"...I'm Spark enough to return the crown and repair its guardians."
- Trelawney Thorpe, speaking to the "ghost" of King Arthur
A famous Spark and adventurer from England, who has many books written about her. Not unlike those of the Heterodyne Boys, they are apparently heavily embellished, but "these publishers are British"[1], whatever that may signify. Both fictionally and in actuality, she works for the Crown and wears the same service Badge as her friend and colleague Ardsley Wooster does (post time-freeze).
Her Associates
She has a vaguely annoying sidekick (or minion), Jolly Jack Tarr, who may be rather less real than Miss Thorpe and mostly seems to be there for her to exposit at. In real life, she and Ardsley are, unsurprisingly, personally acquainted and are, at the very least, friendly with each other.
Trelawny, as drawn by Cheyenne Wright.
She also supposedly "knew" the Iron Sheik and had some sort of noteworthy adventure with a glass dirigible.
Her rogues gallery appears to include such figures as Professor LeMort (think lots and lots of zombie mooks) and Lord Ainsley Houndkicker. LeMort features in Trelawney Thorpe, Spark of the Realm in: The Crown of the Sleeping King, the adventure of hers that is part of the collected works of GG and can be found in full in the back of Agatha Heterodyne and the Airship City and online at Cheyenne Wright's Arcane Times section of the Comic Genesis website.
She and the pirate(ish) Captain Hawkins of the airship Mopey Tortoise have some sort of relationship, though exactly how intimate of one is not entirely clear.
Trelawney Today
Agatha first hears about Ms. Thorpe while on Castle Wulfenbach where Gil is a fan of her printed adventures, but the British agent enters the main Girl Genius story in person when she meets ✣ Agatha, Ardsley and Co. just as the latter individuals arrive in Londinium from Paris via airship. She accompanies them as they all set out to intercept Madwa Korel and Dio Zardeliv as they arrive by submarine, reporting en route that she has an unnamed contact in Paris who has informed her of Tarvek's also being hopefully sent to England.
When the submarine in question comes crashing into its assigned airlock in a very unauthorized fashion, she assists ✣ in slowing it down, blows open ✣ its sealed hatch with a shaped charge she just happened to be carrying, and discovers that everyone on board is dead via poison gas.
Later, she pulls new arrival Gil away from his Mechanicsburg time-bubble research to have some fun out on the town; whether this is truly her idea or done on the orders of Albia (who considers Gil to be a weed in her metaphorical garden) is currently unknown.
The Works
Trelawney Thorpe, as she appears in the card game The Works.
Long before appearing in the comic, Trelawney Thorpe was included in the card game The Works where she is dressed in a sturdy green catsuit (matching the outfit in Cheyenne's comic) and clutches a seemingly sparky-built pot of tea. (Cf. Spark Roast.) Her epithets in the game are Hero, Legend, and Spark.
She appears very similar in the game and the comic; it even turns out that she can very quickly discard the restrictive purple dress in which she first appears, leaving her wearing ✣ the aforementioned and rather more practical green outfit. No sign yet of the teapot.