Lord Crump

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

- Lord Crump

Lord Crump (or X-Naut Black) is the secondary antagonist in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, and the second highest ranking member of the X-Nauts (second only to Sir Grodus). He fights Mario four times, two of them while controlling his personal robot, Magnus von Grapple.

Second in command of the X-Nauts, Lord Crump is always willing to follow Grodus' command. Even though Lord Crump is second in command, Grodus calls him his most incompetent underling in chapter 8. 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 deep space. However, he somehow managed to survive after destruction of his improved robot and now hangs around with Grodus and what's left of X-Nauts in Poshley Heights after the game.

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
Lord Crump appears as soon as Mario enters Rogueport and catches him interrogating Goombella in search of her knowledge of the Crystal Stars. Mario, with Goombella's help, defeats Lord Crump in a tutorial fight.

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 time bomb. As Mario and company reach the entrance to the tree, they see that the Puni Elder blocked off Crump's escape, giving them the opportunity to force Crump to deactivate time bomb. But he refuses to hand Emerald Star over, instead activating Magnus von Grapple to attack in an attempt to destroy Mario and company and make his getaway with the Emerald Star. His attempt to defeat Mario and company and escape with the Emerald Star was totally unsuccessful and Magnus von Grapple was destroyed instead. 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.

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 bad, and Crump even breaks the Fourth Wall, commenting 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, Admiral 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 fortress where he attacked Mario and friends in his improved robot which had at least a dozen new abilities. Mario managed to defeat Crump narrowly and he was sent into space. 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 his robotic 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 of a clown 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 aforementioned scenes. Lord Crump's speech pattern is seen as irritating to Grodus.

Quotes
For a full list of quotes, see here

Trivia

 * In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, one of the names in the random name selection is "CRUMP", which is a reference to Lord Crump.
 * Despite the fact that he's Grodus' right-hand man, Grodus still considers him as his "least-competent underling".
 * 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 and Bowser Jr. and Kamek in the fourth game. Also, O'Chunks and Lord Crump are faced four times each, unlike Jr. Troopa who is fought six times.
 * Unlike Jr Troopa and O'Chunks, Lord Crump is featured as a Chapter Boss twice (Three times if the battle after Cortez counts, because right after that battle is a Peach cutscene).
 * 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 subsequently gave him the fifth star); in Yaridovich's case, Jonathan Jones stopped him from swimming away as Mario was chasing him.
 * The third battle with Lord Crump on the pirate ship is similar to the battle with General Guy, as they both call forward a squad to fight for them.
 * Lord Crump may be based off of Dr. Eggman from the Sonic games, both in appearance and the fact that both Eggman and Crump fight their respective games' main protagonists (Sonic and Mario, respectively) while commanding large, robotic creations.
 * It is impossible to lose the first battle against Lord Crump, because even if Mario falls into the water to lose 9 HP, he will start the battle with at least 5 HP, and his only options are attacking and defending.
 * A part of Lord Crump's music near the beginning sounds similar to the death sound effect from the Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man.