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Barricade, Big Mech, Bjarn Starnafall, Blaine - Convict Mercenary, Blaine, the Convict MVP, Blitz the Great Drake, Boomer - Marauder Grenadier, Brickbat Vognar - Convict MVP, Brokkrs, Brokkrs, Brute Force - Mechanite MVP, Buzzcut MVP,

KEY - Deadzone, Dreadball, Dreadball Xtreme.

Barricade.

The ultimate robot for the ultimate competition, nothing gets past the "Barricade". This heavily armored robot is generally seen skidding around the pitch, ramming into opposing players and generally being a bit erratic…which of course, is half of his charm!

Barricade was built for one thing – clearance – and he does it very well indeed! Even the most formidable defence can’t hope to stand against his relentless advance.

Big Mech.

The Mech is one of the strange misnomers in DreadBall and fans are torn as to whether the mech is actually piloted, functions with a rudimentary A.I. or is in fact controlled by some kind of small furry alien. Rumours are rampant and the media is rife with speculation though the official line is that it is adapted from a combat walker using experimental A.I. technology, the player known only as Big Mech is an unstoppable juggernaut in the arena – with an ego to match!

Bjarn Starnafall.

From the press release:

“Designed specifically as the premier equipment for the discerning modern scout, Hammerfist orbital drop armour is a fully enclosed, self-powered, autonomous survival suit. Its main use is to protect the wearer from serious environmental dangers including (but not limited to) exposure to hard vacuum, micrometeorite strikes and solar radiation – all common workplace hazards for the lead scout/prospector in today’s competitive resource-farming industry.

A secondary function of the Hammerfist design is to protect the wearer from indigenous life forms whilst performing his prospecting duties in the field. The inbuilt mining laser doubles as both a robust core-sampling tool and accurate ranged weapon with both burst and duration selectors as standard. Easily controlled manoeuvring engines allow the wearer to navigate in zero gravity or planetside with equal ease, with a duration in standard use of up to 4 days (depending on onboard supplies).

The Hammerfist has been tested under the most rigorous of conditions and the widest of environments without any reported structural or mechanical failures. Reliability is 100% and every suit comes with a lifetime guarantee.

Bjarn Starnafall says ‘I’m never without my trusty Hammerfist’.”

Blaine, Convict Mercenary.

It’s been said that Blaine has a face that only a mother could love, though in his case even that seems doubtful. According to the legends surrounding him, his first crime was to murder his family and burn down the family home. Certainly nobody claims him as kin. That’s just asking for trouble.

Whether this is true or not is anyone’s guess as he has surgically changed his appearance a number of times and the Blaine you see now is as much a result of reconstructive medicine as nature. Even his true race is the subject of some debate.

One of Blaine’s many peculiarities is his DNA: he’s got more than one profile. This isn’t possible naturally, which implies that Blaine has had more than cosmetic surgery done to alter his appearance. Certainly reports of his combat abilities and the arrest report of those who finally captured him on Deskin 4 support the idea that he has some inbuilt enhancements. Those that have seen the security vid of his breakout are even more sure. Unfortunately all the actual witnesses died in the escape and all we have is degraded and partly jammed video files. That was the last confirmed sighting.

He has since been reported in a wide variety of places, fighting alongside any number of different factions. None of these sightings have been reliably corroborated and he always slips away in the confusion of combat, invariably leaving a bloody wake of maimed and dead in his path. He seems to prefer the close kill and the fact that he manages this against even highly sophisticated enemies such as Forge Fathers and Enforcers is a testament to his extraordinary skills of stealth and evasion.

Blaine, the Convict MVP.

In one of the most audacious moves of his criminal career, Blaine appeared in front of countless witnesses at the Co-Prosperity Park Arena just as the much-vaunted top billing of SlamBall VIII was about to start. As the Smackers entered the arena, he stepped out with them. The crowd was shocked into silence, and the arena controllers spent several tense minutes debating what to do. They could send in a security team, have him arrested, and get on with the match as scheduled; or they could wait and see what happened...

Blitz the Great Drake.

A brutal, tyrannical soldier of the underground circuit, Blitz is well-known both for his larger-than-life presence in the arena and for his mercurial rage. He was the first of the Fyrit to take part in DreadBall, selling his talents to the highest bidder in exchange for huge quantities of his home world’s golden currency...

Boomer, Marauder Grenadier.

