Venyrax Gallentes

==Stats==
===Mark Tracker===
Marks: 14 TTWWTTWWTWWTWT
Afflictions: Achey chest scar (W), Visions of death (T), Maelstrom in the Blood (T), Necrotic Touch (T)
===Advances===
*Wanderer of the wilds (Story, +1 Spelltracker (Autumn 2015))
*All spheres are important (Voting, 1 Governance (Spring 2016))
*Bring forth new growth (Infrastructure, transfer Infrastructure from X to the Broken Lands 1/year (Autumn 2016) by bringing resources to the Broken Lands' primal spirits)
*Friends in scribe places (Infrastructure, transfer Infrastructure to Loyalty in X region 1/year (Spring 2017) by putting resources into administrative reform that benefits citizens; Venyrax has made contacts within the Athesian administration including personal scribe Septimia Hortensia.)
*Harness the Elements (Story, +1 Voice of the Earth (Autumn 2017))
*Nature's Intervention (Infrastructure, transfer Loyalty to Purity in any region 1/year (Spring 2018) by enlisting primal spirits to spot impure things happening and either reward purity or...discourage impurity)
*Contact with Primordial Forests (Infrastructure, transfer Infrastructure in the Broken Lands to any region 1/year (Autumn 2018))
==Background & Story==
Venyrax: "The scale, it’s complicated, I’m tangled up in, uh. Not the wastes anymore. … [counts off steps on fingers] I found, ended, left, but they’re, uh, now. I get caught, there’s no high point."
Ortica: "It’s strange and complicated. Things were simple when we roamed, it was a matter of find the threat, end or dispel the threat, move on – easy! We’ve been trying to keep doing that on a bigger scale, but we don’t always recognise the threat, we don’t understand it, they’re not simple. The costs are longer, we’re paying in experience and we get caught up in things, there’s no way to stay detached and once we’re entangled everything is harder, we can’t look down from a high vantage point anymore."
Pronouns ze/zir/zirs (see below for usage; they’re the same as the player’s). Ortica’s pronouns vary.
Venyrax is a tall, stringy, weathered-looking half-elf from the Broken Lands whose constant companion is an ex-living spell translator nature spirit called Ortica. Where Venyrax is dour, terse and usually incomprehensible, Ortica is gregarious, eloquent and chatty, though she has become less so of late. They’re friends, companions, and these days most of Venyrax’s communication happens through Ortica. 
Ze came out of the Broken Lands, having acted for years as a lone agent dealing with the chaos of living spells rampaging around the area in order to keep the villages and people as safe as possible. It became increasingly clear to zir that on zir own it was a holding action, so ze walked out of the wilds and onto the Council via tracking down Paavi Karjalainen, notorious disliker of more corpses.
Once, anything beyond that was unclear; there was a 'before Ortica' and other vague temporal milestones, but ze remembered very little of zir past. This recently changed. Venyrax is 85 years old (92 counting time spent in the past) and was born in Oversight to Kalavia and Soteris Gallentes, but the village was taken by a Seclusion spell when ze was 14, leaving zir the only escapee. Before that, ze had been an affectionate, gregarious child. That event, and zir subsequent years wandering the wastes training and fighting for reasons ze was increasingly forgetting, changed who ze was for good.
Venyrax is an absolute believer in the idea that Athesia is better unified, that the union of the regions will benefit all of them, that acting centrally is more efficient, and in the Athesian cause. Ze prefers preventing problems and long-term, big solutions, and always tries to protect and conserve people and lands. Despite zir hard, unapproachable demeanor, ze is quick to love things, places, people.
It's been rough, zir time on the Council. Ze is tough and steadfast, but has been through the wringer and bears the scars. Nevertheless, ze has done a considerable amount of healing over recent years. Re-establishing a relationship with zir family and converting to the path of Hou, the Heart element of Tiamat, has left zir stable and moderately grounded.
== Council activity ==
Autumn 2015 / Year 1
Venyrax was among the group who discovered Xaral the Punisher, the first reawakened dragon in Athesia, met an embodiment of Tiamet, and hatched Vanoto the Bastion and Kilavu the Cradle.
