Name: Glausir the Malevolent

Age: Six centuries and four score and nine years, by the counting of Men (689)

Gender: Male

Race: Dragon

Sub-race: Black Dragon (Mountain-Wyrm)

Class: Beast

Occupation: Terroriser of Men and Dwarves; enemy of all goodly folk; hoarder of treasures and thief of livestock; taker and burner and slasher and foe.

Portrait:



Appearance: Once sleek and swift, he has since grown fat and massive and rigid in his old age. His rippling black scales span the length of his reptilian bulk, bristling outward like spiny quills. An engorged belly lies eternally upon a copious hoard of dwarf-made treasures, its already rock-hard hide bolstered by trinkets of silver and golden coins and precious gems encrusted upon his abdomen. A thick mane of black hair runs down his spine and dangles beneath his chin in a matted, stringy beard. His wings span nigh on a daunting hundred feet, wrapped taut in sinewy leather. Two great horns, twisted and gnarled, curl from his brow to his nape; a crown of blackened bone. His tale begins at the base with tightly packed muscle, though continues ever on, growing slender and wiry, ending finally in a cruel, lashing tip. This appendage he uses like an especially powerful whip to batter the shields of his foes; its swipe can take the head of a horse clean off.

Apparel: He wears naught but his skin, a hauberk of terrible, black scales.

Personality: With a voracious appetite and a hatred for all living things, the Beast of Nidafjoll rarely exhibits any discernible personality traits aside from bloodlust and rage. Though when he is full and calm, and if one were able to carry on a conversation with him at a safe distance, one would detect a distinct flicker of sarcasm in his otherwise polite and courteous discourse. Ever adverse to being crass, when an insult is cast from his venomous tongue it is done so in a subtle and implicative manner. Truly Glausir is a sadist, as well, for he delights in the emotional torment of his victims. It is not uncommon for him to allow one survivor in a large batch of human prey to converse with, filling the poor man or woman's heart with despair and terror before mercifully dispatching them.

Alignment: Neutral Evil

Weapons: He bears not blade nor bow, but massive, vicious claws and teeth like swords unto themselves. His fire-breath is a weapon to be feared, as well, for he can belch his scarlet fire as far as the wind will carry its flickering tendrils of flame!

Magic: Like all dragons, Glausir is capable of dragonmagicks; mostly his sorcery comes from trickery and the power of suggestion, for like his forebears he is well-versed in the strange and wicked arts of riddling and deception, instilling doubt and fear in the hearts of brave warriors. Earth and fire are his playthings, however, and it sometimes seems as though his mountainous dwelling bends to his whims. He can create illusions and speak any language he has heard others speak – that is why the dwarves of Nidafjoll to this day will still not utter a single word of their well-guarded, secret and ancient tongue, in fear of the possibility he might overhear it.

Family:

Father — Valgrist the Miserable; Elf-foe and Scourge of Darkmore

Mother — Smyngol the “Wyrmqueen”; Scourge of Nidafjoll

Birthed from the womb of the vile wyrm Smyngol, First Scourge of Nidafjoll, and her consort, the dread Valgrist who burned the Elven realm of Fingoldwym – deep in the heart of the forest of Gal’Nahas – to smouldering ash. These two dragons come each from a long line of drakes with hearts as black as pitch.

Origin:

Long ago did Smyngol, First Scourge as she was called by the dwarves of Nidafjoll, a small but wealthy mountain-kingdom of dvergar far beneath the Vlos Mountains, meet Valgrist – and the terrible she-drake was smitten with the deathly throes of a great passion. She longed to bear the offspring of this strong and fearsome beast, for well-known to her was the tale of his dark deeds.

Valgrist was the legendary Elf-foe of the woodland realm of Fingoldwym, whose ivory towers and villas he razed delightedly to the ground. It was an act of malice, but of vengeance as well, for it was the Grey Elves of Fingoldwym who attempted to halt his advance upon Taiar from the southern lands of Darkmore, near the northern banks of the south-running mountain river.

