Gunnr

Gunnr, called the Mistress of War, was one of the nine Valkyries cursed by Odin to remain in a corporeal form until madness took her. Born and raised in Midgard, she was a fighter long before she became a chooser of the slain. After being sealed away by the Valkyrie Queen, she was freed from her corruption by Kratos and Atreus, and was later reborn by Freya as one of the Shield Maidens.

Early life#

Gunnr was abandoned by unknown parents and left at an inn in Blackheart Alley, where the innkeeper raised her as his own. She grew up utterly fearless and quick to fight, never hesitating to throw a punch and often starting brawls herself. If a fight broke out that she had not begun, she was the first to charge in and join it. This reputation made her trouble: a bully she had humiliated nursed his grudge, tracked her down, and set the inn ablaze one night by hurling a bottle through a window.

The bully believed Gunnr was cowering inside, unaware that she was only just returning home. Seeing flames rising around her adoptive father's room, she charged into the fire and dragged the innkeeper out, though both were burned. Enraged, she stormed the bully's hideout in the slums and faced him and his gang. The fight turned violent and chaotic, and it drew the attention of the Valkyrie Sigrun, then the finest fighter the order had known in memory.

Joining the Valkyries#

Sigrun had followed the violence she sensed expecting to find a battlefield of worthy, honorable dead, and was confused to be led instead to a brawl in a slum hideout. Gunnr apologized for keeping her from her work, but Sigrun saw potential in the young fighter and offered to take her under her wing and train her in the ways of the Valkyries. Gunnr hesitated, uneasy at the thought of serving a higher cause and bearing the responsibility of choosing the worthy dead, but Sigrun told her to put everything from her mind save the duty.

Under Sigrun and her sisters, Gunnr learned to master her anger and sharpen her combat skill through discipline and focus. She came to feel a sense of belonging she had never known, though part of her still doubted she deserved a place in Valhalla. In legend she became the Mistress of War, arriving first in the aftermath of any conflict to seek out worthy souls for the journey to Valhalla. Her judgment of the fallen was held to be unmatched and made her one of Odin's favorites.

Curse, freedom, and rebirth#

When the curse fell on the Valkyries, Gunnr was among the nine bound into flesh and sealed away. Her prison lay in a hidden chamber near Thamur's Corpse in Midgard. She wore a golden helmet shaped after a raven, and her corruption had turned her skin a sickly pale blue and given her great mechanical wings of black plated in golden metal.

When Kratos, Atreus, and Mimir entered her chamber, she attacked without mercy. Kratos defeated her and tore the wings from her back, which freed her spirit from its corrupted form. Released, she asked the three to free her sisters from their own curses and offered her helm to aid them in the task before her spirit passed on. During Ragnarok she was found and reborn by Freya in a pure new body, her skin restored and her metallic wings replaced with organic birdlike ones. As a Shield Maiden she acknowledged Kratos as her general and joined the sisters who led Helheim's forces against Asgard. She was among the survivors of the war.