Ze dealt with Mad Scholars, including the leaked ‘crazy juice,’ released hundreds of storm archons from Aedius’s laboratory, travelled the Elemental Fields to try to understand why the elements were out of balance, among other things. Zir most notable acts in zir first year were the mission to secure two astral diamonds for Athesia, which succeeded (making Venyrax one of the few Athesians to have left the Rainbow Shell – perhaps the only one to have actually cut and re-sealed a hole in it – and visited Sigil), and zir actions in securing the dragonborn evacuation from the Vales. Venyrax, with Gil’gem and Krunk, had figured out how to reproduce Skylander (?) tech to evacuate from the falling Vales.
Spring 2016 / Year 2
At the start of this year, Venyrax ran across Tola the Bladewing ravaging outlying Broken Lands villages. Leaving Geltius and Appoline to hold off the dragon and manage diplomacy with the Empire, Venyrax sought help from Gaia, who folded herself into zir soul. This granted Venyrax the power to tether Tola to the primal heart of the earth, but distorted zir soul, attuning zir to the primal rather than the arcane and altering Ortica. Tola himself left Venyrax with a permanent troublesome wound, though an Athesian team including Venyrax prompted Vanoto the Bastion to remove Tola from the world.
Ze worked with Lionel, Arianna, and Deist to rebuild a city around the Broken Lands’ residium mine, and in doing so helped bring the spirits of the primal hollows to the Council as a faction.
Due to visions of the problem in the Fey Woods from the Solstice Circle, ze signed up to investigate the roots of it through the memory machine under Unity City. With Morgan Redwood and Harold, ze joined the village of Cartref in order to learn more. Ze spent seven years with them, watching them die of disease and struggle to eat, hunting for and with them, teaching them, knowing that ze could help them far more as a hero of Athesia but fearing to break the timeline or disrupt the information-gathering mission.  In the end, ze allowed their children to be sacrificed. This was the longest period of time ze had spent based in one place since zir childhood, and ze didn’t know how to return to the present, which led to many breakdowns because of zir claustrophobia. Ze also experienced a major decline in zir ability to talk comprehensibly.
Back in the present, ze worked with Lionel, Tacitus and Maibius to come up with a response to the problem, and argued to keep the Fey Wilds connected to the woods rather than cut them off and refertilise them with Gaia’s power. Ze is now unsure whether that was wise, after a conversation with Gaia. However, we stuck the course. Ze also joined the Blades of Courage after working with Lionel several times.
Having watched the children-who-became-the-fey grow, Venyrax and Morgan went with Dargan to find Puck and broker a peace between the fey courts. He recognised them, and due to Mab's disbelief the three of them ended up staying with Puck until the peace conference, becoming sort of buddies.
Once the Council decided its course of action on the Fey Woods problem, Venyrax ended up working on the abortive Rainbow Sieve plan and made a deal with the Empire alongside Paavi Karjalainen and Cassia Tuccianus, which turned out to be catastrophic when the Empire invaded. Ze became oath-sworn to prevent irreparable planar damage caused by the use of a particular engine, which the Empire owned.
In the final plan, ze established a beachhead in the Shadowfel with Morgan and Solintsin, overcharging zirself with primal magic from our plane in order to be able to raise the land itself against attackers, and did so impressively. Unfortunately, ze caught a backlash of necrotic energy, and now sees visions of death.
During this time period (since zir return to the present) ze was also visiting a small cluster of villages in the Fey Woods, and recruited Rowena Littleflute to the Council as the Empire moved against Athesia
Autumn 2016 / Year 3
Before the Empire had moved, they had instigated a vote in Athesia to help them with their plan to thicken the Rainbow Shell and remove magic from the world. In that vote, Venyrax was the sole dissenting voice in the Council’s refusal. While Venyrax did not break with the Council, came to oppose the Empire’s plan (mostly), and worked against it, ze never truly believed Athesia was entirely in the right – but nor did ze approve of the Empire, in the end.
Venyrax’s first actions of the new year were to end up in the Broken Lands, confronting Siegfried – the Guardian General bonded and merged with Gaia, who had altered Venyrax’s soul. Ze disagreed with him on a number of issues, but helped to take out a laboratory of Aedius. During this episode, Arianna and Siegfried both expressed their doubt regarding Venyrax’s capacity to choose the change in zir soul, which Venyrax thinks is bizarre.
