Merasmus

*- Merasmus's quote upon arriving at a map.*

*- One of Merasmus's infamous quotes.*

## Evil-Doer

**Merasmus**, also known as **Merasmus The Magician**, "**Idiot In A Dress**", or sometimes stylized as "**MERASMUS!**", is a major anti-villainous antagonist and deuteragonist in the online action-adventure video game *Team Fortress 2*. He is the RED Soldier's former roommate turned arch-frenemy, keeper of the **Bombinomicon**, a magic talking book of spells, and is the found leader of his many monster henchmen, such as **The Skeletons**, **Horseless Headless Horsemann** and **Monoculus**.

He is voiced by Nolan North, who also voiced Blutarch Mann, Redmond Mann and The **Bombinomicon** in the same franchise.

## History/Biography:

By his own claim, he is six thousand years old. While his place of birth is unknown, this age would make Merasmus's origin contemporary with the rise and fall of the Sumerian Civilization.

Not particularly a top tier wizard, the earliest available records show Merasmus to be a brewer of potions for the Scottish Drug Company; an example being his "Wizard's Brew" Hat Tonic as advertised in the August 21, 1861, issue of The Teufort Bystander on display in the Coal Town Museum. He remained in Scotland until relocating to Badlands sometime between the late 1950s and mid-1960s.

When the RED Demoman was 7 years old, he discovered Merasmus while seeking work. Telling the young boy to clean his library yet warning him of the evil Bombinomicon, the Demoman did his work but ignored Merasmus's warning, looking into the cursed book. Ultimately, the Demoman lost his left eye to the book, and Merasmus was forced to remove it, causing Demo's eye to become cursed and unable to be repaired by any means, including by the Medic’s medigun. Years later, the magician's tumultuous relationship with the RED Soldier was revealed: he was his roommate who constantly suffered due to his idiotic antics. During the events of Soldier Needs a Home, Merasmus kicked the Soldier out of his castle for being a nuisance. When he found later that the Soldier trashed his home and evicted him, he took on a ghostly form and decided to attack the Soldier and his team. He later moved to America and moved in with a new roommate, Tom Jones. When Soldier snapped Tom Jones's neck, Miss Pauling tricked him into checking Jones' pulse, causing him to be seen as the culprit when the police came in. Imprisoned, he continued to practice potion brewery while telling stories to other inmates.

In both Blood Money, Gargoyles and Gravel, Merasmus owed money to the Japanese and Russian mafia respectively. Blood Money had him construct a giant theme park to summon a circus god, but he forgot to construct it over a burial ground: so he allowed the mercenaries into his park so that their constant killing would make the park into a giant cemetery. Gravel and Gargoyles, meanwhile, has him borrowing money for an ancient artifact. He successfully convinces the team to kill all the old Scream Fortress bosses so that he can partially get out of his debt.

## In-Game:

Merasmus (stylized as MERASMUS!) makes an appearance in the game as the boss the players must fight in Ghost Fort. He is also responsible for sending the mercs back in time in the game's Medieval Mode. He makes a few cameos in other maps as well, and is responsible for summoning the Demoman's cursed eye Monoculus as well as the Headless Horseless Horsemann (And also presumably The Skeletons) to fight the mercenaries. He also serves as the announcer and the main manager in charge of the Carnival of Carnage.

When damageable, Merasmus's health is displayed as a bar on the screen, under the time. When Merasmus spawns, he pushes all nearby opponents away and destroys all stickybombs around him, also knocking back all stickybombs he comes in contact with.

Merasmus has a wide variety of attacks, and can teleport throughout the map on random intervals. Merasmus can melee players with his staff, roll bombs at them, and perform a magic attack which sets selected targets on fire and launches them skyward. Merasmus can also hover over the control point and use the Bombinomicon to spread bombs a wide range around the control point. Whenever Merasmus is hovering in the air while performing this attack, all damage dealt to him will be critical hits. Merasmus uses this attack far less often than any of his other attacks.

Every time Merasmus teleports to another location on the map, the Bombinomicon will choose a few players and transform their heads into bombs. Players cannot attack after being turned into bombs and are stuck in their humiliation pose until the bomb detonates or they are killed, but their speed is also boosted. The screen and the Bombinomicon will instruct the player to find Merasmus and run into him. If the player reaches Merasmus with the bomb, it will stun him, stopping him in his tracks.

At all times while stunned, all damage Merasmus takes will be critical hits. The player who transported the bomb will become invulnerable, speed boosted, and crit boosted for a short time while getting tossed upward from the explosion. If the player fails to reach Merasmus in time, the bomb will detonate, damaging the player and surrounding members of the opposing team by 100 HP. If the player kills anyone, those show up on the killfeed and grant the player a point.

At around 50% and less than 10% health, the boss health bar will turn green as Merasmus teleports away and disguises himself as a random prop, while other props are scattered about the map to throw players off. While Merasmus is disguised, he will slowly heal himself.

Upon Merasmus's defeat, he will disappear and be replaced by the Bombinomicon. It will remain on the field for a few seconds, and all players can use it to teleport to Skull Island.

## Personality:

Merasmus is a somewhat evil, lazy, careless and reckless individual who mostly only cares about himself and his well being. Despite being an immortal Wizard/Magician, he usually acts, found within his dialogue, that he thinks he tops over everyone else and is automatically better (Despite sometimes being an actually terrible wizard).

He usually likes tormenting and harassing the TF2 Mercs every Halloween, even bothering them when he has a huge real issue, such as convincing them to kill the Scream Fortress Bosses to get out of his debt with the Japanese Mafia, as well mostly for his own gain and amusement. Aside from the RED Soldier (And Possibly the other Scream Fortress Bosses), Merasmus is absolutely selfish when it comes to his emotions and actions, even then not really caring for the well being of either the RED Soldier or the monsters he summons to kill the Mercs.

Despite also being an all powerful being, Merasmus is also not the greatest at being evil (Though at times he can be pretty badass, and other times he can be somewhat nice to others), this is shown through his laziness with his losing and appearance lines in-game that he can sometimes forget he is an Immortal and powerful Wizard causing him to accidentally "go easy" on his opponents.

## Trivia:

* Despite being a "Magician", he is actually closer to a chaotic-evil warlock or neutral-evil wizard.

* The name "Merasmus" is a reference to the starvation disease Marasmus.

* He claims that he is 6,000 years old, which places his birth in the Sumerian period.

* In Soldier Needs A Home, The RED Soldier had actually used Merasmus's skull hat as a food bowl, causing him to get angry and scold The RED Soldier.

* It's implied that The Skeletons are most likely one of Merasmus's employee's, with The Skeleton King having a wager/agreement with Merasmus.
	+ This is also presumably the case for the others such as The Headless Horsemann, and Monoculus, who are also henchmen monsters for Merasmus.

## Gallery:

The hat that players can obtain by defeating Merasmus, usually via their first win against him.Merasmus in-game.Both of Merasmus's textures shown through a model viewer.Merasmus hysterically telling the viewer/reader about how he purposely wants a deadly carnival attraction.Merasmus complaining to a construction worker (to his annoyance) how he wants a purposely deadly amusement park.