Now Smyngol was no obscurity herself; her name was feared in the Lands Between almost as greatly as Valgrist’s, for it was she who laid waste to Hambrill, a prosperous city of merchants from the race of Men, and engaged in a ten-year war with the dwarves of Nidafjoll – during which time she succeeded in taking half their city from them. The Great Gates, which separated her lair from their side of the city (and which she herself was never able to break through), became their last line of defense in the following years.

Smyngol took to the skies as Valgrist’s flight brought him low over the Vlos Mountains; there in the clouds she seduced him with a weaving, skillful aerial dance. They retreated to her den and spent many days there in utter darkness, conceiving a great brood.

Bred in the dilapidated depths of Nidafjoll, Glausir was to be but one of many in a great wyrm-brood. Smyngol’s eggs lined nearly every corner of every pit in the realm; organized into large, spiraling blooms and circles, or strange, alien patterns; they were everywhere. So filled was her lair, in fact, that she and Valgrist were forced to leave the innermost recesses temporarily and took to guarding the outer chambers.

Several months passed, and the gestation period of the dragon-brood was thought to be complete by the eager mother-to-be. When Smyngol re-entered her nesting grounds, however, she was alarmed by what she saw.

To her chagrin, not a single hatchling was to be seen… save one: a single, fat hatchling, black as pitch, sitting contentedly upon a pile of rotting, half-eaten corpses. These were the corpses of his deceased siblings, slain by his jaws. There were thousands, all dead. Many had died long before they left their eggs, for these were cracked open and sucked like yoke from their shells. In his cannibalistic feast, the one surviving son of Smyngol and Valgrist had become enormous, larger than any hatchling should ever, ever be.

While Smyngol looked in horror, Valgrist looked in pride; he knew that this single son should prove to be a worthy heir, for the strength vested in him was clearly greater than even the sum of a thousand, ten thousand, twenty-thousand of his brothers and sisters. In him lived the spirit of Valgrist the Miserable.

Valgrist was slain ten years after his birth in the dilapidated depths of Nidafjoll by an elf-lord named Elrondin of Tyreth, avenging his fallen comrades of Fingoldwym. The mighty beast was brought down by a blinding bolt of light, the conjurings of the elf-lord's unfathomable elven magick, where upon he and Elrondin did battle upon the earth. Valgrist slew all of the lord's retainers, but still he fought bravely on, at last managing to pierce the creature's brain with an upward thrust into the jaw, losing his hand in the process. Ever-after he was known as Elrondin the Sacrificed.

Smyngol outlived her consort for at least two hundred years. In the final year of her life, the dwarves of Nidafjoll crafted a weapon which they believed would be powerful enough to challenge the wyrm-queen. Using it, the king sent his greatest champion through the Last Bastian Gates and into her foul lair. There, Udvi the Grim wielded the eldritch hammer, Earthsmiter, and did battle with Smyngol for two days and three nights. Upon the dawning of the third day, each weary combatant prepared for a final push to triumph. Symngol faltered... her scaly crown made vulnerable to a direct swing... and finally, her head fell limp upon a heap of dwarf-gold with a clatter of metal upon stone.

During the time, Glausir, as his father named him, grew fat off the blood of Men and Elves in the lands outside of his mother's realm. News reached him of his mother's death in time, however, and his malevolent heart delighted. She had been the only thing standing between him and the comfort that the dwarven realm had to offer. He felt no sadness at the loss, but view it as an opportunity to claim what was rightfully his.

Ever since, he has been warring with the dwarves.

Interesting Fact: Glausir’s left eye is, unlike his flaming, ruby-coloured right eye, a pallid hue of milky white in which no pupil resides. It is said that this eye can be used to read the thoughts of mortal men and mythical being alike, cast a hypnotic stare which can ensnare the minds of lesser folk, and see into the future.
Though riddle-making is one of his terrible strengths as a dragon, it is also one of his greatest weaknesses; he is unable to resist the urge to solve them, and can be waylaid by clever adventurers thusly with a particularly perplexing riddle.
He is also the eternal foe of gryphons and their rarer cousins, hippogriffs, doing battle with them whenever he encounters one.

Pets: Anything he encounters with a heartbeat is viewed as a potential meal and nothing more.

Allies/Enemies: Glausir despises all living things. He loves nothing, not even himself. His only delight is in spreading misery and disrupting peace.