Thrud Griffon

**Thrud Efila Daron Griffon** was the daughter of Mad King Arthan Griffon, Valeron's great-great granddaughter, Jormun Nidho's wife, and Valeron II's mother. She was the culprit responsible for the mysterious events in Othreand an attempted usurper of the Griffon Kingdom's throne in the War of the Griffons.

## Appearance

### Hessie Disguise

Hessie was a plump woman in her mid 40's, with brown hair and eyes. She wore a black dress with a full skirt and white smock apron.

### Human Form

Thrud Griffon was described as incredibly beautiful, having inherited part of Tyris' beauty, coupled with her repeated rejuvenations after undergoing Arthan's Madness. The machine refined her body similarly to what happens to an Awakened during a breakthrough, but it also filtered out the human portion of her blood while enhancing Tyris' with each cycle. After Awakening and reaching the white core, however, her looks rivaled that of her foremother.

She stood 1.78 meters (5'10") tall with silver eyes and hip-length ash-blonde hair that framed the delicate features of her oval face. Her rosy skin was flawless, emphasizing the contrast between her eyes and full red lips. She had soft curves and moved with a sensual grace.

## Abilities

Thrud's rainbow core generated a vortex that mimicked the effects of Invigoration, providing her with unlimited mana. She was also an extraordinary hunter and tailor, and mastered all the specializations. After her body stabilized from the last cycle of Arthan's Madness, Thrud's body went beyond the limits of humans. Tyris' blood coursed so thick in Thrud's veins that she had the mass of a magical beast.

Thrud refined the Griffon bloodline to the extent where she can use Life Maelstrom. With it she could even overcharge the Sword of Arthan and allow it to forcefully steal ownership of a lair's arrays. After further refinement, her rainbow core's colored beams became brighter than ever and her physical prowess put even a full red blood core such as Vladion's to shame, leaving only perhaps a white core such as Baba Yaga to surpass her.

## Equipment

Thrud wielded replicas of the Griffon Kingdom's most powerful artifacts - the Sword of Arthan and Arthan's Armor. She altered her bloodline for good by using the Madness to amplify not only Tyris' blood, but Valeron's as well, becoming akin to a direct descendant of the First Royals that had chosen to embrace their Griffon nature instead of turning into a human. The Arthan set, being a perfect replica of Saefel's, recognized Thrud as Valeron and fully unlocked its true potential, forever replacing the will of the First King with that of Thrud thanks to half of her blood belonging to Valeron.

## Background

### Exile

Using her connections with the Night Court, Thrud had taken over the bodies of their Vassals and used them as strawmen to introduce a an alchemical drug in the black market, which was actually a cough potion mixed with her cells. People who ingested her cells would either experience no effect (unsuitable hosts would kill the cells), become a made mage (partial compatibility), or become clones with identical life force and mana through which Thrud could subject to Arthan's Madness as treatment for her eternal youth.

The Carpenter's ability to absorb world energy for her coupled with her pseudo-Accumulation skill brought her to the brink of turning her core violet, but she was unable to correctly expel impurities, leading her core to turn rainbow colored due to their presence. Thrud had used the mana geyser to refine her body and develop her clones before Mogar could reclaim its stolen energy. Thrud repeated this procedure over the centuries, moving from one country to another. She only needed one treatment every hundred years and was careful to pick cities that were both populous and corrupt, leaving without a trace before the local authorities could notice anything.

### Othre

Thrud takes over the body of Hessie, Mynna Lanza's personal housemaid. She divulges to Constable Jirni Ernas and Mage Dorian Felhorn of how missing people have been returning with blue eyes and wandering around an old temple.

At Mynna's gala, Manohar manages to extract and trap the meat puppet from Baron Mox, bypassing its self destruct mechanism, keeping it alive despite the lack of a host, and severing its connection with Thrud. Alarmed by these flaws in her opus, Thrud uses another meat puppet to ambush and capture Manohar and force him to reveal how to fix the flaws. She activates the nobles' meat puppets, causing a distraction while she attempts to escape with Manohar and Mynna. Manohar regains consciousness in her underground dungeon cell, but escapes using Light Mastery which baffles Thrud despite her centuries of experience and knowledge. Thrud decides Manohar is too dangerous to be kept alive, and retreats to switch to her real body.

