wicked.
- Doug the Pug: Pulled around by them on a little wagon.
- Richard Knottley: Convinced they secretly run the government.
- Pyxis: Cleaned up after Dave so their room would stay nice.
- Teddy Oso: Adopted a freezing chinchilla and kept it warm in his pocket.
Memorable Quotes
- “That’s right, get him, boys! Make sure you take a break, union rules. These are unionized chinchillas.” (the Arbiter, S3E3 — Couples Therapy)
- “In all of my travels and all of my research, I’ve never encountered a creature as fearsome as a chinchilla.” (Professor Alonzo Quixote Cervantes, S5E2 — Identity Crisis)
- “Actually, the chinchillas work for me.” (the Lord of Fate, S5E6 — American Amphibian)
- “You dress like me ma. You’re terrible! I’ve seen better bones! That ghost doesn’t scare us!” (the Chinchilla Parliament, S6E5, Tip to Tip - Part 2)
- “In the distance, another chinchilla with a hard hat on, smoking a cigarette, takes it off, holds it to his heart. He had six children.” (the Arbiter, S7E3 — Chinchilla the White)
- “We was expecting overtime… She said we was getting triple the pay.” (the chinchillas, S7E9 — Necro-Nightmare)
Appearances
- S3E3 — Couples Therapy — Chade v Kairen
- S4E4 — Death Dealers — The Scourge v Bone Daddy
- S5E1 — Rise of the Lord of Fate — Atlas v Killy Yesman
- S5E2 — Identity Crisis — Kopy Katt v Professor Alonzo Quixote Cervantes
- S5E6 — American Amphibian — King Man Frog Bofus v Richard Knottley
- S5E11 — Appliance Adversaries — Atlas v Frigidoom
- S5E15 — Cosmic Collision — Teddy Oso v Ragu
- S6E5, Tip to Tip - Part 2 (Richard Knottley v Richard S. Skelman, the leadership Deathmatch)
- × Wounded Warrior Project, Capture the Flag charity crossover (title not in metadata)
- S7E2 — Under the Oil Tree — Big Business v Bog Boy
- S7E3 — Chinchilla the White — Akumu v Jinx
- S7E9 — Necro-Nightmare — Squiggles v Ray S’urdead