Grimm
Grimm is the most popular name for the player-named protagonist of Black Souls, an independent adult RPG Maker series of Dark Souls-inspired role-playing games. He is a male "Chosen Undead" who battles fantastical beings based on popular fairy tales and children's novels, and is most commonly depicted as an armored knight. Being a hentai game, Grimm gets to meet and fuck numerous waifus as well, ranging from the fairytales of Red Riding Hood and Cinderella, to characters from Lewis Carroll's famous book like the White Rabbit and the Cheshire Cat. However, the one girl he holds dearest is Alice.
The name "Grimm" is actually a major spoiler in Black Souls, since it's named after the German brothers who compiled and authored many fairy tales; but the true meaning behind it is only revealed at the end of each game.
In King of /v/ he gained popularity because of a strong Black Souls fan presence in the site centered on the /vrpg/ board. The undead knight rose to prominence in tournament's lore in 2021 when he was appointed the leader of "Team Schizo", a fan group conceived by anons, and became the best friend of Batter, a fellow RPG Maker game protagonist — and the eventual champion of 2021.
Profile[edit]
Black Souls is a series of Japanese adult games created by Ini Mini Mani Mo in RPG Maker, and is best described as "a Dark Souls-inspired RPG Maker with fairy tale waifus, sex scenes, and horror elements". The game shares similar mechanics to its inspiration, such as an open-world map, multiple endings, punishing difficulty, and bonfires. As a hentai RPG Maker game, the protagonist engages in sex scenes with the female characters through several means: by feeding souls (leveling up), forming a covenant, or attempting to rape them; the last option causes the female to be imprisoned / killed if successful.
In Black Souls 1, should the player decide to enter "Grimm" (case-sensitive) in the name selection prompt, a special dialogue will trigger: Alice will refer to the player as "Lord Grimm" / "Grimm-sama", saying he remembered his true name - but an unseen character interferes and sends the player back to the title screen.
The sequel Black Souls 2 replaces the "Sin" counter with a new value called "Sen", which affects how the protagonist perceives and interacts with the overworld. A high Sen is considered "Sane" and allows the player to interact normally with the world. On the other hand, dropping Sen to zero and below will prevent the player from talking to most people and will cause certain enemies to spawn, but is needed in certain areas and events in order to obtain some of the game's secret endings which are crucial to the game's lore and the character of Grimm himself.
Black Souls gained a cult following on the /v/ and /vrpg/ boards because of its replay value and dense lore content, and partly because of the positive reception of Dark Souls in the site. The game threads soon earned a reputation for being spoiler-heavy, with many paragraphs being obscured by black bars as if someone was reading classified documents from some top secret agency. Most anons call the protagonist by his true name, Grimm. Even though it's technically a spoiler, it's also the closest the protagonist has to a "canon name" in the story, so fans will use that name for convenience's sake.
Tournament History[edit]
Grimm was nominated for 2020 King tournament but failed to qualify for the bracket at 85 votes. The undead finally qualified in 2021 as a #32 seed, but lost in round 2 to Castlevania's Dracula. He came back in 2022, doing really well in qualifiers by getting a #13 seed and beating fellow H-game protagonist Rance in round 1, but he lost to eventual Elite Eight member Phoenix Wright in round 2.
Grimm rose to prominence in tournament lore during King of /v/ 2021 when anons decided to create alliances based on common characteristics, in hopes of propping their picks up for the tournament. Among these groups was "Team Schizo", an alliance of vidya characters with mental problems. Grimm was selected as the team's frontman because of his role in Black Souls 2, where he obsesses over Alice's whereabouts and can choose to drop his "sanity" below zero, among other schizophrenic traits. Along the way, he was partnered with fellow RPG Maker protagonist, Batter from Off, who ironically doesn't explicitly suffer from any mental illnesses. Some anons noticed that Grimm and Batter provide a nice contrast towards each other, like Grimm's corrupted undeath against Batter's purity.
Grimm soon became a popular subject of fan arts posted in the threads, such as crossovers with the I Have No Mouth adventure game (which features an insane supercomputer) and his friendship with Batter. After barely winning his fight against King Dice, the undead faced Count Dracula in round 2 and failed to stop him from gathering many votes, resulting in his elimination. Grimm's loss was mourned by his fans, and several drawfags decided to depict his death with Batter, who swore to take home the championship for Grimm and Team Schizo's sake.
As a result, Batter's popularity in the tournament received a sizable boost from Black Souls fans who desired to see the Off protagonist fulfill his promise. After overcoming a series of vocally-supported guys and meme picks, Batter's campaign reached its peak in the final match against famous villain Dr. Eggman. In the famous Team Schizo Gurren Lagann parody fan art, Grimm was depicted as the "Kamina" to Batter's "Simon" since Grimm's performance in the bracket was similar to Kamina's fate in the anime — fallen early on, but still lives on in people's hearts forever.
