#gerringothe thorm

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Here it is, my deep dive into Gerringothe Thorm, after realising her Grim Visages aren't actually her undead employees and are in fact parts of her psyche! Hovering over the "grim visage" race on their character sheets reveals this:

Grim Visage These skulls spawned from Gerringothe Thorm's twisted psyche. Manifestations of her worst flaws, they keep the coins of her protective armour intact.

They're also all voiced by Gerringothe's actor, Penelope Rawlins, and I love the various different tones she uses, she has the RANGE.

Anyway, we have the Visage of Obedience, the Visage of Regret, the Visage of Greed, the Visage of Heartlessness, the Visage of Cowardice and the Visage of Guilt.

The Visage of Greed is pretty simple. She wants gold. She's also got the most ambient dialogue--if you've spent much time in the tollhouse, she's the one yelling about how, "I want it back!!" (Gerringothe herself is silent until you get pulled into a cutscene--all ambient dialogue is the visages.)

Look at it. Look at it all. Mine, MINE. Give me. GIVE ME.

The Visage of Heartless, meanwhile, is the funniest bitch in the game, and I support women's wrongs.

You'll find much of sentimental value among the confiscated goods. That is to say - junk. People treasure the most insignificant things - pets, children, memories.

(Worth noting, there's a pile of bloodstained pet collars outside the tollhouse, while the Waning Moon has notices up about missing pets. This is fine, probably.)

The others are more interesting! The Visage of Obedience, I still have some questions about--given this one tells you to "report to the tollmaster," this was why I initially thought they were Gerringothe's employees.

Report to the tollmaster. Pay the toll. No payment, no passage.

But then, speaking to Gerringothe, she's definitely trapped in this mindset that The Toll is what's important--the gold isn't for her, it's for The Toll, she's just Doing Her Job. (She's very much not just doing her job--journal entries and the other visages make clear she went way overboard, and she was planning illegal trade in the tollhouse, but the Visage implies she used this justification for her cruelty.)

The Visage of Regret is my favourite. She also has some of the most to say in ambient dialogue (unless I just spent way too long hanging out near her) and she's so sad.

You should leave now. I should have left when I still could. So many ships came, so many ships left. And I remained. The horizon seemed so close. But that was long ago.

She wishes she'd left!! She could have left, she could have had a better life!! Maybe I'm reading too much into things, but I can't help connecting the Gerringothe dreaming of the horizon with the text in the Heavy Book:

On the wall hangs a seaside landscape, which often catches my eye during the course of my work-a-day life. I'm surprised Gerringothe chose such a decoration for her tollhouse; I've never known her as any appreciator of nature, beauty, art... naught but the cold clink of gold. One day, when my days are repaid, I'll travel to the coast, breathe in two deep draughts of air, and forget Reithwin forever.

I've tried to find more about the seaside landscape a few times--my first thought that it was a painting to hide a secret little safe or something--but haven't found anything. I could still be missing something, but honestly, it sounds like Gerringothe also dreamed of getting on a ship and travelling to the coast someday. She could have been more.

The Visage of Cowardice implies Gerringothe didn't support Ketheric in his war--which tracks, as unlike Malus and Thisobald, there's zero signs of her even pretending to care about Shar.

Please understand--I couldn't fight. Couldn't risk losing all this. Sorry--I had to lock the doors. Had to keep things safe.

I do wonder if the comment about locking the doors was about the Shadow Curse. Did she lock people looking for safety out? Of course she wouldn't have run from the Curse herself, that would mean abandoning the gold.

And finally, we come to the Visage of Guilt, the only Visage you can actually have a conversation with!

Visage of Guilt: Yes. Many died - all for trying to pass. I took too much from them. 1. [Persuasion] If you can tell right from wrong, maybe we can still fix this. 2. [Insight] Perhaps you'd feel less guilty if you paid for your crimes too. 3. People die all the time. Stop being dramatic, and get over it.

And a separate photo with the fave, ofcourse! :3