When the Council considered its response to the Empire, Venyrax advocated diplomacy after being persuaded to this end by other members of the Blades of Courage, but the position was ultimately defeated.
In this year, Venyrax tried to help the Broken Lands, but suffered a series of disasters on zir missions (many of which were not zir fault). A time-locked vault was broken open, producing gold rush across the Broken Lands; while ze did successfully get the Annihilatus engines turned off for the Primal Spirits without loss of life, it did screw over the village that had been using them; and when the Empire withdrew, ze was in the group who tried to rebuild the defences of Liadon and ended up putting Aedius-tech on the walls and alienating the populace. On the plus side, residium was mined once more and food now grows within the city.
Before the Empire withdrew, Venyrax was part of the group who infiltrated Unity City to scope out its defences, and spread this knowledge to the rest of the Council.
Venyrax continued to be heavily involved with dragons; ze spoke with Amet the Prism about her Collective with Lionel and Havwarlen, and with M’Sha the Vast about the Dragonhunter. When the Dragonhunter, one of the Guardian Generals, turned up, ze fought him alongside Lionel and Havwarlen/Tarveg. The fight left zir with terrible scars, but the trio succeeded in demoralising and imprisoning him. Venyrax also renewed zir acquaintance with Vanoto, whom ze recruited to help Athesia move against the Empire, met Diarla the Moss-Breath, to whom ze refused to give a powerful primal spirit, and failed to impress Zan’ka the Comet, though ze did work with him once he had been convinced to help Athesia.
Venyrax was in the team who dealt with the traitor guard, and supported Morgan Redwood’s choice to kill him once free of zir vines, against the denunciation of zir protégé Rowena Littleflute.
In the final confrontation, Venyrax worked with the two great dragons who helped us, Vanoto and Zan’ka.
This year of Athesian activities has shaken Venyrax to the core. Ze has seen zirself, zir colleagues, and people ze counted friends screw up in ways that have echoed horribly across the land, and do things ze believed were wrong. The Empire’s ideological position, while flawed in ways Venyrax felt were important, shook zir belief in Athesia’s righteousness – as did many Athesian actions. Zir confidence, belief and trust in zir fellows have all been impacted.
Spring 2017 / Year 4
Venyrax was among the heroes who answered Samuel Bauhdric's call for help to defend Yggdrasill. On this mission, ze participated in orc diplomacy and snuck into the keep to reinforce the walls and prompt food growth to replenish their supplies. When Hel broke loose, ze first gathered primal energy for and then participated in the ritual to create the bubble around the tree.
The theme of this year for Venyrax was a steadily growing conception of zir own power. Ze travelled in the fae woods early in the year, fixing villages ruined during the evacuation using the native trees and wildlife. Soon after that, ze had zir first encounter with the forces of Hel/l; ze was among the group who went to the Soul Market, eavesdropping on the negotiation between Hel and Mephistopheles, effecting the group's sudden escape inside a ball of branches and later on a clod of zombie-sprouting earth, and refusing a contract from said devil.
After this, Venyrax finally achieved zir goal of assembling a team to hunt down and kill the Mad Scholar Aedius. Along with several others, ze ambushed him; he was on the verge of escaping when ze threw zirself at him, bringing him down but becoming the target of his dying wrath. Venyrax now bears a maelstrom within zir blood, a horrifying parting gift from a mortal enemy that ze is determined to destroy all trace of.
Ze and several others attempted to rescue human slaves from the Shadowfel; while they were ambushed and failed to rescue the specific people they had come for, ze did discover that ze could detect the touch of those born under Gaia's hand and the group brought several slaves out. Earlier events then caught up with zir, and ze took medical leave for a few weeks.
Returning to action with a bang, Venyrax helped relieve the Vales of the Vanir siege. Ze raised the land that made up the bridge, caused tidal waves and water walls, and was still utterly outclassed by the First Blade when the group finally effected her return.
