Grunda Dolma from Clone Wars cartoon

Grunda Dolma first appeared in the Star Wars: The Clone Wars television series episode "Deception." Grunda Dolma was a female Aqualish who fought as a gladiator at the Cauldron on Rattatak, utilizing a double-bladed pike-type melee weapon. During the brawl supervised by Count Dooku in 22 BBY, she destroyed Mantoid before being defeated by the lightsaber-wielding Sith hopeful Asajj Ventress.

Grunda Dolma was born on the planet Ando, and she died on Rattatak as it was mentioned above previously. Rattatak is world of warriors and soldiers Rattatak was one of the unexplored planets in the galaxy. As Geonosis, Rattatak was also famous of its arena, or even arenas, since it has several. The Cauldron was a large gladiatorial arena on the planet Rattatak. The rocky world held many of these gladiator pits, though the Cauldron was the largest and most infamous, attracting the best combatants. With warfare common across Rattatak, an enterprising Rattataki hatched a lucrative scheme involving the creation of these gladiatorial pits. He would pit mercenaries and slave soldiers against one another in gladiatorial combat, and the credits generated from the wagers would help purchase more soldiers and offworld weapons for the ongoing war. The blood-sport of Rattatak quickly evolved. The Cauldron was located within a craggy spire of rock; a huge cavern ringed by a large number of viewing boxes. War barons and generals would attend the contests, to seek out the soldiers that would win them their wars. Slavers provided opposition for the gladiators, often in the form of dangerous offworld beasts or monsters trained to kill. However, the Cauldron's deadliest gladiator was none of these. After the outbreak of the Clone Wars, Asajj Ventress entered the Cauldron and killed Dooku's guide in the hope that the watching Count Dooku would be impressed enough with her skill to make her his Sith apprentice. Ventress, armed with twin lightsabers, made short work of the various gladiators the Cauldron threw at her—from blood-thirsty Gamorreans to dangerous wampa ice creatures. Ventress prevailed, and challenged Dooku himself on the arena floor. Ventress was bested, but Dooku nevertheless recruited her to his cause. He introduced her to Darth Sidious who gave the dark side warrior her first assignment, which was to kill Anakin Skywalker, only to test the boy on whether he would be the perfect Sith apprentice.

But let's examine that gladiator fight a bit, where Grunda Dolma and the others fought. The fight is based on the wrestler's Battle Royal multi-competitor match, in which a number of wrestlers aim at eliminating their competitors by tossing them over the top rope, with both feet touching the floor. Of course on Rattatak the aim was a bit different, there was not a ring, and a rope, the gladiators didn't have to throw their opponent over the rope, but to kill them. The winner of the Battle Royal event is the last wrestler remaining after all others have been got rid from the ring, while in the Clone Wars the winner was the gladiator who remained alive while his/her opponents were all eliminated. Opposite to Royal Rumble rules, where the thirty contestants do not enter the ring at the same time, in this case all gladiators entered the pit in the same time, and the fight has no rules. All kind of weapons were allowed to use, ranging from melee weapons to blasters.

The gladiatorial death matches of The Cauldron had 17 fearsome warriors. Some of them were humanoid, some of them were droid fighters, and of course there were several other kinds of Star Wars species from Gamorrean, Nikto, and even a large unidentified wampa. Grunda Dolma was an Aqualish, as I mentioned before. All right, lets name the contestants: Blorga, Grunda Dolma, Nilo, L8-L9, Flalios, Jasper McKnives, Krutch, Anchor Blue, Swyy'm-Ee, Giant Flog, Crockagor, Kulltu Kutta, Carl, Bugnaught, Mantoid, an Unidentified human Gladiator, an Unidentified Wampa, and Asajj Ventress, who arrived in the pit last, killed the most enemies, and won the whole fight.

Grunda Dolma killed one or two opponent(s) in the Cauldron. The only sure was mantoid, an eight armed robotic opponent with deadly weapons in each hands. Grudna Dolma could jump and move acrobatically, her victory was quite spectacular. For her lack of luck, she faced Asajj Ventress next, who was not professional at this time, rather novice, or semi-professional, but she was quite enough to kill the whole brunch of aliens. Some of them with her lightsabers, but many was destroyed by Force pulling down large rocks from the ceiling, targeting the enemies with the rocks. Count Dooku was first tested the young Asajj, making her angry, to make her gain strength from the Dark Side, but Dooku soon got bored, and used Force lightnings to make Asajj unconscious. 

I checked the Internet for a Grunda Dolma figure, but did not find any. A Star Wars miniatures Grunda Dolma is existing by an unknown customizer, but an action figure was not created yet as I know. So if that is true, mine is the first, and only.

Please take a look at my custom Grunda Dolma figure!

Custom Grunda Dolma figure front

Custom Grunda Dolma and a Gamorrean attack Asajj

Custom Grunda Dolma back