Therad

> "*You mortals are powerful creatures indeed, aren't you? You managed to change my mind. Nobody's ever done that before.*"
> ― Game Master Therad to Empress Rixa
>
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Therad, often known by the epithet of Game Master, was (or, more likely, *is*) a Dread Titan. His tale is interwoven with that of Empress Rixa I, whom he frequently came into conflict with until eventually making a begrudging alliance with her. According to the ancient sources, the story goes that Therad once cared naught for the lives of mortals and desired to reclaim this world for the Titans, but his extensive interactions with Rixa caused his opinion to change. He eventually became a reluctant ally of mortals against other Titans and Dreadfolk, beginning with helping Rixa to stop the murderous scheme of Grand Mutator Groknit to bring Elki the Abominable into this world.

Therad came to dedicate himself to what he named the Great Game, which is the origin of his title of Game Master. This Great Game essentially consisted of a constant struggle against other Titans by interfering with their plans and despoiling the efforts of their servants, doing so by manipulating circumstances in his favour and constructing excessively elaborate plans. He seemed to take great enjoyment in this task, finding it entertaining to make his schemes as convoluted as possible.

Therad also appeared to have a passion for drama, sometimes deliberately inflating dangerous circumstances to make the victories of his servants more heroic (whilst, of course, never actually putting them in any more danger than they could handle). Much like Kevalinen the Fiend, whom Therad expressed great respect for and was possibly related to, Therad believed that heroes were a necessary and crucial feature of civilisation, and he had no qualms with infuriating his servants with unnecessary added risks if it would make their legend more spectacular.

The full extent of Therad's powers and abilities were never known, but he had a remarkable and unsurpassed capacity for telepathic communication. He was able to establish a permanent link of communication without even requiring a Window device (though one was apparently required in order to relay his other powers to this world, i.e. to make the communicant into a Witch), and he was able to project an image of himself into the sight of those he communicated with. This image of himself was always a shadowy humanoid figure with glowing red eyes, but there is no reason to believe that this is what he actually looked like, since Therad's real body has never been seen.

## Rivalry with Silaris

Therad has been recorded as interacting with Silaris the Great Raven on several occasions, each time with mutual and obvious hostility, with one author who encountered them describing them as "incessantly bickering". Despite this, there are no records of them actually fighting one another, and all the recorded instances of them interacting were in fact times when they came together as allies against a common foe. One Vampiric source from Roulonne describes a "Great Enemy" which exactly matches the description of Therad, which suggests that they were openly hostile in the past, but Therad has also been recorded as coming to the aid of the Vampire race on several occasions.

The exact nature of their relationship will likely forever remain totally unknown to Titanologists, but several scholars have only half-jokingly speculated that their constant bickering is a result of them being former lovers.