After this, ze helped bring the orcs into the Lukt Moot, an endeavour that concluded with Venyrax leading them into battle against the Vanir. Associating with the orcs has taught zir quite a bit about martial techniques. As the Vanir threat grew, ze teamed up with Vereker and Skinne to relieve the keep at Yggdrasil on Midgard in order to guard the ritual. There, Venyrax finally discovered the keystone in a druid's powerset: shapeshifting. Ze turned into a remorhaz and ate half a Vanir army.
Autumn 2017 / Year 5
After dealing (poorly) with Loki's temper tantrum in Aton Thorvald, Venyrax was among the team selected to descend into Hell to pursue rumours of a contract. Ze tested zir druidic powers to the limits here, freeing slaves with the siren song of their home earth, burying demons in the earth of an alien plane, and freezing small parts of Hell. Unfortunately, the experience of being trapped on the demon plane - even for such a short period of time - was horrific for zir.
Venyrax was instrumental in the process of bringing the dragonborn into Athesia, investigating their spiritual status to avoid inadvertently damning them and, eventually, discovering that their own afterlife is somewhat messed up. After this, ze averted the sudden, destructive growth of a forest in the Broken Lands, caused by a combination of primal spirits and Tevet tech.
Continuing zir involvement in the Shadowfel war, Venyrax travelled there to aid Paavi's attempt at diplomacy, and in this case failed to save slaves from the plain, incurring sin. Later on in the year, ze would participate in the Shadowfel Games, both as a druidic ringmaster and the only possible opponent for a Sorrowsworn. The last time ze fought Sorrowsworn, ze won, but at the cost of horrific psychic injuries; this time the old injuries got the better of zir.
Ze investigated the rift in the Broken Lands, discovering a civilisation of merfolk at its bottom, and instituting a series of cordons to keep people safe(r) from the merfolk's song.
As Athesia's plan to save Heaven continued, Venyrax went on a penance quest to purify those trying to retrieve the tear, and went to the Dead Wastes to retrieve civilians. This ended with part of a hex glassed and Venyrax's hands badly burned.
At the end of that plan, Venyrax was part of the group defending the ritual at the Dawn Spire. Along with Geltius and Vereker, ze held off the devil armies and kept the ritual casters - with whom ze has a long relationship - safe.
Spring 2018 / Year 6
The year started more quietly for Venyrax than usual, as ze helped officiate a Solstice Circle-style wedding, the first in millennia. Ze also met someone who gave zir a bell, a clue to zir past, but was unable to investigate for several months.
Ze continued working to help the dragonborn fix their afterlife as part of a penance quest to save the souls of the Broken Lands, and visited the Scion of Thought, though Zil'gar and Pot'zan managed to fix the problem after ze was called away elsewhere. The Scion of Thought revealed some troubling information about his plans to fix the world. It was around this time that Venyrax, starting to come out of the haze of horror surrounding Hell, made the decision to convert to Tiamat's following when ze could.
Ze was instrumental in dealing with the Crimson Templar problem in Liadon, though as usual disaster dogged zir visit; ze attempted to infiltrate a Mithrasian gathering shapeshifted into an elf, but was quickly noticed to be a primal caster, though no-one could contest zir shapeshifting enough to find out who ze was.
Eventually ze found the time to investigate the bell, and with Luciana's help recovered lost memories of being the sole escapee of a village caught by a Seclusion spell. Alongside Zil'gar, ze found the village, entered it, and killed the living spell. In doing so, ze terrified everyone ze had grown up with. It also turned out that for them ze had only been gone a few weeks, meaning that ze is now twice zir father's age.
Venyrax took family leave to attempt to overcome that gulf, but on zir return went with Tacitus and Vereker to deal with the zombified Empress. As the zombie problem intensified, ze fought a zombie army to secure yet another ritual in the Dead Wastes, and finally was on the mission that had six flying pyramids to take down. The group took down three - a big feat.
Soon, ze intends to go to the Vale and start the process of converting.
Autumn 2018 / Year 7
The close relationship ze has with zir secretary Septimia Hortensia meant that Venyrax was one of the first heroes to grapple with the bureaucratic issues caused by the Udoan contact. (This also involved grappling with Canis Wildwood to save the administrative sections of the Council building). Ze entered the Shadows on the trail of Aurora, and also investigated the strange circus run by the Great Udini. Zir position on the Udoans was generally neutral-to-positive, and ze would eventually vote in favour of their acceptance.
