The Rook

"Beating you was pretty straightforward!"

—The Rook, Death Screen

**The Rook** is the fourth boss fight in the King's Leap in the Delicious Last Course. He is encountered in the Dungeons of the king and queen's palace.

## Description

### Appearance

The Rook overall takes on the appearance of a medieval executioner, with his overall design giving him an intimidating appearance, a stereotype of executioners.

Over his blue face, the Rook wears an executioner mask that, on top, dons a pointed tip which folds slightly at its end. It has an opening around his snout, allowing his small, round red nose to be visible. His mask morphs around his large eyes to function as his eyebrows (as he closes his eyes, you can see the Rook's blue eyelids).

Around his neck, the Rook wears a grey, brick-like accessory which resembles the top of a rook piece. It's raised high enough to cover most of the bottom half of his face, hiding his mouth (when attacked, he reveals his mouth, which show off his large front tooth gaps). Underneath the neck accessory, the bottom of the mask can be seen, which ends in a gear pattern. He wears a red tunic with large yellow diamond shapes lining along its center. His gloves and sock-like shoes share the same yellow color as the diamonds. His arms and legs are blue, though it's unclear whether these are sleeves or his skin. He sits in a chair that resembles his neck accessory. In front of him is a grindstone, which the Rook uses to sharpen his large axe.

## Intro

Before his battle starts, the Rook can be found happily daydreaming of a female guillotine. He stops, however, when he realizes he is being watched. Shortly after, he prepares to sharpen his axe on his grinder, beginning the fight.

## Battle

In the battle, the Rook will sharpen his axe, releasing skulls and pink heads. The player has to parry slap or dash the heads back at him while at the same time avoiding skulls. After one head shot or two body shots, some sparks fly off the grinder to the ground and becomes a projectile that travels across the arena, usually alternating between high and low. Hitpoints = 16

After two more head shots or four more body shots, the Rook becomes more focused, no longer drumming on his axe but holding onto its end, stepping on the paddle more rapidly to make the grinder turn faster and release a stream of sparks on the ground. The projectiles fly off at double the rate. Hitpoints = 40 With three more head shots or six more body shots, the rate at which the fireballs, heads, and skulls spawn doubles again. Hitpoints = 64

After two more head shots or four more body shots, the Rook is defeated. His grinder breaks and his clothes become tattered. His head falls into his lap as he clutches it in exhaustion, his eyes bearing crosses for pupils. Hitpoints = 40

The amount of hits to which the Rook goes down in response from the heads that are launched from his grinder can be obtained by the formula below. The h represents the number of headshots, the b represents the number hits to any part of the Rook's body from the neck down, and the d is 16 in singleplayer and 20 in multiplayer.

# d
2
∗
h
b

{\displaystyle d = 2\*h + b}

## Gallery

The Rook fantasizes about his guillotine crush before spotting the player prior to his battle.The Rook breaks his grindstone upon being hit.The Rook after being knocked outExteriorPink Skull HeadSpark Saw AttackAttacks player
## Trivia

* The Rook is the only Champion that doesn't move. The Bishop technically doesn't count, since his head detaches from his body and goes after Cuphead and company.
* The parriable heads that appear as the Rook sharpens his axe appear to be based off of King Louis XVI and Queen Maria Antoinette. Upon being parried, their faces have a wicked smile, suggesting that they knew they are going to be used against the executioner who beheaded them and saw it as an act of revenge.
* Parrying the heads on the same frame that the Rook gets struck removes double from his health bar compared to what the damage should be. This is most likely a glitch.
* The Rook's death quote is a pun which references how in chess, the rook piece can only move in straight lines relative to the board's sides and not diagonally.
* Instead of dealing a fixed 10 damage for each parry like other champions, parrying the heads back deals 20 damage if they hit the Rook's head. Hitting the Rook lower down deals 10 damage. The Rook is the only character with a weak spot that deals extra damage.
* Like with many of the champions, their code is reused from the unused “The Airship” levels. The Rook’s code is mostly reused from The Crab, as both require you to parry back objects, as the Crab’s code involves parrying gems back at them like with The Rook where you parry heads back.

### Inspirations and similarities

* The Rook's face seems to be based on the Disney character Peg-leg Pete.
* The guillotine in the Rook's daydream resembles the 1930s cartoon character Betty Boop, more specifically, her design found in the 1934 short, Poor Cinderella. The main connections to this design can be found in the red hair color and the Cinderella-esque dress.
	+ Further strengthening the Betty Boop connection, the Rook's axe-grinding animation appears to be inspired by the animation of Cab Calloway's Koko the Clown doing the same in the 1933 Betty Boop short Snow White.