Eddie Riggs

Overview

Brütal Legend follows Eddie Riggs, the world's best roadie, after his belt buckle, infused with dark magic, sends him to a world of ancient rock legend.

Personality

Eddie is the quintessential metalhead. A rowdy, lively, party-hardy headbanger. He is shown several times throughout his adventure to also be generous and kind-hearted as well. His friends always take top priority for him as well, even to the point of putting himself in danger for their sake. No matter the danger, he will go to length so further their cause.

Weapons

Upon his arrival in the world of metal, Eddie's first acquired weapon is a battle axe, called The Separator. Called so because of its ability to separate limb from body. The Separator can be upgraded and modified for different effects, such as elemental attacks and extra damage.

The next weapon that Eddie obtains is his trusty electric guitar, Clementine. In his homeworld, his guitar only played music. In the world of metal, it is able to rain down lightning from the sky, burst fire from the ground, shake the earth and other powerful magic effects.

Last of all, Eddie obtains The Deuce. The hottest hot rod ever built, Eddie is able to upgrade and customize it throughout the course of the game, adding weapons, armor and nitro to it.

Multiplayer

In multiplayer, Eddie is the player character for the Ironheade faction.

Voice Actor

Eddie is voiced by rock star and Tenacious D frontman, Jack Black.

Plot Synopsis

Eddie Riggs is the greatest roadie ever for perhaps one of the worst bands of all time, Kabbage Boy. During another ridiculous show, Kabbage Boy's guitarist climbs onto their custom built stage only to then fall from the fatal height. Luckily, good roadie as he is, Eddie saves the moron at the last second, only to have the stage crash down upon him.

As he lays unconscious and bleeding, on the brink of death, Eddie gets some of his blood on his belt buckle, summoning a demon made of chrome into our world. The demon murders most of the members of Kabbage Boy and transports Eddie to the brutal world of heavy metal, where he finds he is miraculously healed.

After escaping from evil druids and meeting Ophelia, a member of a human resistance, Eddie meets the Halford siblings, Lars and Lita, who tell him the plight of their world, where humans are enslaved by evil demons known as the Tainted Coil. Adjusting miraculously quickly to his new surroundings, Eddie uses his roadie skills to gather and motivate an army to fight against the forces of the Demon Emperor Doviculus and his human lackey, General Lionwhyte. He also develop feelings for Ophelia, and is the only one to completely and utterly trust her after she reveal her parents' identities as Tear-Drinkers, humans who drank from the evil Sea of Black Tears in order to gain the power to defeat the Tainted Coil, only to fall victim to madness and turn on their fellow humans once the demons were at the brink of annihilation. As a token of his affection, Eddie gives Ophelia a shark-tooth necklace previously owned by his mother, who died when he was too young to remember her.

Eddie leads the newly christened Ironheade army to Lionwhyte's doorstep and, after demolishing his Pleasure Tower and killing the General, seems to have struck a major victory for the cause of freedom. However, Doviculus appears, apparently drawn by a spy among their ranks, and casually murders Lars. As Eddie, Lita, and the rest of Ironheade make their escape from the ruins of the Pleasure Tower, suspicion is thrown at Ophelia, whose secrecy has caused even Eddie to distrust her as well. Ironheade flees to the mountains without Ophelia, and holes up for three months.

Just when it seems things couldn't get any worse for the resistance, Ironheade soon comes into conflict with the Drowning Doom, a faction of corrupted humans led by Ophelia, who had decided to get her revenge by becoming exactly what Lita had always accused her of being: a Tear-Drinker. Realizing his army can't stay hidden forever, he resolves to continue to fight for freedom, and is also driven by a personal vendetta against his former love interest.

Meanwhile, Eddie discover that his father, here known as "Riggnarok", actually came from this world long ago, and was responsible for the first human resistance efforts. Eddie eventually defeats Ophelia and confronts her for her treachery.

It is here it is revealed that Doviculus was not actually tracking Ophelia, but Eddie. Apparently Eddie's mother was Succoria, the first Demon Empress of this realm and, when Riggnarok's presence was at its strongest, she fled from him through time, intending to get reinforcements from the demon hordes of the future. However, she discovered that her people were no more in the future, and humans had rendered the world a dreary, boring place. Driven to utter despair, she was too pathetic for Riggnarok, who had followed her through time, to kill. Instead, he nursed her back to health, the two of them falling in love along the way. They had a son, Eddie, and stayed in the future to raise him. While Succoria was quickly supplanted by Doviculus as Demon Emperor, there was no human as charismatic a leader as Riggnarok. This led to the downfall of the human resistance and, upon Eddie's return, the reawakening of the ancient secrets of the land. Doviculus murders Ophelia, but Eddie manages to best Doviculus in warfare and hand-to-hand combat, decapitating him with a mighty battle cry. He proceeds to resurrect Ophelia, once again uncorrupted by the Sea of Black Tears, and the two rekindle their love.

Even at the ultimate victory of Ironheade, Eddie retains his roadie duties and persona, not taking credit for anything and rather allowing Lita and the late Lars to take all the credit; repeating his philosophy, "A good roadie knows his whole job is to make someone else look good..."

Trivia

• "Eddie Riggs" comes from the name of Iron Maiden's mascot, "Eddie the Head," and the artist that created him, Derek Riggs. ( Tim Schafer says the fact that rigging is essentially what Eddie Riggs does influenced the decision to go with that name, as well.)
• Eddie's facial animation is influenced by Jack Black's facial mannerisms, such as exaggerated eyebrow movements.

• Eddie's in-game design is partly inspired by Meat Loaf's character "Eddie" from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

• 

  Eddie's original look was styled after Ian "Lemmy" Kilmister (the lead singer and bassist for Motörhead, who would later become a prominent in-game character himself). The character's physique, backstage pass, and smoking habit remained part of the redesign for the final in-game Eddie. The elements that were dropped were later incorporated into the look of Riggnarok, Eddie's father.