As the year wore on, news of strange happenings in the Broken Lands reached zir, and ze took action to secure a Vault item. This item had been turning a village into a ray of cultlike hippie sunshine, while surrounding areas suffered. Rather than simply wrest it from the villagers' grasp, Venyrax devised a scheme to keep their idealism and hope intact while removing the corrupting artefact.
After this, political developments in the Vales drew Venyrax away; with the First Blade dying it was important for Athesia and the dragonborn tribes to work closely together. 
On zir return, ze was confronted by news of the Spears, a group of whom had been rampaging through the Broken Lands towards the Time Mine. Venyrax, Fenxi, Vereker and Rowena found them; Venyrax and Rowena, as the only ones who hadn't previously fought them, attempted to negotiate. The Spears refused, on the basis that these matters were above the heroes. After Rowena backed down, Venyrax attacked; in the melee that followed ze lost considerable chunks of face and neck, but succeeded in killing Captain Nemos' arcane form as well as those of many of his followers.
Venyrax had earlier in the year promised the Archons a military academy they could teach at; ze found the time to do that, collaborating with Tacitus and Cassia to create an institution with cutting edge courses and cross-cultural significance. Ze also initiated the creation of Athesian Hero Action Figures, for fundraising purposes.
As the year closed, ze joined with Zil'gar to continue hunting down stray Vault items.
Timeskip
During the ten years of peace, Venyrax has also been learning to be at peace, while also never forgetting the threat posed by the Spears. Ze stayed on the Council, putting out small fires, consolidating, and trying to make and keep Athesia ready. Ze worked on integrating peoples, building infrastructure, supporting the primal return in the Broken Lands, and maintaining vigilance as far as possible.
Ze has worked on zir relationship with zir family, and now has a little brother - Tithamius Gallentes - who ze loves with all zir heart. After many years feeling like an outsider in so many situations, the time ze's spent with friends, being Morgan's mate of honour, weird auncle to Septimia's children, elder sibling to Tithamius, friend and companion to Zil'gar, has actually given zir a sense of connection.
In addition, ze finally converted to the Path of Tiamat, specifically the Way of Hou, the Crimson Scale, the Element of Heart.
Still, zir vigilance has not lapsed; ze has also trained as a Spellbreaker in the Athesian Military Academy ze helped found.
==Significant Relationships==
Morgan Redwood
Morgan was among the group who went into the memory machine, and where Venyrax hunted for the village, she became the village healer. The three became very close, and she had to deal with many of Venyrax's claustrophobic breakdowns, doing about as well as she could have under the circumstances; Venyrax still doesn't quite understand what happened between them (friendship, Venyrax. It's friendship), but ze's glad of it.
She calls zir Ven, and is one of the only two people who can normally understand zir without Ortica being around. They have remained friends, and Venyrax has supported any of her activities ze has been in a position to.
Lately, Morgan has returned to the Council after a leave of absence, harder and colder, and has made a deal with a devil; this grieves Venyrax, but hasn't diminished zir affection. She invited zir to be mate of honour at her wedding, and ze cried. A lot.
HaroldHe was the third of the group that went into the memory machine, and they too became close, though not to the extent as with Morgan. Like Morgan, he can normally understand Venyrax without Ortica. After their shared trip to Hell and his conversion to the Tear of Asmodeus, however, Venyrax no longer trusts him.
Zil'gar Fofyire
Venyrax has fought with Zil'gar, but it is the effort to save the dragonborn afterlife that is bringing them together. In addition, with Venyrax's conversion to Tiamat's following, they have become far closer and are now very good friends. As Venyrax has been entangled with dragonborn affairs, Zil'gar has become entangled in the Broken Lands, and ze has offered all assistance to them in their work as a knight of Lexum. Their acquisition of an Udoan with a druidic history has brought the two closer, and when Zil'gar was in grave danger in a time-locked vault full of bugs Venyrax took drastic and reckless action to save them.
Zil'gar also taught zir to sail!
Reitz'at Ymorha
Reitz'at is a young dragonborn oracle and writer who has impressed Venyrax a lot in recent years.
