Grian

Hermitcraft

“	Hello...! My name is Grian and welcome back to another episode of Hermitcraft!	”
―Grian's Intro For the Hermitcraft Series.

Charles Batchelor^[1] (born: August 9, 1993 (1993-08-09) [age 27]^[2][3][4]), better known online as Grian (pronounced GREE-an; formerly Xelqua), is an English YouTuber who makes Minecraft building tutorials, plays Minecraft minigames and is a part of the popular HermitCraft server. He is also known for his affiliation with the immensely popular Minecraft MMORPG, WynnCraft, which he helped create. On occasion, he also posts video blogs (vlogs), usually about his holiday trips and invitations to Minecraft conventions, and occasionally plays other non-Minecraft games (such as "Who's Your Daddy?" and GangBeasts). He is also known for having participated in the Minecraft Evolution (or EVO) server for 51 episodes. Many of his videos involve collaborations with other Minecraft YouTubers and friends such as Taurtis, DomRao, NettyPlays and several Hermitcraft members such as Mumbo Jumbo and GoodTimesWithScar.

Grian's channel exploded quite quickly, and was one of the fastest-growing channels on YouTube for a short period of time, after uploading the video, "5 Easy Steps To Improve Your Minecraft House". Many of his tutorials focus on how to improve existing builds and often focus on how to improve building skills in specific areas, such as building pillars, towers, roofs, and of course, rustic houses, a subject which has become something of a running joke on the channel.

Minecraft Skin

Grian's skin has several variants, but all of them are simply him in different clothes. His main skin is simply himself in a red shirt. Other variants include his Halloween skin, which looks exactly like his main skin but on the back of his hair is a pumpkin, and his winter skin, him in a scarf and a sweater, him with Mumbo Jumbo's moustache, demised Grian, rich Grian, Guinea pig Grian and other such craziness.

YouTube Career

Before YouTube

Grian originally started his channel in late 2009; however, he did not begin to grow exponentially until 2014, then hit 1000 subscribers on 2015, and his life before YouTube played a major part in his success.

CraftedMovie

Before Grian became a fairly large YouTube personality, he was a part of the channel CraftedMovie, a Minecraft cinema channel that was active between 2011-2015. The channel originally consisted of a few starting m

embers who starred in the short cinema clips; however, Grian became a part of the CraftedMovie team when he was invited to join the team as a set builder. Grian was one of the various members who joined the CraftedMovie team after the original founders. After building sets behind the scenes for a long while, he eventually started appearing in videos of his own due to popular demand, starring as his own character, with a Minecraft version of Link from the game Zelda as his skin. Grian became a popular internet personality through CraftedMovie. At the time, CraftedMovie was one of the largest Minecraft cinema channels and was one of the pioneers of cinema-type content in Minecraft.

After many years, the overall humour of the videos decreased and the channel's amount of subscribers depleted rapidly. The channel was not extremely profitable due to YouTube's algorithms, so a number of CraftedMovie personnel, including Grian, decided to shift their focuses to work on other projects, including Grian's own YouTube channel. His personal channel quickly became wildly more successful than CraftedMovie.

Wynncraft, an enormous Minecraft MMORPG server project which members of CraftedMovie and Grian greatly contributed to, eventually lead to the dissolve and permanent death of the CraftedMovie channel, paving the way for Grian's personal YouTube channel to grow, and the innovative Wynncraft server to be created under Grian's lead.

Wynncraft

Wynncraft was a major project that was mainly focused on by Grian and others between the gradual death of CraftedMovie and the explosion of Grian's own YouTube channel. Based on classic MMORPG-type games, Wynncraft was developed almost entirely under Grian for about three years. It was wildly successful and attracted many MMO-loving Minecraft players. Plus Recently Tommyinnit has played Wynncraft. Grian's originally-small fan base came mainly came from the Wynncraft community, and the channel became increasingly more popular with their publicity. Since Grian's YouTube channel took off, Grian has shifted his attention away from Wynncraft and more towards YouTube, which has angered some Wynncraft players, since Grian was one of the primary leaders. However, this has not stopped Wynncraft from being Minecraft's largest MMORPG with nearly 2 million regular players. As of August 2018, Wynncraft still holds the World Record for the largest MMORPG in Minecraft.

