From TES issue 20 (March 2003)

Series 7. Level 1/2/3.
BROLLACHAN
The addition of the Brollachan to the cast was probably the most noticeable change made to Knightmare in series 7. Brollachan is a truly unique character however you look at him, and will always be a very memorable part of Knightmare's history.

The first question to answer is this: what is a brollachan? In the Knightmare legend, it is a shape-changing faerie creature from Cornwall that has the ability to reshape itself to pass through any surface: ("I move through walls and floors; I reach beyond bars. Wood and stone or even steel. Nothing can keep me from you." - Brollachan.) It is not - as far as TES is concerned - a wall monster, which is a spellbound creature that lives inside a particular wall, seen in series 1, 2 and 3 of Knightmare.

Anyway, how did there come to be a brollachan in the Knightmare Dungeon? Lord Fear apparently pulled him across time and space with the intention of using the creature to kill Smirkenorff, on whom he had sworn revenge after the defeat of Red Death at the end of series 6. Fear robbed Brollachan of all his wits and knowledge, and instilled in him the single driving snippet of knowledge that his purpose in the Dungeon was to hunt down and destroy Smirkenorff.

Fear hoped that Brollachan - who appeared as a large blue or grey face on any wall he chose to - would also gobble up dungeoneers when he met them in the Dungeon. Dungeoneers frequently met him on levels two and three, but thankfully he decided to question them in order to fill the gaps in his knowledge rather than eat them as Fear had instructed him to. ("Feed me with knowledge or feed me with yourself." - Brollachan.)

The standard three questions were asked, and were often about snippets of information the team had picked up during their quest. As long as the dungeoneer answered Brollachan truthfully, he would let them pass. Unlike with the wall and door monsters, this did not mean that the team had to get the answers right but simply that they had to not lie. As Treguard frequently pointed out, as long as the dungeoneer gave an answer they believed to be right then Brollachan would know they were not lying to him and be compelled to believe them. Indeed, eventual winner Julie II was presented with a question that had no particular right answer, and the team had to think of a feasible response. As for Barry, his team were convinced that the Rift of Angar was called the Valley of Ram Staff, so that's what they told Brollachan, and they did not lie in the process.

Thus Brollachan was kept at bay throughout the series. He never found Smirkenorff to kill him, although he admitted to Lord Fear in several spyglass sequences that he wasn't looking very hard.

The mage Grimaldine followed Brollachan to Knightmare with the intention of returning him home, which he presumably managed to do at the end of the series as Lord Fear was no longer in any fit state to object having just been squashed by a very large troll. Indeed, Brollachan did get his revenge on Fear in the end as he demanded that the members of the Opposition trapped beneath the troll - Lord Fear, Lissard, Sylvester Hands and Raptor - gave him knowledge before he helped them out of their predicament. As all four of them returned for the next series, perhaps we can assume that Brollachan did help them eventually, but I'm sure he made them tell him everything they knew first.

What makes Brollachan truly unique is the way he was created. I always assumed that he was computer-generated while I was watching series 7 in 1993, which he was, but an article in the Radio Times in September 1994 told me the whole story.

There was a photograph of Treguard and Majida and an article about Knightmare to herald the start of series 8. The end part of the article explained how Brollachan was created, even though - to my subsequent surprise - he did not appear at all in the new series. The article explained that Anthony Donovan - the actor responsible for both Brollachan and Grimaldine - was involved in a process called Virtual-Actor (V-Actor), where sensors on an artificial-reality headset detected his facial features and movements and translated them into those of the Brollachan on-screen.

This explains why Brollachan's mouth movements were never quite in synchronisation with his voice. I always enjoyed the voice, though, which was drawn-out and desolate yet threatening and powerful.

Anyway, while past Knightmare creature-characters were created by drawings or puppetry, the use of V-Actor to create Brollachan represented the employment of cutting-edge technology that Knightmare was always famous for, and created a worthwhile and memorable result.
Fear Factor: 9 A very new, unfamiliar and unpredictable Dungeon threat.
Killer Instinct: 2 Would only have killed if deliberately lied to.
Humour Rating: 0 Never demonstrated any emotions really.
Oscar Standard: 8 Good originality and I really used to enjoy the voice.

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The Brollachan gave his name to a fan who joined the Knightmare.com Forum in May 2004. Also known as Brollachan, Broll, Keith and Nefarious, he had made 640 posts by December 2008, many of them partially in-character as the Brollachan, and many others illustrating his staunch opposition to Knightmare DVD piracy. Over 20 Lexicon entries have been authored by him too. Broll has also been active on the Knightmare Back-Up and Castle Anthrax forums. On the Knightmare Roleplay Forum he has played the Brollachan (who at one point took on human form under a full moon) and a fire wizard called Pyron, whom he went on to play at Knightmare RPG 7 in 2005. Broll's forum posts have sometimes attracted attention for the wrong reasons, such as his repeated use of the misspelling 'prehaps', multiple references to 'Tim Childs', impatience with the running quiche joke, and an accusation that a fellow member who challenged his point of view was trolling.

After jointly winning Tim Child's Knightmare VR mistake-spotting competition (SEE: Friday), Broll was awarded the original modeller's cast of Knightmare's Brollachan. He photographed it for Knightmare.com, where a number of sound clips contributed by him can also be found.

Below is a rough piece of fanart inspired by Broll's appearance in Knightmare Chat under the Peter Pan-themed screen name Croco-broll:

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The Brollachan is a shape changer that originates from Cornwall. It features throughout series 7, as Lord Fear had pulled it through time to the Black Tower of Goth and wipped it of its memory. It's mission set by Lord Fear was to find and destroy Smirkenorff, however it never actually did this, preferring to stop and question dungeoneers in order to gain knowledge.

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