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Thad moved in the valley after causing massive chaos both at Joja and the Ministry. (Not his fault, he did exactly what he was told to do.) Not that the townspeople know that, or anything about him, really. He lives alone deep in the woods and visits the town rarely. Despite that they consider him a helpful and cheerful neighbour. He's a good listener but will carefully avoid saying anything about himself. He also pays really close attention to everything that goes around him, has a really good memory and will dig through everyone's personal objects, but most people haven't figured out that yet. (Old habits die hard.) He's very curious and always down to try or learn new things.

Had a mutually beneficial deal with the Ministry while working at Joja - they help him get out of there while he helps them investigate if Joja is illegally messing with magic. (Of course they were.) An agreement everyone at the Ministry ended up regretting after it was revealed that multiple mages from the Ministry were secretly helping Joja. Part of the reason the situation in the Badlands got out of control this horribly was because everyone at the Ministry was busy with the fallout of the newly discovered corruption within their ranks. They also regretted getting Thad out in general, since they're pretty sure he's not even human any longer, but Thad considers it payback for forcing him to work at Joja in the first place.

He and Magnus already know each other since it was Magnus who 'hired' him to help with the Ministry's investigation. (Magnus is also now responsible with keeping Thad from messing with magic too, but everyone already know that's not going to happen in a depressed acceptance kind of way.) Every mage and adventurer knows about him and about the whole mess, and a few blame him directly for all the paperwork and investigations they had to go through.

His presence in the Valley causes weird things to happen due to his contradictory and unstable magic - life/forest and void/death. (Qi and Grandpa are to blame for the odd combination.) He has trouble using his magic because of it. Ever since he moved to Pelican Town dark magic is starting to get stronger, monster are more agressive and more likely to breed and leave the mines, and dark creatures almost unheard of before have been spotted in the woods. But nature and forest magic are also getting stronger - plants grow faster and healthier, rare or nearly extinct animals are starting to thrive, pollution is disappearing or at least affecting the environement less, and magical creatures that were droved away by humans and especially by Joja are tentatively moving back into the Valley, like junimos and fairies. (This means lots of interesting research opportunities but also lots of extra worry for the already overworked Ministry/Order members.)

Like his magic, Thad has a very contradictory and changing personality, but keeps most of it hidden (despite seemingly having no filter). He doesn't trust people and never opens up. He's generally mocking and sarcastic in a playful way, doesn't take anything seriously and always wastes his time instead of working. Very smug and annoying, will start fights by saying things people don't want or need to hear. Doesn't apologize or regrets what he's done no matter how bad the situation gets, he'll always choose to double down instead of backing off. But he can also be surprisingly calm and obedient. His personality changes fast, sometimes within minutes, and makes predicting his reactions hard. Which is a problem since he has violent tendencies, especially when his dark magic is stronger than the forest one. Gets along weirdly well with Lance, who's often called to calm him down or get him out of some place.

He has lots of animalstic and inhuman traits or behaviours, like making weird noises, especially when talking with other supernatural beings, smelling magic more than feeling it, and his eyes sometimes glow in the dark like a cat's. Also lots of horror-like traits, like his face sometimes looking wrong when someone is watching him from the corner of their eyes or looking at his reflection, but normal when they look directly at him. (He's not aware that this happens and doesn't understand why people suddenly react weird to him when he's not doing anything.) He died while working at Joja and his body sometimes forgets he's alive again, so randomly he'll stop breathing or won't have a pulse. (He's not aware of that either and doesn't feel it, his magic just takes over until his organs start working again.)

Why are there like three Hells now? Plus a mini-Hell made by expelled devils... Are the Arbors a (former) part of Hell, since roses and mirrors are their thing? It did say that they separated from something bigger. Or at least that that something separated from them.

If Hell and the Fourth City were the two big powers in the Neath then what happened to Hell? Civil war, since the text mentions rebels and different factions? I mean London falling couldn't've taken out both Old Hell and the Fourth City at the same time, right?

I do know at least what happened to the Fourth City. But I don' know why. I thought the Bazaar summons another city when the previous one becomes ruins for whatever reason, kinda like changing batteries when one runs out. But it seems the Fourth City was still populated and active when London got dumped on its head. Was it because Hell was starting to infiltrate it? I actually don't know what's the relation between Hell and the Bazaar. I seemed they were getting along in some capacity since they worked together to burn some church books. But the last two cities were pretty hostile to Hell, 'specially London lol.

Or was the city simply getting too uppity? Is this how the Bazaar deals with things? Just dump an even bigger city on top of the previous one and call it a day? London is pretty big, what would be next? Throwing current day New York at it? And are actually all cities in the same spot? I assumed their ruins are scattered across the Neath. But the Fourth City is below London, and other roman city is too since you can see some brickwork in the sewers. Can I reach them all from the Embassy by just walking lower and lower underground? So what else is in this continental wide cavern since apparently it's not the old cities? I mean apparently another whole continent, but that brings even more questions about geography, what counts as a continent underground?

And what happened to the people and devils in the Fourth City? Probably not (all) dead yeah? So, are they still down there? I checked Ladybones Road after finally helping my devil friend to see if there's anything new there and half of the game's lore jumped me!

And then there's the snake and spider motif that keep popping up. Snakes at least are also associate with Arbor, but the spiders are much more ominous. Like, where do sorrow spiders come from? And what are flaming dreams? I only got the mirror ones 😭