HermitCraft

Grian is a member of Hermitcraft, a server that only consists of YouTubers who were invited to join. Grian joined in season 6 and has been involved in season 6 and season 7. He often collaborates with Mumbo Jumbo, GoodTimesWithScar, Iskall85, and rendog on the server. 

Season 6

During Season 6, Grian was part of a group called Architech with MumboJumbo and Iskall85. Throughout the season, he entertained the other Hermits with many games: Tag, the Grian Head Hunt, Hot Potato, and Demise.

Grian's Base

In Hermitcraft Season 6, Grian's first season of Hermitcraft, he lived in the middle of the ocean near MumboJumbo's storage system. He built his starter base by transforming a shipwreck into a Ship in a Bottle. He also built Squidward's House in order to power his conduit. Grian's main base was built next to the Ship above the water. It was a multi-layered tower, with each layer becoming smaller. The first layer was Grian's working area. He also built a meeting room with completely white walls, ceiling and floor (named the "Infinity Room") for the Architechs, a group he founded. Other features included the room devoted to taking away MumboJumbo's moustache, a flowery nature area, and a large ring marking area.

Games

Grian created and participated in many games during Season 6. He first created the game known as Tag, which was a big deal early-season. However, the tag game eventually ended due to the Prank War and due to GoodTimesWithScar getting horribly ill while he was 'it'.

Grian also created the Grian Head Hunt, where he hid many Grian heads around the server. The aim for the other Hermits was to collect as many heads as possible during November 2018, with a hidden criterion of creating the best vault. This minigame was won by FalseSymmetry due to the many heads she collected but followed closely by Iskall85 due to his impressive vault and the creativity of using a chorus fruit to get in.

He also participated in the Hermitville Build-Off, a build battle to see who could build the tallest house in Hermitville. His contribution involved building a wooden house made of many different rooms. While doing this, he also retaliated against the shenanigans of Iskall and GoodTimesWithScar, and made an attempt to block MumboJumbo's rocket from launching. Towards the end of the Build-Off, he also built a dragon on top of his house.

One of Grian’s other game creations was Hot Potato, a game in which players pass around a Hot Potato which also had a rulebook that detailed what the caught player was required to do in the next episode. If the Hot Potato was successfully placed in the player’s inventory without them noticing, they had to do the punishment. If the player placing the hot potato was caught, they were required do the punishment they detailed in the book.

In Episode 93 - NEW HERMITCRAFT GAME, Grian created Demise, a game in which the last person to die is the winner. Demise started in his next episode, though it took some pushing to kill Rendog and Stressmonster101. In the midst of all this, Stressmonster101 set up a trap to dispense a dragon head on Grian with curse of binding, but Grian was wearing a helmet, so it didn't work. When he noticed Iskall85 wasn't wearing one, he tricked him into pressing the button, saying the dispensers gave "gifts". Iskall85 later got revenge on Grian with a dragon head right back. Instead of being rivals in the game, they decided to create the Dragon Bros, consisting of them, BdoubleO100, MumboJumbo, and FalseSymmetry.

Afterwards, the pace picked up as many Hermits were killed by traps until Grian became ninth to demise in Episode 102 - The Story of my Demise. Grian went on to kill an already dead Keralis and docm77, the last to demise. Earlier in the season, Grian and Iskall85 made a pact to split the diamonds if one of them won, so Grian got half of the diamonds for himself after Iskall85 won. Iskall85 also gave MumboJumbo some diamonds as he was partly responsible for his demise. Later, Iskall85 realised he hadn't died in a long time, so he auctioned off his death. Grian and impulseSV collaborated on a theatrical story/redstone combination that killed Iskall85 with diorite, marking the end of Demise.

The Civil War

Grian had a large part in the beginnings of The Season 6 Prank War and was the leader the G-Team, named because allegedly everyone on the team had a 'G' in their name. Grian designed the G-Team base himself, though he did not do the redstone for it. He recruited MumboJumbo to spy on Team Star as a mole, which Mumbo did to arguable success until he was discovered. Grian also proposed the capture-the-flag system for the war, and personally won the war in the last second for the G-Team.