Boomer’s odious habits and utter lack of personal hygiene skills are gaggingly obvious from several metres away. Few would socialise with him voluntarily without some pressing incentive for his undoubted skills with explosives and encyclopaedic knowledge of grenades. What’s also obvious from the briefest of encounters with him is that he is completely insane, and whilst somewhat worrying in an explosives specialist most commanders assume that one follows from the other fairly naturally and so accept his foibles to have his skills.

In terms of who he is and where he came from, nobody’s asked. Boomer probably had a real name at one point; probably had a family, clan or other group to which he felt allegiance. Maybe people even liked him. Who can tell? These days he is nothing more nor less than an expendable asset who hires his not inconsiderable skills out to anyone who can pay the exorbitant fees (and stand his presence for more than five minutes). He has quite a few takers.

Brickbat Vognar, Convict MVP.

Uzud Vognar used to be a true DreadBall hero. He gave up a life of piracy among the Marauder fleets, accepting the DGB’s offer of amnesty to join their first wave of Orx players, and was rostered on with the Mazon Manglers. He had a promising career as a Guard ahead of him, but that all changed when he fouled Yurik “The Painmaster” Yurikson. Yurikson’s retaliation almost a year later triggered a chain of events that spiralled out of control and culminated in Vognar receiving a lifetime ban from the sport. Leaving the Core, he slummed it in backwater leagues and illegal games, racking up considerable gambling debts. After a recent flight from the law he found himself incarcerated in Perestia Prime Correctional Facility, where the director – a hard-nosed man by the name of Rasulov – offered to help him get back to the big time…

Brokkrs.

As the generations have passed, the Brokkrs have become that which every clan needs in an ever-evolving galactic order. They are the merchants and scrappers. They are explorers and adventurers, always looking for a new enterprise, always willing to take a chance on a new territory. As much as Forge Father society needs its engineers, warriors and Huscarls, it also needs pioneers, now more than ever. The ferocious and rapid expansionism of the GCPS has meant that the Forge Fathers must now recognise the need to compete for resources more than ever before. Occasionally, they must even cross swords with the GCPS in order to do so, and this is where the Brokkrs are most useful.

Brokkrs.

“The lowest caste of Forge Father society, Brokkrs are a working class made up of miners and scrappers. Brash and uncouth, they are looked down upon by the more civilised elements of their race.”

In truth, there are multiple stratifications within Forge Father society, and very few things are as simple as "highest caste” or “lowest caste”, with the possible exception of the Zadjr. While it is true that Brokkrs are set apart from their kin, this is a divide of their own making. They are descended from a splinter group that formed following a dispute over settlement rights, leaving to inhabit the Hlessig system at the very edge of the Star Realm. Although the early Brokkrs stood fiercely against any rule from outside their territory, this eased over time; they now exist as a vassal state, stubbornly independent from the Star Realm but with many commercial, industrial and military ties to it.

Brute Force - Mechanite MVP.

Lydia Winger grew up on a frontier outpost, where she discovered a natural affinity for tinkering with machines that bordered on the supernatural. She decided to move back to civilised space when she came across a subnet bulletin advertising an opening as assistant to a Teraton engineer called Kraato Gon. Lydia had met some of his people in passing when she was growing up, and was fascinated by their advanced technology, so she leapt at the chance. Their meeting went incredibly well, the engineer clearly impressed with her raw talent, and she was hired immediately. Within a month she was acting as a test pilot for his semi-autonomous mech-suits, deciding – against his advice – to perform live field tests alongside his Mechanites. The SAMS-02 “Brute Force” model was an instant hit with DreadBall fans, and Lydia has since been raking in some serious funding by hiring her services to willing Sponsors.

Buzzcut MVP.

If eating your greens makes you grow up big and strong, then Buzzcut must have devoured forests as a child because he is huge. On the pitch he wears some armour, but generally plays almost stripped to the waist as if preparing for some manual labour which, in a way, he is. His usual excuse is that the uniforms come off when he gets into a fight anyway, and it is true that things seem to break when he is about. This doesn’t stop him being fined in almost every game for being improperly attired. As if he cared.

Acknowledgements.

Gmorts Chaotica would like to thank James M Hewitt, Mantic Games, the Quirkworthy Blog, Titan Games and of course the Corporation for their invaluable assistance in the compiling of this encyclopaedia.