What We Know About Thordak: A Summary

Thanks to @_dovaquiin for the art!

Following Vox Machina’s meeting with the leader of Ank’Harel, there has been a lot of discussion amongst the Critters about what we know about The Cinder King. We compiled a list of all relevant quotations about him in a document you can access here. Below the cut, we summarize all we know about him. Spoilers up through episode 66; all facts, no speculation.

• Thordak ruled in the Scalding Sands, an area that takes up nearly half of Marquet, for centuries. (Ep 40, 66)
• He got greedy and attempted to attack Ank’Harel, the city that J’mon Sa Ord rules and protects, with his armies of lizardfolk and other serpentine followers. (Ep 40, 66)
  • Ank’Harel was around 100-150 years old by this point. (Ep 66)
• J’mon and their forces defeated the armies and chased Thordak to the ocean where they mortally wounded him, saw him fall into the ocean, and presumed him dead. (Ep 40, 66)
• Thordak survived, however, and in the intervening centuries ruled over the island of Viscal in the the south Lucidian Ocean, terrorizing the nearby beaches and passing ships. (Ep 40)
  • It has been about 400 years since Thordak was shot down. (Ep 41)
• About 15 years ago, Thordak once again got greedy and began to raze the cities south of the Stormcrest Mountains and Verdant Expanse. (Ep 40)
  • This included Byroden, Vex and Vax’s home. (Ep 40, possibly confirmed again by Syldor in Ep 60 when he tells the twins to “avenge” her.)
• After unsuccessfully battling Thordak, Allura called upon the Arcana Pansophical to help devise a trap with her and her adventuring party that included Kima, Drake Thunderbrand, Ghenn, Cyrrus, and Dohla. (Ep 40, 57)
• This trap involved taking a Heart Stone from a primordial Fire Titan and made it into a Soul Anchor, that was supposed to anchor Thordak in the Elemental Plane of Fire. (Ep 40, 57)
• With the Fire Ashari’s help, Allura’s group convinced Thordak that he would be powerful enough to contain a Heart Stone. (Ep 45, 47, 57)
• Once he consumed it, the team was able to press him down and banish him to plane, they thought forever. (Ep 57)
  • While there, he got much larger and obsessed over his revenge. (Ep 40, 57)
• About 4 years ago, a 15 year old woman named Raishan came to the Fire Ashari, seeking refuge. The Ashari took her in, taught her some of their magic, and treated her as one of their own. (Ep 47)
• A year or a little more before the attack, Vox Machina found Brimscythe’s lair and heard the voice come from the jewels. They destroyed Brimscythe, who was a young/adult blue dragon. (Story of VM)
• In the months before the Conclave’s attack, Raishan took to spending days at a time alone in the Cindergrove. (Ep 57)
• During Winter’s Crest, Raishan tore open the rift between the Elemental Plane of Fire and the Prime Material Plane using very powerful magic. Old magic, even. (Ep 57)
  • Despite the use of Old Magic, the Conclave and its attack seem to be unrelated to Tiamat and her residence in Baator. (Ep 43)
• Thordak, leading the Chroma Conclave, destroyed the city of Emon, and sent the remaining dragons eastward while he remained to lead over Emon, claiming mercy upon the surviving residents of the city and declaring their new purpose to be to serve him. (Ep 39, 40)
• During the attack, Thordak, roughly twice the size of the other dragons, physically tossed Vorugal from Greyskull Keep in a show of dominance. (Ep 40)
  • White dragons, in particular, hate other dragons, and never forget a slight. (Ep 57)
• According to Gilmore, the Heart Stone was still visible within Thordak’s chest during the destruction of Emon. (Ep 41, 57)
• Since then, Thordak has made Emon into his new lair. The land is now volcanic, and he continues to dig and burrow. He’s enslaved sculptors to carve his likeness into the Cloudtop District walls, and he forces the residents to serve him and bring him gold. If they refuse, they die. (Ep 41, 57, 64)
• Lizardfolk patrol the city as Thordak’s police and army. (Ep 42)
• Every dusk, Thordak calls a gathering of the remaining population of Emon to worship him. Those that do not participate are eaten. He’s exceedingly vain, and Asum calls him “crazy.” (Ep 64)
• According to Asum, Thordak has a set of gems similar to those they saw in Brimscythe and Vorugal’s lairs. (Ep 64)
  • Though it was stated in Episode 64 that they had seen similar jewels in Umbrasyl’s lair that were already destroyed, it was said in Episode 56 that they did not see them because it was not Umbrasyl’s original lair.
• Thordak has an increasingly large network of spies. (Ep 64)
• The day VM got back from the Feywild, something (we don’t know for sure exactly what this was- there are a couple of options or combination of options) made him angry enough to send the majority of his wyvern guard eastward. An army of wyverns appeared to buzz Whitestone with Vorugal later that same day; it is unknown if this was the same army, especially since the timing would be tight for a flight from Emon to Whitestone (6 hours). (Ep 64)