Skins

Grian had many skins that were often never used. Some shown included Christmas Grian, Hippie Grian, the "Mumbo for Mayor" skin, and Janitor Grian. Rendog sometimes asked for help with a new one. One that stuck around was Sherlock Grian, for his detective agency.

Poultry Man

In Grian's Season 6 Episode 110, he admitted that he was Poultry Man, which was a mysterious figure all season in a chicken head and leather armour, throwing eggs everywhere.

Salmon Ghost

Salmon ghost was a Hermit with an invisibility potion and a salmon head that appeared in the background when people were recording. In Grian's Season 6 Episode 110, he also admitted that he was the Salmon Ghost.

Season Ending

Grian announced the last episode of Season 6 in Season 6: Episode 109, saying the season would end the next episode. During his Season 6: Episode 110 he shot a rocket through the hole in his base, going out in style; he had been saying he didn't have much to do anymore. As he left, he said that he had put together a compilation of his favourite moments from each episode. It took up about half of his hour-long episode.

Season 7

Grian's Base

In season 7, Grian created a "hobbit hole" starter base (not unlike MumboJumbo's base) with round windows and doors using slabs and stairs. His main base is not yet complete at the time that you are reading this. He challenged himself by using 2 block diagonals in his base. His base is in the style of a large gothc style mansion near the jungle. Under is base he has a large open area that has his storage system. He has connected his base to MumboJumbo's base to give away diamond armour but decided to prank MumboJumbo as well. Grian has also worked on a large manor overlooking the jungle which will be his main base for the season.

Pranks

He made a prank for GoodTimeswithScar using lots of water and a zombie spawner, which he has now converted into a small XP farm. He also added MumboJumbo's mustache to GoodTimesWithScar's snail/starter base. Grian has also dropped minecarts with chests through the top of MumboJumbo's starter base after creating a minecart link between their bases; originally this was a prank, but it has since been used as a communication system between the two.

The Door Thief

In his Season 7: Episode 4, Grian went to investigate a sapling with coordinates written on it sent to him by MumboJumbo. He found Hermit Challenges but did not know what it was. After accidentally initiating himself, MumboJumbo dropped out of a tree and announced Grian was in. They wrote their challenges and Grian, not knowing what to do, challenged MumboJumbo to 'get good lol'. Grian was challenged by MumboJumbo to collect other Hermits' doors for the rest of the season. Though he initially seemed hesitant, Grian repeatedly stole the doors of many hermits, particularly GoodTimesWithScar.

Tag 2: Electric Boogaloo

In his Season 7: Episode 7, Grian started a new game called Tag 2: Electric Boogaloo. The objective of the game is to hold on to the tag for a total of fifty hours in-game. PVP, bribing, and traps are allowed. Grian got fifteen hours of play time in before Iskall85 blew him up with a trap utilizing Grian and MumboJumbo's minecart communication system.

Head Games

Grian joined the Head Games started by ZombieCleo, and was making slow progress until he teamed up with GoodTimesWithScar. Together, they planned Operation Fire-lightning and quickly took first. In Season 7: Episode 7, they bred a bunch of villagers, then killed them all, resulting in a bunch of heads. Grian and GoodTimesWithScar ended up winning the Head Games and split the diamond blocks. Grian participated in the Arena ending and took the first kill for 1000 points, but nothing more. However, this was enough, and the two gained 16 diamond blocks each as well as a large armour stand creation.

The Button

When MumboJumbo built The Button, Grian swore to gather all of the colours. He destroyed several of the structures built around The Button but left Docm77's throne because he thought it was cool. He had all the colours as of episode 22 and had promised to take 50% off of the server lag. Grian put all his belts in an infinity-like gauntlet on his skin's right arm, and after getting all of them, he snapped to 'make all the doors disappear'. When the button died, Grian removed his gauntlet.

The Mayoral Election

Grian started the mayoral election by deciding that the diamond pile in the Shopping District should be used for something. So, he put up a ton of "Mumbo for Mayor" posters. He then recruited GoodTimesWithScar and Bdouble0100 to build a town hall. GoodTimesWithScar did the terraforming, BdoubleO100 did the interior, and Grian made the exterior. Grian then proceeded to vote for GoodTimesWithScar even though he was the MumboJumbo campaign manager. There were no hard feelings because MumboJumbo also voted for GoodTimesWithScar.