Geltius Asphoren
After fighting alongside each other several times, Geltius and Venyrax have become battle-'brothers', despite their differing religious outlooks and the initial mistrust caused by Aedius tech.
Paavi Karjalainen
Paavi sponsored Venyrax for the Council. Ze sometimes disagrees with him over acceptable costs (personal), but their shared desire for less corpses means they've been okay.
Arianna Thistledown
Arianna (and her protege Cassia) was one of the first Council members Venyrax met, and they had some dragon-shaped problems in their working relationship. Venyrax's transformation into a primal rather than arcane tracker and worker brought them closer, though she feared it had also caused the death of her mentor, and ze sought her advice on getting the dragon scale out of zir chest. She is in some ways a mentor figure to zir, and ze respects her (and would probably consider her a friend if ze understood friendship a bit better.)
Rowena Littleflute
Rowena came to Venyrax's attention as ze travelled in the Fey Woods, hearing rumours of a well-known peacemaker amidst a certain group of villages. It took the two of them a while to co-ordinate being in the same place at the same time, since Rowena moved between villages and Venyrax is a confirmed wanderer, but in the end they did. Venyrax believes that Rowena, an adventure-seeking balladeer wanting to move into the centre of the story and change it for the better, is a worthy addition to the Council, and has sponsored her.
After a year on the Council, despite some doubts, Venyrax stood by zir decision. Ze did not always agree with her, but saw her as part of a new type of Council member/Senator that will be needed as Athesia changes and thus accepted those disagreements.
This has changed drastically in the wake of her failure in the face of the Spears. Venyrax now barely speaks to her.
Triste and Isolde
The stellar work of this duo in the legal sphere drew them to the attention of Venyrax, and ze sponsored them onto the Council after bonding over druidic magic.
Lionel Typhoeus
Venyrax has boundless respect for Lionel, whose example prompted zir to join the Blades of Courage and who is one of the few Council members Venyrax thinks lives up to what the Council should be.
Vereker Auchinleck-Trevelyan
Venyrax and Vereker have spent a lot of time defending rituals together, and Venyrax was present when Vereker incurred the wrath of the elven gods. Vereker is very curious about zir maelstrom problem, and while this is extremely unlikely due to zir elven heritage and his age, Venyrax has told Vereker that if ze dies before him he is allowed to be present to study whatever horrible thing happens as a result of the maelstrom.
They have worked together considerably over the years, and Venyrax trusts and likes Vereker a great deal.
The Gallentes family
Kalavia, Soteris, and Tithamius Gallentes are Venyrax's blood family, with whom ze has spent painstaking years repairing zir relationship. Ze's twice zir father Soteris's age.
Captain Nemos
Venyrax HATES him.
Vanoto the Bastion
Venyrax was present at Vanoto's hatching, Vanoto taught Ortica Ortica's first smattering of Draconic, and since then Venyrax has sought Vanoto's help on a number of occasions - though ze is never sure when Vanoto's patience will wear thin. Ze admires his commitment to helping the mortal races and considers him a friend.
Siegfried and Gaia
Venyrax met Gaia in a moment of desperation; needing help to save a village, ze sought her out, and did not even ask what carrying her within zir soul would mean for zir. Since then, ze has conceived a great admiration for the maternal nature spirit, and desperately wants to bring her power and that of other nature spirits to bear on Athesia, fostering its fertility. Unfortunately - especially given zir status as the voice of the earth - they frequently have ideological conflicts.
Gaia does not understand Venyrax's determination to retain the Fey as part of the world - and Venyrax doesn't understand her desire for retribution or at least acting against their presence after their oaths to stop hurting people - and Gaia, her very being entangled with that of Siegfried, believes that the world would be better off without its magic. Venyrax isn't convinced, but is fairly sure that the Empire's methods were erroneous and highly dangerous. Siegfried feels that Venyrax's actions as a primal caster since zir altering are of his doing, a ripple cast by his presence, and that Venyrax's choices were immaterial in this - and Venyrax strongly disagrees. Ze is disturbed by how deeply Siegfried and Gaia are entwined, having a deep distaste for one and an abiding affection for the other.
With the passage of years, they have drifted apart; Venyrax retains zir intense druidic powers, but as zir soul has been corrupted again and again ze has become reluctant to see her.