Grandrake

Grandake is an ancient Bronze Dragonling and one of the last surviving veterans of the Southern Crusades, having served with the Imperial Air Force during the Empire's expansion into the Southlands.

Already an adult when the campaigns began more than two centuries ago, Grandake is now enormous by Dragonling standards. Dragonlings continue to grow throughout their adult lives, gaining roughly an inch each year while healthy, and Grandake's sheer size makes his age immediately apparent. He is heavily scarred, broad through the chest and shoulders, and considerably larger than the Dragonlings normally encountered around The Grand City of Mor'Koc.

His military career ended during a boarding action when a Crocodilid Lizardfolk tore off one of his legs. Grandake survived. The Crocodilid did not.

He still wears several of its teeth around one foreleg, mixed among trophies taken from other opponents during his service. They are neither ceremonial decorations nor carefully preserved military honours. They are simply things Grandake kept.

Grandake bears an old Imperial Air Force service tattoo marking fifty years of service. Age, mutilation and more than two centuries of civilian life have done little to soften his manner. He remains capable of the sharp calls and clipped Draconic commands of an old airman, and younger Dragonlings tend to obey him before stopping to consider why.

When the Southern Crusades settled into their long cold war, much of the old Imperial Air Force was mothballed, and its surviving crews dispersed. Grandake apparently retired with it.

During the events of Tir & Nox II, when the old veterans were secretly recalled and twelve surviving Imperial airships were prepared for service, Grandake returned to his former ship without hesitation. He was seen descending onto the docks before dawn when one of the vessels developed trouble with its port stabiliser. After a short series of commands, a dozen Dragonlings joined him on the guide ropes and helped haul the struggling airship clear.

More than two hundred years after the Southern Crusades, Grandake was once again serving aboard an Imperial warship.

For him, apparently, retirement had merely been an unusually long period of shore leave.