Lord Crump

"And with that...pow! I'm gone!"

- Lord Crump

Lord Crump (or X-Naut Black) is a high-ranking X-Naut in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. He is second only to Sir Grodus. He guards the second Crystal Star, the Emerald Star as Magnus Von Grapple and the seventh Crystal Star, the Crystal Star as Magnus Von Grapple 2.0. Hoping to steal the fifth Crystal Star, the Sapphire Star, he goes under the name of Four-Eyes in Chapter 5: The Key to Pirates.

Second in command of the X-Nauts, Lord Crump is always willing to follow Grodus' command. The player will fight the somewhat-stupid X-Naut four different times. The player's first battle will be against him. Lord Crump also takes part in many of the cutscenes seen throughout the game. After his Magnus von Grapple 2.0 is destroyed, he is sent flying out to space. He managed to return from space, and now hangs around with Grodus and what's left of X-Nauts in Poshley Heights.

Lord Crump breaks the Fourth Wall (acknowledges the fact that he is in a video game) in Chapter 5 by telling the player, the "person in front of the TV," not to tell Mario about his disguise. Professor Frankly also does this in this chapter.

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
As Mario makes it to Rogueport, he sees Lord Crump attacking Goombella, and fights him in a tutorial battle. After the defeat of Crump, Crump sends in a mob of X-Nauts to tackle Mario, but he and Goombella escape.

In Chapter 2 of the game, Grodus sends him and the Shadow Sirens to Boggly Woods, knowing a Crystal Star was there, located somewhere within the Great Tree. Knowing the Crystal Star belonged to the Punies in the tree, Crump and his men imprisoned the Punies, teamed up with the Punies' enemies, the Jabbies, and performed a search throughout the tree. Their search for the Star didn't go well when Mario, Goombella, Koops, Flurrie and Punio interfered with everything, liberated the Punies and fought the Jabbies in a battle for the tree. After Mario, Goombella, Koops, Flurrie and the Punies found the Emerald Star, Crump steals it and activates a 5-minute self-destruct mechanism. As Mario and company reach the entrance to the tree, they see that the Puni Elder blocked off Crump's escape, giving them opportunity to force Crump to surrender. Crump was surrounded, so he activated Magnus Von Grapple  to attack, in an attempt to destroy Mario and company and make his getaway with the Emerald Star. But defeating Mario and company and escaping with the Emerald Star was totally unsuccessful when the Magnus Von Grapple Robot was beaten. Upon the defeat of Magnus Von Grapple, Lord Crump and his men were driven out of the Great Tree, and the Puni Elder gave Mario and his team the Emerald Star as a reward.

"It may be pretty obvious to you who I really am, but no telling Mario! Or else!"

- Four-Eyes

In Chapter 5, Lord Crump disguises himself as a pirate named Four-Eyes and follows Mario and company to Keelhaul Key to find the Sapphire Star. Shown in the picture, his disguise is very poor, and Crump even comments that even though the player might see through his disguise, they should not tell Mario of it. He secretly follows Mario and company through the Pirate's Grotto as Mario and company search for the Star. After Mario and his friends beat Cortez and obtain the Star, Lord Crump removes his disguise and threatens to blow Keelhaul Key to the bottom of the sea unless Mario gives him the Sapphire Star. Mario, Flavio and company enlist Cortez's help to fight Crump. While Cortez's pirates (with help from Mario and Flavio's deckhands and Francesca and Frankie) and Crump's X-Nauts raid each others' ships, Mario, Goombella, Koops, Flurrie, the Yoshi, Vivian, Bobbery and Ms. Mowz fight Lord Crump. This time, Crump's got his X-Nauts as backup. Lord Crump and his X-Nauts lose and are sent off to lick their wounds.

It was not long after that Lord Crump went to Twilight Town in search of the Superbombomb. He manages to find it, and gloats over how it will help him with the search for the Crystal Stars. Unfortunately, Bowser and Kammy Koopa were around, and overheard him. This resulted in a battle against the X-Nauts and the Koopa Troop that almost started, had not Bowser used his Fire Breath to set off the Superbombbomb, blasting both armies into submission. This was the only time Crump got to meet Bowser.

Lord Crump reappeared at the end of the X-Nauts base where he attacked Mario and friends in his new Magnus von Grapple 2.0 which had at least a dozen new abilities. Mario managed to defeat Crump narrowly and he was blasted into space. Later, it is revealed that he somehow survives. Grodus revealed that the results of the battle was irrelevant for his plans, and admits that he tricked Lord Crump.

During the ending, it was revealed that Lord Crump somehow survived after his defeat. He was last seen in Poshley Heights, along with Grodus (which was reduced to a head), and four X-Naut troopers. As with Beldam, Lord Crump and the X-Nauts ended up changing their evil ways.

Personality
Lord Crump, throughout the course of the game, has been shown to be somewhat clownish and bumbling; and as a result, he is often looked down on by Grodus, even going so far as to label him as his "least-competent underling". Despite this, there are many instances where he's proven himself to be quite intelligent, such as in Chapter 2 when he set that trap for Mario and his partners, in Chapter 5, where he disguised himself as Four-Eyes and used Mario and company to defeat Cortez for him so that he could obtain the Crystal Star, and even in Chapter 7, where he (according to himself) used the last Crystal Star to lure Mario and the others up to the X-Naut fortress so that he could take theirs and add to the X-Nauts' collection (even though he didn't know he was being taken advantage of, himself). Lord Crump has also shown some displays of arrogance in the aformentioned scenes. Lord Crump's speech pattern is seen as irritating to Grodus.

Quotes
Please see this article for a full list of quotes.

Trivia

 * Lord Crump is indirectly referenced by Francis in Super Paper Mario, when in his list of things to get he wants a Magnus von Grapple action figure
 * In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, one of the names in the random name selection is "CRUMP", which is a possible reference to Lord Crump.
 * Lord Crump plays Jr. Troopa's role as the most frequently fought boss in the game. However, unlike Jr. Troopa, Lord Crump is the first in the Paper Mario series that's affiliated with the main antagonist. O'Chunks later on takes his role in the sequel. Also, O'Chunks and Lord Crump are faced 4 times each, unlike Jr. Troopa who is fought 6 times.
 * Although Lord Crump's title implies he is higher-ranking compared to Sir Grodus, this is not the case.
 * Despite the fact that he's Grodus' right-hand man, Grodus still considers him as his "least-competent underling".
 * Lord Crump also plays a similar role to Yaridovich from Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. Both are a high-ranking servant of the main antagonist, who meet Mario in disguise with the intent of letting him get the star and then taking it from him. Also, both are briefly confronted by a pirate who was earlier defeated by Mario shortly before the battle (and subsquently gave him the star); in Yaridovich's case, Johnny stopped him from swimming away as Mario was chasing him.