Thrud returns to her original body and decides to fight Manohar to test her abilities against the Kingdom's greatest genius. When Lith, Jirni, Captain Kilian Aluria, and Professor Zogar Vastor infiltrate her hideout to rescue Manohar, she Warps all of them into her throne room. Equipped with Arthan's Armor, the Sword of Arthan, and a powerful core, Thrud quickly gains the upper hand.

Thrud offers to make Manohar her King and to turn him into a "true god" like her father using Arthan's Madness, but Manohar refuses. In the following battle Thrud overpowers Manohar and critically wounds Kilian and Vastor, leaving Lith to engage her while Jirni and Manohar save the two Spellbreakers. Thrud summons her army of Carpenters when the barrier around the room collapses and Spellbreaker reinforcements decimate her army. She detonates the remaining Carpenters by overloading them with the world energy from the mana geyser the hideout is built on. She then uses the sword to destabilize the space and cause explosions before escaping hundreds of miles away, leaving behind no clues about her future plans.

### Jiera

Thrud moves to her Grand Duchy city of Hervor in the neighboring Jiera Continent, like she always had after completing a rejuvenation cycle as it is outside Tyris' influence, making it the perfect place to lay low while she enjoys the fruits of her labors and hones her skills. She had spent centuries to create an alias that allowed her to live in the luxury she deserved and with access to the resources she needed. However, the fall of the human race on Jiera and collapse of human civilization cause her to raze the empty city to the ground out of frustration. Jakra the Emerald Dragon arrives, having been forced by Huryole's slave spell to serve Thrud. He tells her about the Golden Griffon Academy and she appoints him as a Duke, quickly growing intimate with him.

Jakra becomes Thrud's spouse as well as the father of their unborn child. He spends only a few weeks to teach Thrud everything that he had learned in his centuries of unrelenting study of magic while he was captive inside the Golden Griffon. After a few months of practice, Thrud manages to master her newfound abilities, and then she teaches him modern magic. The process allows Thrud to find the best way to write the books that would convey all the information about the modern world and magic that her subjects would need once freed from the array trapping them inside Huryole. Thrud decides to train themselves and stockpile the resources they need while exploiting the Adamant and crystal mines she had discovered through the black market.

### Growing Power

Thrud and Jormun seek out Xedros the Wyvern with the promise to turn him into a Dragon in exchange for the secret of Awakening. After witnessing Thrud use the Griffon bloodline ability Life Maelstrom, he agrees. By experimenting on him, she is able to study the bloodline purifying process and focus on that specific ability of Arthan's Madness. She finds a way to turn herself into a Griffon and her unborn baby into a Dragon-Griffon hybrid safely, increasing her powers by several folds. In exchange for her "help", Xedros teaches her the Awakening method that belongs to the Wyvern bloodline. Thrud involves in the project other members of the Council not only to have enough Guardian blood for her purposes, but also to have Xedros Awaken their most loyal followers and make sure that the Wyvern isn't tricking her.

Thrud lures discontent lesser Guardianlings from the Council with promises of attaining their Guardian ancestors' powers. She kidnaps newborn undead from the Eclipsed Lands instead of creating them from scratch to split forever the Eclipsed Lands from the Undead Courts due to the Awakened Council and Undead Courts both denying the Neutral factions' pleas for help. The war would keep weakening the Kingdom, the Courts, and the Council so that when her army of Awakened came, they wouldn't have the strength to stop her. She sacrifices scores of lesser Dragons and newborn undead to fuel the Madness for Xedros to evolve into a Dragon. When confronted by Lith, Vladion Dragonborn, and Scarlett, Thrud vows to kill the Balkor copycat for killing loyal servants to the Kingdom such as Mirim and Lark, and Jormun attempts to convince Lith to walk away. However, Vladion reaffirms his commitment to identifying the Balkor copycat, leading Lith to engage Jormun.

Thrud Warps Vladion away to a separate battlefield and severely wounds the Vampire but doesn't kill him to avoid angering Baba Yaga. She returns and Warps Jormun to safety after the latter is hit by Lith's first Blade tier spell following his breakthrough to the violet core and evolution to Tiamat. Despite evolving into a Golden Dragon, Xedros is killed by Scarlett amid her ascension to Guardian. Xedros' remaining accomplices die to Thrud's body modifications and Thrud uses Xedros as a scapegoat for the experiments, gaining a small army of young Emperor Beasts angry with the Council.

