Grendel

Grendel was the son of Danae-Bodha, Danae the Victorious, an elf maid who is the child of Kyrene and Veres or Rakith, perhaps both simultaneously. She is the ancestress of all Fiarra. Danae was chosen by Ukhraj, Dragon God of Strength, to be his bride, and he won Danae after completing all the challenges she set him. Some other stories, however, simply state that Ukhraj overcame Danae and raped her. In either case, her child was Grendel, who was born small and weak. Ukhraj demanded that he be tested, and so the babe was placed in a coracle and set adrift towards Alba Ultima, harsh land of Ymogh. There Grendel grew and learned from the Ilix, orcs, centaurs and ‘snow devils,’ until the Great Passage and the freezing of Alba. Grendel followed the migrants from Alba, but in Heide he turned against the orcs after they refused to grant him a share of the land. In revenge, he led an army of dwarves and Fiarra against the umia to free ‘Arnbyth,’ as Heide is called in old tales. But the dwarves were loathe to have such a dangerous neighbor, and even after the orcs were cast out, the dwarves rejected Grendel when he asked to found a clan among their kind. Only the Fiarra, children of the Great She-Wolf, embraced Grendel and offered him 49 wolf elf brides. From these sprang the first Veldyn, who came to dominate Heide’s ‘Middenberg,’ ‘Between the Mountains,’ as the land not claimed by the dwarves was called. Grendel taught his children how to hunt, how to fight, and how to overcome the wiles of their foes with equal cunning. There is a very long Veldyn tale called the Marriage Saga that recounts how Grendel traveled the world to secure spouses for his hundreds of children, selecting only the strongest. Thus, Grendel not only bolstered his bloodline, he encouraged his children to walk the world as he did in search of riches. 
Though Grendel was vigorous and long-lived, he was mortal, and on his death he expected to join his father upon the Mountain of Strength. Instead, he awoke in the Deadlands, just another unclaimed soul on the Plains of War. Furious, Grendel gathered about him the mightiest Veldyn souls, the einherjar, and went to storm Ukhraj’s realm. The Dragonson refused to acknowledge a ‘weakling’ as his own and so Grendel battled his way up the mountain and fought his father to a stalemate. Ukhraj bellowed with laughter and embraced Grendel, granting him a great feast hall, Sesrumner, the Hall of Many Seats. It is here that Veldyn believe they will go upon overcoming the challenges of their current life, to join in merriment with the einherjar and content with the perils of Fury's Step. 
Grendel is venerated as the first and truest of the Veldyn, and the link to the wolf elves, who are considered cousins to Veldyn. Naturally, this chronology, like most mythtime stories, is difficult to follow and contradictory. It is claimed in other quarters that the Veldyn are merely branches of the gnoll tribes that came north from the Seiyuf mountain kingdoms. The link between gnolls and Veldyn is obvious, and as gnolls are the first canae race, the Veldyn are assumed to have branched off from them in some now forgotten period. The Veldyn claim that they are indeed related to gnolls, but only because they share the same father, or grandfather in the case of the Veldyn. Grendel certainly exists, but whether he truly fathered the Veldyn, or is 'merely' a culture-hero who led a tribe of gnolls from the distant south to the Veldt of Heide, is yet another mystery. To the Veldyn, Grendel is their ancestor, and few have any desire to engage the Veldyn in debate on the subject. 
Category:Gods
Category:Heroes