Party Hard

Question: Do you agree with Thrud's character description in the Ragnarock supplement as a cross between a Norse pagan and sorority girl, or do you have a different personality for her?

Well, that's a bit of a misleading question; while Thrud's writeup does say she looks like a cross between a Norse pagan and a sorority girl, it goes on to describe her as primarily a frontline soldier for the Aesir who just happens to have a good time in between battles. She doesn't have very much in common with actual sorority girls; that's just a physical description, not a personality one. She likes to party, but only when she's not busy being sent on monster-murdering missions by her pantheon, which is a description that fits her father Thor just as well (and he is definitely not a sorority girl).

It doesn't apply much to Thrud's writeup, but in general, we usually don't agree with characterizations of gods that set them as having distinctly mortal personalities and roles; quite apart from the fact that it loses some of the mythic flavor we enjoy, it doesn't make a lot of sense to us. The World is fun and all, and some gods probably enjoy coming down to take on mortal roles now and then, but hanging out there being human with petty human concerns would more than likely bore most gods very quickly. Then, too, there's the fact that Shit Is Going Down in the Overworlds, so divine Virtues are going to make it very difficult for gods to spend time vacationing among mortals when there are Titans on the loose and rampaging damage is being done to their homes and families.

But anyway, back to Thrud. As far as her personality goes, that's as good a one as any; Thrud herself actually does exactly nothing in Norse myth, appearing only as an object that dudes are trying to get or a daughter attached to her famous father. It's the classic Norse goddess syndrome: if Norse mythology were a movie, Thrud would have no lines. Her name's meaning ("strength") and her father's generally boisterous temperament lend themselves to interpreting Thrud as more of the same, so we'd probably consider her much similar to him. If you consider her to be the same as the valkyrie of the same name (Scion: Ragnarok doesn't, but the writeup sure makes her a lot more valkyrie-like than her other legends would paint her!), you have an easy place to point out what she's been doing and how she uses her badass talents to aid the Aesir.

Strangely enough, while the PCs in our games have spent entirely too much time with Thor, have emotionally tangled with Sif and have run across Magni and Modi a time or two, Thrud has never made an appearance. (And considering that she's figure #827 on Geoff's List of Ladies of Asgard to Avoid, maybe that's for the best. He does historically have problems with valkyries.)