The Upside Down

Grian began the Upside Down with an upside-down replica of his mansion over a lava lake surrounded by a crimson forest. He proceeded to invite BdoubleO100, MumboJumbo, GoodTimesWithScar, and EthosLab using grindstone statues of himself with a shulker box including the invitation. BdoubleO100 and Mumbo Jumbo have accepted the invitations, as well as GoodTimesWithScar. Etho has also said he would join at some point in the future. Grian has also made a rule that "all new citizens msut be pranked". He also asked Bdubs to decorate hsi interior for him.

Shop

Grian created Grian's Emporium, also known as the HMS G.G.G. and more commonly, the Barge, at the start of the season. The Barge is a bit of general store and Grian is constantly updating it with new features and items. However, as Grian has neglected to pay the mandatory Road Pass for his shop, CubFan135 (the Rule Enforcer) has filled his shop wth roses and bees as consequence.

Build Swap

Grian created a minigame called build swap! The first one was published on December 19th 2015.  It was super popular! He usually competed against Taurtis, with the judges being DomRao, Gareth, and/or JtheStar. He did two build swaps with Mumbo Jumbo. As of September 2020, the most recent one was with GoodTimesWithScar on his channel. Scar made his cat Jelly with a lightsaber.

Evo SMP

On January 10th 2017, Grian joined the Minecraft Evolution SMP as an "Evolutionist". The SMP took place in Minecraft from Beta, and players could slowly advance to a later version of Minecraft, i.e. after Beta was version 1.1, then advancing to version 1.2, etc., allowing an opportunity for players to experience older versions of Minecraft that they may not have played before. It consists of Grian, Taurtis, NettyPlays and other people Grian has met over the years.

On August 17th 2018, just after entering version 1.7 of Evo, Grian announced via Twitter that he would no longer be a part of the Evo server, stating that while he didn't enjoy it too much anymore, he had enjoyed his time there, and the other members would be continuing to be a part of the server after his departure. One final episode of the SMP was released after announcing that he would be leaving. As of August 2018, it was his longest-running series on the channel.

MC Championship

Tournament	Team	Teammates	Team Result	Individual Result
MC Championship 6	Cyan Creepers	Smajor1995, Shubble & PearlescentMoon	7th (16052)	24th (2111)
MC Championship 7	Aqua Axolotls	FalseSymmetry, Rendog & PearlescentMoon	9th (13506)	24th (1996)
MC Championship 9	Pink Parrots	SmallishBeans , SolidarityGaming & InTheLittleWood	8th (14524)	30th (1727)

Trivia

• He is the creator of TNT run, which is now a popular minigame used in multiplayer minigame servers such as Hypixel. He also created the popular minigame "Build Swap" and "Drawing... Badly".
• Grian has two pet cats, named Maui and Pearl. His friend, and fellow Minecraft YouTuber, Mumbo Jumbo and Mumbo's girlfriend Vicki, met up with Grian in June 2018 to film a mini-documentary about Grian's cats, Pearl and Maui.^[5]
• Grian has a degree in biology.^[6][7]
• He has a brother and sister.^[8]
• He was formerly the owner of the mc.Grian.net Minecraft multiplayer server, which hosted many minigames, including a "Survive the Disasters" minigame, which he has featured on his YouTube channel in his videos. Sadly the server had to be shut down due to funding running out.^[9]
• His favourite color is brown.
• He has been engaged since August 2019^[10] with another female YouTuber^{[citation needed]}

• He married in September 2020^[11]
• He went on his honeymoon before having his wedding due to the COVID-19 pandemic.^[12]
• He is a lord. (In MC Championship 9 he and his team said they would buy lordships if they placed in 8th place or above—which they did)^[13][14]

Quotes

• Mumbo Jumbo you are AFK... I'm going to take that moustache away!
• It wasn't me, it was the man in the chicken costume!
• SAND?!
• Mumbo for Mayor!
• Pesky Bird!
• Tag 2: Electric Boogaloo!
• That ain't bro.
• More Doors For Me!

References