Thrud makes her way to Huryole in the Kellar Region with her new army, pillaging the lairs of Xedros, her late accomplices, and the masters of the ex-apprentices for a large amount of mana crystals and Adamant. She uses the Sword of Arthan to force entry into the lost city before the power core recognizes her energy signature. Headmaster Hystar Sevenus greets her but enrages her when he reveals the Unwavering Loyalty array had enslaved the academy's inhabitants, including Jormun. She forcibly Awakens Jormun and releases him from the slave spell, though asks him to stay his hand for 3 months until she can safely give birth to her baby. Jormun agrees and leaves for the Gorgon Empire.

Afterwards, Thrud prevents Sevenus from infecting her Emperor Beasts with the Unwavering Loyalty array and orders him to make restoring the sanity of the Golden Griffon's students his priority. However, when they voluntarily submit to the Unwavering Loyalty array in order to survive their Awakening, Thrud questions each one of them and then orders them to forget all about it to learn their strengths and weaknesses along with where their loyalty lies. She upgrades the academy's power core using Dominance from Arthan's Sword, Life Maelstrom, and her pregnancy. When her water breaks, she informs Jormun about the arrival of their child. She gives birth to the First Bahamut, and they name him Valeron II after the First King.

Thrud studies the breathing techniques of the dozens of bloodline legacies she had stolen, learning how each species had sought for the way that best suits their peculiar nature. She devises her own breathing technique Regal Flow with the help of the notes, her Awakened disciples, and Hystar. The Awakening process is long and painful, the Golden Griffon reconstructing her body and core numerous times. She is able to discern the path to the white core and evolves into a Golden Griffon.

After the Balkor copycat's failed attack on Lutia due to Tezka's interference, the Mad Queen travels the Kingdom looking for survivors from the decimated mercenary groups. Disapproving of Hystar's inhuman teaching methods, Thrud seeks out Anela Linnea, former Headmistress of Lightning Griffon Academy, who is seeking safe passage and a new identity after her Talon Corps were nearly wiped out. She offers Awakening and position of Headmistress of the Golden Griffon Academy in exchange for upgrading the academy's power core to modern standards. With the allure of power and regaining her youth, Linnea accepts.

Thrud allies with Syrook the Black Dragon and his harbinger ex-Ranger Alman Quaron to incite rebellion in the Nestrar Region. She supports Quaron's political coop and has her subjects in the neighboring regions assure that they will quickly join the uprising, leading to the fall of several cities including Phresca and Zeska. Thrud focuses on laying the seeds for rebellion to avoid reigning over a pile of ashes or winning a civil war just for a weakened Griffon Kingdom to be invaded by its neighboring countries. She works behind the scenes to make sure that her subjects will welcome her as a savior instead of fighting her like an invader. In turn, Syrook sends a portion of the gold and artifacts from the city armories to her for her to glean the secrets of Royal Forgemastery and recreate them with true magic before her war with the Griffon Kingdom begins.

Syrook and Quaron are killed by Lith, allowing Thrud to loot the Dragon's lair in its entirety and take a pair of Syrook's handmaidens as nannies for Valeron II. She had experimented with Skinwalkers, using the Unwavering Loyalty Array to force them to suppress their instincts and hunger to the point that they could keep mimicking the same person to perfection. Thrud kills off the real nobles who had opposed her plans and replaces them with Skinwalkers that become considered heroes of the resistance and have the full trust of the Crown following the Quaron's rebellion. She has them assume key positions in every city and help Thrud to expand her influence, putting the Nestrar region under her command.

