JOURNEYS ABOARD THE CRYOK: Pyrodox

Legal Name: Wynfrith Damhlaic Gionachbalg

Aliases: Pyrodox, “The Fatass”

Sex: Male

Species: Dragon

Age: 94 (37 in dragon years)

Place of Birth: Panteion V, Alpha Sector

Legal Status: Identity unknown to public, Legal identity presumed dead

Occupation: Bounty hunter, assassin, spy

Allegiance: Church of Revenance

Height: 7’3

Weight: 2,000-4,000 lbs.

Sexuality: Heterosexual

Marital Status: Single

Known Relatives: Caecilius Gionachbalg (father), Mairead Gionachbalg (mother), Olaf Gionachbalg (older brother, Alpha Republic Administrator), Montresor Gionachbalg (older brother), Montague Moniqual (godfather, deceased), Sorova Roussimoff (godsister)

Vehicles of Choice: The Crimson Donkey (destroyed), The Mercygiver, Custom Hoverbike

Weapons of Choice: Vemesol S89 laser pistol, Silma CC33 Multilaser, Gast 37c projectile pistol, Harlon 16 assault rifle, stun gun

Creator: Pyrodox

Voiceclaim: Pyrodox

Wynfrith Damhlaic Gionachbalg was hatched on Panteion V, a provincial planet of the Alpha Republic, to a once-noble Draconic family who had recently squandered much of its wealth while still maintaining its tenuous connections. The high expectations of his lineage, combined with a few scholarships, afforded him a decent education from relatively prestigious schools, but his upbringing was too sheltered to match that with viable work skills. During his early teens, he received a mysterious gift: a weathered human skull with the message: “This is Alliason Menrik Manriol of Haradia VI. Born 458379. You will kill him. You will be feared.” [1] Wynfrith kept the token, motivated to realize such notoriety after a dull, underwhelming life. However, things don’t always go as planned.

Despite his lack of any apparent relevant skills, his family pressured him to join the military as an officer, partially out of tradition and partially to help cover educational costs. Wynfrith despised the stringent lifestyle, and could never adapt to his administrative duties. His career as an incompetent junior officer in the Republic military was cut short during the Battle of B6, in which his incompetence managed to get the majority of his platoon killed while he abandoned the scene in a state of panic. At 26, he was discharged from the military and returned to Panteion V in shame.

Unable to attain any decent job due to his lack of developed skills and subtly incriminating military record, he transitioned to entry-level blue-collar work, making him a failure by virtually all standards set by his family. While his relatives responded to his return with forced acceptance, he could never feel like he belonged to his bloodline, and his current employment never allowed him any opportunity for advancement.

Yet he learned a lot during his tenure as a member of the lower class. He saw the frustration with which people lived under the supposedly ideal society of the Republic. He began to see how it was a corrupt and flawed system of government, in contrast to how he was raised to view it. He began to learn about the Church of Revenance, which was very much like the religion he was raised in, only this faith was not compromised by subservience to the ideals of democracy.

A decade after his dismissal from the military, Wynfrith hatched a plan to pursue his destiny, one which required his own simulated death. Collecting his own blood over an extended period, along with plenty of bones and entrails from local butcheries, he faked an industrial accident at his workplace. Now freed from his previous life, he adopted the alias “Pyrodox."

With the clean slate he required, he was able to develop his skills as a bounty hunter at a natural pace. Over following decades, he became a skilled assassin and mercenary, accumulating enough skill and experience to be a sought-after consultant and tactician. One of his earlier missions attracted the attention of one Montague Moniqual, who steered him in the direction of the Church of Revenance. He found a worthy confessor in the form of Elder Saleria, whose earnestness the dragon respected. Saleria was a faithful mentor, even though he felt somewhat put upon by his ward’s wayward, unstable nature. When he was finally initiated into the Church, he became an even more mysterious figure in the underworld, which to this day has little to no clue of his allegiance. He finally found his place: at the forefront of the Church’s growing crusade to impose order on the galaxy, all while posing as an agent of chaos.

His existence was first known to Zucca & Co. after Rebecca Mallory encountered him on Coroba while attempting to collect on a bounty on cartel lord Dominic Paslik. Mallory found herself the sole survivor of her free-lance team when Pyrodox had interfered, vaporizing Paslik and taking the body of his associate Alliason Manriol as the sole collectible bounty. Not wanting to leave empty-handed, Mallory pursued Pyrodox and destroyed the latter’s Aetheria-class ship, forcing him to hand over Manriol’s bleached skull. Unfortunately, she was unable to collect the bounty upon being informed that, despite a positive genetic match, the skull was over 4,000 years old. She was then attacked in transit by Pyrodox in The Mercygiver. He grounded her, beat her, and took Manriol’s skull back. Mallory guessed that he took it to the unknown planet of Omiron, where she encountered Scorpio as he completed his causality loop, sending the prime version of Manriol’s skull back through the Well of Time while keeping his fresh copy. After a tense conversation, he revealed that he knew of her connection with Zucca Xerfantes. [1]

Since then, Pyrodox had been a mysterious figure in the main cast, often acting as ally, often as enemy. Despite ideological differences, it’s clear that he shares basic moral premises with Zucca & Co., and he has gradually become a trusted friend to them.

STRENGTHS

- Expert Tactician: In addition to a natural ability for lateral thinking, Pyrodox has approximately 50 years’ worth of combat and paramilitary experience. He is normally cautious, but occasionally has moments of extreme aggression in his strategies, which make him unpredictable. His intuition is enough to keep ahead of Zucca Xerfantes, who has unmatched years of experience.

- Patient: Prefers to wait until the opportunity is right.

- Dragon: Pyrodox is a dragon who possesses the natural abilities of such. He can breathe fire, is immensely large, and possesses a dangerous spiked tail and its axe-like prosthetic. Relatively heavy by the standards of a male, he can flatten people and is nearly impervious to most attacks from ground level. He can also bite with powerful jaws if he has to.

-Decent Marksman: Pyrodox is well-trained with various types of firearms and energy weaponry.

-Piloting Skills: Pyrodox is a skilled pilot and can perform combat maneuvers in a ship he is familiar with (and can fit inside).

-Multilingual: Pyrodox is fluent in at least four languages.

WEAKNESSES

- Cowardly: Pyrodox avoids risking himself whenever possible, and has been known to panic and flee dangerous situations. He is secretly ashamed of this and hopes to improve in this area.

- Emotionally Unstable: Despite being calm most of the time, Pyrodox can sometimes experience unpredictable mood swings and lash out impulsively before he can gain control.

- Low Threshold for Pain: Pyrodox has nearly comical pain sensitivity, which has caused him to either avoid battle altogether or lash out violently in the middle of one.

- Occasionally Slow-Witted: Pyrodox prefers to have enough time to calculate his move, and can sometimes panic or make mistakes on the spot.

- Bulky: Pyrodox is remarkably fat by (male) dragon standards and he’s not terribly quick in overall mobility, nor can he fit into most spaces that others can.

- No Upper Body Strength: Despite being very fat in his lower body, Pyrodox’s upper body is very skinny and has practically no strength. Any successful attempt by an enemy to get into the position of hand-to-hand combat would present a nearly hopeless situation to him.

POWER GRID