Traitor Lord

Traitor Lord used to be a member of the Mantis tribe which he led together with his sisters. When he and his followers embraced the Infection, they were cast out and settled in the Queen's Gardens.

He presumably has a deceased daughter whose grave can be found in the Queen’s Gardens just above the Stag Station. Her grave can be seen in the background of his arena in Godhome as well, further suggesting a connection between the two.

Behaviour and Tactics
The Traitor Lord has four attacks:


 * Dive: Traitor Lord will leap into the air and then dive towards The Knight, similarly to Mantis Traitors. This attack occurs in 2 parts: 1st, the leap straight up and 2nd, the dive. Both parts are dangerous. The dive is always at the same angle (about 45 degrees) and will cover about 25% of the arena.
 * Dash: Traitor Lord will dash towards The Knight and swipe with his claws. He rushes forward and covers about a third of the arena with this attack.


 * Dancing Glaive: Traitor Lord will throw two spinning orange wind-scythes in tandem. The wind-scythes travel across the arena in two slightly different cosine wave patterns. As the wind-scythes cross the arena, one wind-scythe will pull away from the other, creating an ever-growing gap between them. The wind-scythes persist for about three seconds and getting hit by one only does one mask of damage. However, if the Knight gets caught on the claws of Traitor Lord when he throws the windscythes, the Knight will take two masks of damage. Traitor Lord will only use this attack if the Knight is a good distance away but will sometimes dash away himself to perform this attack. This attack also cannot be done twice in a row and can only occur divided by at least one normal attack.
 * Ground Pound: Occasionally during a cooldown after a previous attack Traitor Lord will smash his claws feverishly into the ground, generating a massive shockwave in each direction. The shockwaves span from floor to ceiling of the arena, they travel faster than the Knight's base speed, and will traverse the entire arena. Traitor Lord will sometimes dash away if the Knight is too close and re-position to perform this attack. This attack will only occur after Traitor Lord has reached 500 hp.

All attacks except the Dancing Glaive attack deal two masks of damage. Contact damage with Traitor Lord will only deal one mask of damage.

Traitor Lord is a very large enemy in a very small arena and he attacks frequently.

If Cloth's quest has been followed, she will show up during the fight to aid the Knight, dealing 15 damage to Traitor Lord per club hit.

Traitor Lord's falling animation when entering the fight will also deal two masks of damage.

Use Shade Cloak dashing to avoid every attack Traitor Lord has. Use the spell Descending Dark for the invincibility frames. Strike with the Nail during those brief moments in between Traitor Lord's attacks. These are some of the most effective tactics against Traitor Lord.

Traitor Lord's two new attacks added in the Lifeblood update will only occur if the player strays too far from him. So long as the Knight is relatively close to Traitor Lord he will not perform these attacks and only Dash and Dive. Occasionally however he may quickly step a small distance backwards and perform these attacks through that method.

The only way to avoid the Traitor Lord's Ground Pound Attack is to have invincibility, such as that gained from using Shade Cloak or Descending Dark. Unlike all the other shockwave attacks in the game, the Traitor Lord's shockwaves span as tall as the ceiling of the arena. However, it is guaranteed that the player will have gained the Shade Cloak upgrade by this time as the player will have had to pass a Shade Gate to reach this boss.

Shape of Unn can be used to weave between Traitor Lord's wind-scythes while healing.

It is possible to jump to the top right side of the room and charge up the crystal dash and stay there until Cloth or a companion charm (Glowing Womb, Grimmchild, or Weaversong) finishes the job. The only attack that may cause damage while clinging to the wall are the Dive and Ground Pound attacks.

An easy way to cheese this boss is to use the Sharp Shadow charm and dodge through all of his physical attacks as they all home in on the player very well making it easier to dodge with the extended range.

Location
The Traitor Lord is located in the upper section of the Queen's Gardens, beyond a Shade Gate.

Trivia

 * If Cloth is present during the fight she will be impaled in Traitor Lord's final move. However she also takes one last swipe with her club bashing him on the head and leaving both dead.
 * Traitor Lord will only leave a corpse if he is killed by Cloth, if she is not present to deliver the final blow he will explode instead and leave nothing behind.
 * Usually, the Infection would reduce its victims to primal instincts; however the exiled Mantises set up tents throughout the Queen's Gardens, suggesting that perhaps the Traitor Lord and the other infected Mantises retain more of their mind than other infected creatures.
 * The Grey Mourner's lover was the Traitor Lord's daughter, but judging from her dialogue, the Traitor Lord and the rest of the tribe despised their relationship (due to the Grey Mourner being an outsider).
 * The Mantis Traitors that are fought before Traitor Lord do not drop Geo.
 * After the Lifeblood update, the Traitor Lord now visually emits a cloud of infection around his body
 * The blades the Traitor Lord sends out in his Dancing Glaive attack are a bright infected orange instead of white like all the other spinning mantis projectiles.
 * Traitor Lord was originally planned to be female, but was later on changed to be male.
 * The Traitor Lord fight is one of four fights in the game where an NPC aids the player; the other three are Uumuu with Quirrel, The Hollow Knight with Hornet and The Radiance with the aid of The Hollow Knight.
 * In Godhome, if Traitor Lord has not yet been defeated in Queen's Gardens, there will be a tablet where his statue should be saying "I defile the gardens of false royalty." This could mean that the Traitor Lord and his followers attacked the Queen's Gardens because they thought the White Lady was not the rightful Queen of Hallownest.

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