## Quotes

* *"Killing him alongside the magicless wench, the arrogant farm boy, the old pig, and what's-his-face would be a waste."* (Chapter 476)
* *"To challenge Tyris I need more power, more artifacts. Let's see how granny dearest takes this blow to her precious Kingdom!"* (Chapter 479)
* *"I was supposed to be enjoying my wealth and find a way to extend the gift of immortality to the future Imperial family, not scavenge for food and sew my own clothes! What good are gold and jewels in a place where a piece of fresh bread is a myth?"* (Chapter 999)
* *"I had countless husbands and children, yet none of them Awakened. Death took them away from me before I could even grow attached to them. Even those I offered to share eternity with me, treated me like a monster and forced me to shut them up. Now, all of my subjects are dead and all I'm left with is stone and gold. Is this Tyris's doing as well? Has her curse reached me thanks to her blood that runs through my veins? I'm not letting you take everything from me again, you monster! I'd rather destroy everything myself!"* (Thrud after destroying Hervor, Chapter 1000)
* *"Because you're my first true friend, my loyal general, and the father of our child. It will be my final battle, but I can't let my lineage disappear in case of failure. Someone must carry the torch and learn from my mistakes."* (Thrud to Jakra, Chapter 1197)
* *"I like a power-hungry imbecile like you even less than you like me, but even imbeciles have their purpose."* (Thrud to Xedros, Chapter 1322)
* *"Once we reach the Golden Griffon, you, I, and everyone inside will Awaken, creating the strongest army that Mogar has ever seen. No one will be able to stop us and the throne will finally be mine."* (Thrud to Jormun, Chapter 1418)
* *"When I'm in a good mood, I Dominate stuff. When I'm in a bad mood, I beat them into submission."* (Thrud to Hystar, Chapter 1445)
* *"I have no qualms killing people, but I always do it for a reason. I do it to restore the Arthan's bloodline on the throne and make the Griffon Kingdom a better place!"* (Thrud to Hystar, Chapter 1445)
* *"Curse you, father. I lived my life on the run because of you. I sacrificed countless people for our dream and this is what your so-called masterpiece achieved...What was supposed to be the instrument of our vengeance and the source of our eternal rule has become a curse of living death. Awakening didn't make me powerful, it only turned me into an unliving. An eternal prisoner of your accursed academy forced not only to never leave this room but also to experience the pain of death over and over until my mind breaks! You've taken everything from me, father. My mother, my Kingdom, and even my birthright. I won't let you destroy what little I have. What I earned during the last few centuries I earned not thanks to your legacy, but in spite of it!"* (Thrud during her Awakening, Chapter 1566)
* *"My name is Thrud Griffon, daughter of Arthan Griffon, the Mad King, and I've come to take back what's mine."* (Thrud to Anela Linnea, Chapter 1626)
* *"The line between madness and genius is often paper-thin."* (Thrud to Anela Linnea, Chapter 1626)
* *"There's no place for traitors in my Kingdom, but rather than just dying, they might as well pay for their crimes while doing something useful."* (Thrud on mercenaries, Chapter 1626)

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Chapter 438: Thing (Part 2)
2. ↑ Chapter 1196: The Devil You Know (Part 2)
3. ↑ Chapter 1625: Golden Cage (Part 1)
4. ↑ Chapter 473: Overwhelming Power (Part 1)
5. ↑ Chapter 999: Bonds of Trust (Part 1)
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Chapter 1197: A Powerful Master (Part 1)
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Chapter 1322: Joint Interests (Part 2)
8. ↑ Chapter 1408: Two as One (Part 2)
9. ↑ Chapter 1409: Awakened Blood (Part 1)
10. ↑ Chapter 466: Impossible Magic (Part 4)
11. ↑ Chapter 479: Night's Aftermath (Part 1)
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Chapter 467: Pointless Struggle (Part 1)
13. ↑ Chapter 447: Great Minds (Part 1)
14. ↑ Chapter 453: Help Request (Part 1)
15. ↑ Chapter 464: Impossible Magic (Part 2)
16. ↑ Chapter 476: Overwhelming Power (Part 4)
17. ↑ Chapter 478: Night's End (Part 2)
18. ↑ Chapter 1000: Bonds of Trust (Part 2)
19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 Chapter 1417: Paying Your Dues (Part 1)
20. ↑ Chapter 1410: Awakened Blood (Part 2)
21. ↑ Chapter 1416:
22. ↑ Chapter 1446: Freedom and Prisoners (Part 2)
23. ↑ Chapter 1488: Means and Ends (Part 2)
24. ↑ Chapter 1542: A New Life (Part 2)
25. ↑ Chapter 1567: Vortexes and Cores (Part 1)
26. ↑ Chapter 1626: Golden Cage (Part 2)
27. ↑ Chapter 1651: Players and Pawns (Part 1)
28. ↑ Chapter 1663: Soul Feather (Part 1)
29. ↑ Chapter 1666: Opening Moves (Part 2)