Through a mix of GETs during round 1, Grimm managed to kidnap Rance and turn him into a woman so he can pretend he's Alice and rape him. Later on this also happened to Yugi Moto, and multiple times Yugi tried escaping his rape dungeon only to be pulled back immediately. This culminated in a wrestling match between Yugi, Grimm, Rance, and Battler, where Rance got gangraped by the other three and Yugi was the victor.
Grimm's big break finally came in King of /v/ 2023, where he would become one of the most campaigned and supported characters throughout his run. He also helped put uppity characters like King Boo and Rance in their place by raping them using the power of a GET whenever they would step out of line. After defeating Sephiroth, Neo Cortex, Grimm would engage in a schizo-off against Jacket, afterwards defeating the Spy to face the newly maddened Scout, the Jacket and Scout matches in particular would prove to be some of the highlights of their respective round due to heavy OC and banter between the candidates. Having earned the respect of his defeated schizos, Grimm had also entered a pact with John Ward which came to fruition in their match in the Semi-finals, where supporters of both agreed to stay by each others side no matter the outcome. This would all culminate in his final battle against Dr. Eggman, who most anons agreed was easily the other strongest character in the tournament due to his innate popularity, heavy OC output, and strong backing. But with the friends he made along the way and with the support of a reinvigorated Team Schizo, Grimm would finish what Batter started in 2021, and became the second RPG Maker schizo character to defeat Eggman in the finals.
Due to his strong campaign, consistent support in the threads, and being perhaps the most /v/-core winner possible, Grimm was received very warmly as a winner. However the mood around him was soured at the very end of the Afterparty threads when an anon posted a screenshot of a Black Souls discord's announcement channel that began shilling for Grimm since the Quarterfinals. This caused a massive last minute shitstorm over concerns that Grimm won due to rigging, however the general consensus among the majority of anons since has been that Grimm is still a worthy winner, in part due to said server's userbase being too small and inactive to have any real impact, the discordfags appearing to also be /v/irgins who were already participating anyways, and most strikingly that members of the server had admitted to voting for Grimm's opponents. Though the hosts made a post-tournament statement saying they didn't spot any abnormal voting activity in the Finals, some have wondered if Grimm's relatively close match against John was effected whereas others wondered if the discord leak was a falseflag due to the suspicious timing, though regardless anons pointed out how the whole situation was thematically fitting to Black Souls with Grimm receiving his happy ending only to have it taken away in the end.
The aforementioned controversy would largely die out, and focus on Grimm would instead shift to a crackship wherein Grimm was paired with the Queen of /v/ of that year, Curly Brace, which garnered a notable following from anons. This spawned several pieces of tourney lore OC involving Grimm x Curly ship art, a wedding attended by prominent characters from the tournament, Grimm impregnating Curly, and even depictions of Grimm and Curly's twenty children.
Having been crowned as the winner of 2023, Grimm is ineligible to enter all future King of /v/ tournaments.
Results[edit]
| King of /v/ | |||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 - seed 32 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Round | Opponent | Series | Votes | Pct. For | |||||||||||||||
| Round 1 | (97)  King Dice
|
Cuphead | 599 - 560 | 51.7% | |||||||||||||||
| Round 2 | (33)  Dracula
|
Castlevania | 520 - 687 | 43.1% | |||||||||||||||
| 2022 - seed 13 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Round | Opponent | Series | Votes | Pct. For | |||||||||||||||
| Round 1 | (32)  Rance
|
Rance | 681 - 552 | 55.2% | |||||||||||||||
| Round 2 | (3)  Phoenix Wright
|
Ace Attorney | 660 - 734 | 47.3% | |||||||||||||||
| 2023 - seed 11 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Round | Opponent | Series | Votes | Pct. For | |||||||||||||||
| Round 1 | (100)  Sephiroth
|
Final Fantasy | 395 - 313 | 55.8% | |||||||||||||||
| Round 2 | (44)  Neo Cortex
|
Crash Bandicoot | 424 - 311 | 57.7% | |||||||||||||||
| Round 3 | (74)  Jacket
|
Hotline Miami | 359 - 334 | 51.8% | |||||||||||||||
| Round 4 | (20)  Spy
|
Team Fortress 2 | 368 - 274 | 57.3% | |||||||||||||||
| Quarterfinals | (9)  Scout
|
Team Fortress 2 | 439 - 356 | 55.2% | |||||||||||||||
| Semi-finals | (25)  John Ward
|
FAITH | 445 - 373 | 54.4% | |||||||||||||||
| Finals | (2)  Dr. Eggman
|
Sonic the Hedgehog | 599 - 430 | 58.2% | |||||||||||||||
Gallery[edit]
Fanart[edit]
For more images, visit the booru or booruplus.
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"I'm voting for Alice!"
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Grimm & Batter
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King of /v/ 2021 - Grimm v. King Dice
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King of /v/ 2021 - Grimm v. Dracula
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Original painting by Ilya Repin
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Team Schizo Alliance w/ Grimm post-death
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Grimm, Batter, and AM
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King of /v/ 2022 - Grimm put on trial by Phoenix Wright
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King of /v/ 2023 - Grimm and his Queen
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King of /v/ 2023 - Psyanon's victory screen
