Grillan Avaruvex's page

Grillan Avaruvex comes from a family partly-human individuals who are descended from an ancient dragon that goes by Avaruvex (full name unknown, for sensible reasons). The family traces their lineage back to late Early Dynastic Period of Mesopotamia, when a dragon was supposedly charmed by a priestess and rewarded her and lineage with long life and power, in exchange for "a Living Hoard." Despite the length of their ancestry, the family remains only of modest size, about 50 or 60 members in all, due to the difficulties of conceiving and bearing not-quite human children, and the occasional incident that results in members of the family dying. Most of the family serves Avaruvex faithfully, living among and caring for the dragon's hoards around the world, which are often disguised as museums or private collections of Objects of value.
Grillan himself was born sometime around the beginning of the 19th century, and always possessed something of a rebellious attitude. The family made good use of that for many years as he grew into adulthood, putting him out into the world to specialize in 'acquisitions' of new pieces for Avaruvex's hoard. Grillan was competent enough at the tasks he was set to, but only did them because they allowed him a certain degree of personal freedom that most of his family had never experienced. For the most part Grillan has always regarded the majority of his family as too content to be pets of their forebear, while his family regards him as an eccentric who will come around to being sensible one of these days.

The biggest exception to these attitudes were Grillan's relationship with the dragon itself. The two never quite saw eye to eye, with the dragon regarding Rill's defiant attitude and occasional acquisition of objects that he kept for himself as amusing and a show of strength, but certainly nothing to be concerned about... after all, Rill wasn't, and would never be, able to stand on an equal footing with it, given how thin his blood was. Rill, for his part, always felt patronized and hated every minute of that feeling, but more over he resented many of the things that were asked of him, in the objects he was sent to acquire. The fundamental disconnect was in the family's belief that the objects were more important than any human consideration.
The matter reached a head during the early period of World War 2, when Rill was told that the family planned to use the Nazi looting as cover for their own. Rill acceded at the beginning, but as he learnt what the Nazi's were doing, he came to believe that exploiting it was too monstrous to be allowed to stand. Avaruvex listened to his requests that they pitch in on the Allies side of the matter, and eventually grew tired of hearing them, finally saying he did not want to hear about the matter again, because what did mere humans matter, except for the lasting things they could produce?

Rill was incensed. The attitude had always been there, but to hear it stated explicitly drove him to rage. He decided that he would force Avaruvex to do the right thing, and began deliberately leaking the locations of parts of the dragon's hoard to the Nazi's. Once he had been stolen from, Rill reasoned, the dragon would turn its rage on the thieves.

He was right, but there were unintended consequences. In the fighting, Avaruvex was wounded, nearly unto death, and Rill was close enough that some of the dragon's splashed into his mouth. He swallowed before he even realized what it was, and it changed him, awakening the draconic portion of his nature that had been mostly dormant due to the distance of his ancestry before now. Rill got Avaruvex to safety, but his new found nature made things difficult... Avaruvex was insistant that Rill needed to stay near, so that he could understand the draconic urges he would experience, while Rill stubbornly insisted he could make his own way, just as he always had (an insistence born of a newly found instinct that made him believe Avaruvex would dominate or kill him if he stayed close). Ultimately Rill won the arguement, because Avaruvex was too wounded to stop him leaving. The family, acting on Avaruvex's instructions, continues to try and pull him back into the fold.

Life as a psuedo-dragon on your own isn't easy. Grillan hadn't expected it to be, of course, but he hadn't been prepared for it to be quite so troublesome. No sooner did he strike out on his own than he ran into difficulties with other supernaturals... beings which thought of him as a pawn to be moved about. His first major encounter with the supernatural, without any backup, was with a warlock who sought to Grillan's own (albeit small) hoard as a link for a ritual which would have allowed him to dominate the dragon, in the early 1960s. The ritual worked, to a limited degree; it didn't allow the sorcerer to dominate Grillan's acts directly, but it did let him compel Grillan into committing a few thefts for his benefit, and interfering in the Wardens attempt to hunt down the sorcerer.

Unfortunately for the warlock, Grillan didn't enjoy being bound to another's will, and was aware of what had been done. He spent what time he was able to studying how he'd been bound, and carefully fraying the bindings, often needing to enlist help from others in what he was doing. Finally, with the Wardens closing in again, the wizard tried to compel Grillan to die fighting them, but the Grillan had bound his mind tightly in spells that shattered the delicate control the warlock had been exercising when this happened... but also left him unconscious.

He showed up at the warlock's trial, and insisted on challenging the warlock under the accords with the Wardens standing as the neutral part officiating, under the argument that he had been the one wronged, and so it was his right to insist on satisfaction by his own hand. The warlock died in his breath shortly thereafter, as Grillan proved remarkably resistant to the powers the other tried to bring to bear.

Guest Starring: Jericho Korban
Having relocated himself and his Hoard to England, Grillan stumbled across a ferromancer lost in the NeverNever while exploring the new environs and making sure there were no major threats to his hoard likely to come through in it's new vicinity. After a short converstion, he came to the realization that he might need the Ferromancer's abilities in the future, and (slightly pleased to be tweaking the White Council's nose by helping him evade capture), Grillan offered the man directions to a passage that might let him back into the world in the nearby city.

Guest Starring: Kenneth Evander Finley
During one of his stints as a restoration specialist, Grillan was approached by a man to reconstruct some old stonework. The job paid well enough, but the patterns that Grillan ended up remaking left him with an unpleasant vibe.

Concerned, Grillan set about tracking the man down, and quickly discovered the man was a cult leader, and the symbols he had been recreating were only small parts of designs on a sacrificial altar. His path crossed with a young man named Kenneth, who was looking for a missing girl named Sloane. Worried that Kenneth might barge in and cause the cultists to use the altar precipitously and let their sponsor into the world (because Kenneth seemed a bit rash), Grillan presents himself as a concerned shaman who has figured out what the cult is attempting and wants to stop it.

He provides Kenneth with talismans which will offer a fighting chance against the cultists, in exchange for the agreement that the altar will be unmade after the girl is rescued.

being the objects of his hoard itself. The Draconic side of his nature heals and protects him, making him able to ignore virtually any source of injury, but any object in his hoard can bypass the protection, because the dragon won't risk damaging that which is its in protecting itself. As such virtually anyone could gain access to the catch (by violating the sanctity of his hoard), but it would require special research materials (I'm assuming accurate resources on fighting Dragons are not common) to know about. Supernatural toughness would be -4, the catch is worth +3, ending up with the whole thing being at -1.

Because I usually just pull these out of thin air when it seems appropriate, I thought I'd make a reference listing to make use of down the road.

• Arachne's Shuttle: A bronze shuttle decorated with embossed spiders that Grillan stole from a Greek archeological site early in his career for Avaruvex. It wasn't on the list of things he'd been supposesed to acquire, but he took it anyway, and has put it to use ever since establishing his own hoard. Grillan is currently using this as a focus object for his thaumaturgy wards.
  
• Snuff Box:
  
• Monocle:
  
• Dragonscale Cuff-links: