Gudrun Hyngrefskadrdr

**Gudrun Hyngrefskadrdr** was a zoologist of the Academy on Saldan. After an expedition to reach out to The Unnamed succeeded, Gudrun, as one of the few survivors, became an Elder Brightling in the Cult of Color, after which she was expelled from the Academy, and her department placed under a century-long moratorium.

## Personality

Gudrun was always fascinated by all manners of animals, and her eccentric interests in studying the fauna of the universe found her as head of the Zoology department on the Academy on Saldan, where her aptitude for her field was clearly obvious, but her unsociable nature led to the department losing a lot of funding. Considered by her colleagues to be quite deranged even before her encounter with the Unnamed, her lack of academic allies did not help her when placed under the review board.

## History

### Early Life

Gudrun was raised by a family of sentient yeti after being abandoned by her biological family, which many speculate to be the cause of her poor understanding of social constructs and quite inferior hygiene. Nonetheless, she parlayed her practical education by the yetis into a scholarship as a student at the Academy on Saldan, where many of her professors found her aptitude a significant obstacle to their plans to fail her. However, Gudrun, being socially inept as she was, only found the challenges to be acts of endearment.

### Head of Zoology

In her second year as a graduate student, the unfortunate Sarlacc incident within the zoology department resulted in Gudrun becoming its most senior member, where she spent 25 years publishing papers and transforming the department into her personal zoo. She attracted few graduate students, although those who did stay in the department were particularly gifted and had an almost fanatical devotion to her. She joined the mission to find the Unnamed in hopes of discovering some interesting fauna dedicated to this entity.

As she and her 5 graduate students embarked, they found themselves rather lacking in interesting fauna, but had the opportunity to study a lot of interesting effects of the Unnamed upon their avian and reptilian specimens that were brought along. Some of these animals later became founding artifacts in the Cult of Color, notably The Witness Ostrich and The Holy Herpetological Hagiosyllogium. She was later mentioned in an official declaration by the Academy of Saldan concerning the expedition:

...more devastating is the apparent descent into madness of the already dubious Dr. Hyngrefskadrdr, chair of the Department of Zoology. After bringing a chorus of singing birds into the light of the Unnamed and introducing a mind-virus that required the extermination of 12 indigenous Saldanese bird species, Dr. Hyngrefskadrdr has been declared "A Danger to Sanity and Decency" and at long last expelled from the Academy.

A 100-year moratorium has been imposed on the Department of Zoology: all students will need to re-qualify for programs in the temporary (100-year license) Office of Mundane Zoology within the School of Biology and Physiology -- students willing to sign a waiver of mental health are welcome to apply for special dispensation under the College of the Occult Muntz Memorial Fellowship for the Study of Unreality Cults...

Gudrun later went on to become an Elder Brightling, attended by her unwavering graduate students, who spread the good word of Professor Duran.