#grypha

He's actually one of my favorites... I just never know how to talk about him in a way that doesn't sound completely ridiculous. Contrary to popular belief he was not originally referencing Berdly Deltarune in any capacity but the joke has escalated enough that I kinda like referencing it. He's like. A Hero of Yore but everyone thinks he's annoying including the Halcandran council (albeit they see him as relatively harmless compared to the likes of Estella). Except for his fiancé I guess? Who also thinks he's annoying but like, in an endeared way, at least at first. Estella is one of the only other high-society Halcandrans that kinda likes him besides her, and that's only because he's one of the only characters that's not consistently making her life hell (lol).

The way I always introduce him is by saying he made Metal General, an impressive military software system that takes an array of robotic forms and is— despite being a soulless artificial intelligence— extremely attached to him. He's mostly an engineer + roboticist as a sort of foil (?) to NK, whom he first met 15-ish years ago when the latter was studying biochem in Halcandra (NK also met Amaia all the way back then. Relevant. ☝️). Though they're certainly rivals, they don't hate each other. Theoretically. You might remember NK got fired from his government-sponsored job immediately after his first fuck-up, and Grypha really wants to take his position.

Unfortunately, he is not so lucky and the Grand Magistrate orders him to work on their personal passion project— a machine out of their dreams— which spirals into what I can only describe as a series of events that completely ruin Grypha's life and career forever. Including but not limited to: Unwanted attention from terrorists he is embarrassingly sympathetic toward, an "accidental" political assassination, the creation of an evil mechanical god, unfortunate homoerotic encounters, and a fallout with his increasingly cartoonishly evil fiancé.

Without spoiling too much: His supposed "loyalty" to the council falls apart and it does not hesitate to backstab him when he becomes a little too inconvenient to it. There's a Literal Civil War going on by now (for similarly spoiler-related reasons), so they kinda... send him to the frontlines to die? 😭 He's recreational pilot and all, but not experienced in anything related to battleships, and is also completely unprepared for any sort of army leadership position (cough). Additionally, he's extremely squeamish about blood and violence: He's killed people before (and these are actually extremely important, life-changing moments for him that you will get to see written out eventually!) but he's totally incompetent at physical combat and prefers to avoid it since he knows hes awful.