Pinwheel

* Valorus Armor
* Excelsus Armor
* Staff Armor

AQWorlds Moderator

 Biography

Pinwheel is a Gryphonrider admiral of the Swordhaven Gryphonrider corps, along with his gryphon mount, Alcyone.

## History

Pinwheel grew up and lived for most of his life in a small kingdom-country far east of Swordhaven, where gryphons are revered and dragons are non-existent.
He moved with his gryphon Alcyone to the kingdom of Greenguard 4 years prior to the game's events. They immediately found a purpose among King Alteon's Gryphonrider corps, where they quickly rose up to the rank of admiral.

He barely talks about his previous life in his unnamed country, constantly being vague about the details of his life there.

### **Real Name**

He admitted that Pinwheel is not his real name {"*Who would name their kid after a toy?*"), and prefers to keep his real name a secret. He once said that he got the idea for "Pinwheel" after a treasured memory with an old childhood friend. He keeps a toy pinwheel with him wherever he goes.

### **Gryphonrider Corps**

Aside from being a part of the kingdom's airforce, the Gryphonrider corps are also responsible for training travel gryphons deployed all throughout the kingdom.

When called to battle, Gryphonriders act as the kingdom's airstrike team, soaring through the air with great agility and speed unmatched by any airship. En bloc, they are able to take down any ship, even a dragon.

Gryphons are proud and intelligent beings, similar to dragons. Unlike dragons though, they are not magical, and cannot be made to communicate telephatically with their riders.

## Abilities

Pinwheel has no innate magical abilities, but has sufficient mana stores to create some magic with assistance.

He is a proficient swordsman, especially skilled when mounted on a horse or gryphon. He has some skill with the bow as well, but generally dislikes fighting as a ranged attacker.

His sword Excelsior has a magical stone at the hilt, which can use mana to coat the sword's blade, granting it the ability to cut through anything and become indestructible.

## Appearance

Pinwheel is of average height with slightly tanned skin and short, dark brown hair. His eyes are a vibrant green color.

Pinwheel is usually seen in full Gryphonrider armor. When not on duty, he takes off most of his armor's detachable metal plates and maintains only the coat and shirt underneath. He also wears white pants and knee-high leather boots with detachable metal plates as well.

He also owns a special plate armor called Excelsus, which is of the highest quality and symbolizes a very high rank in his home country.

His favorite color for clothes are black with gold trims.

## AE Game Lore

Pinwheel has not officially been featured in any Artix Entertainment game.

## Trivia

* **Pinwheel** was named after the Pinwheel galaxy (Messier 101). A fan of astronomy and in need of an internet name, Pin looked upwards to the galaxy poster in their room and chose the name "Pinwheel".
	+ Pinwheel was almost named "Whirlpool", after the Whirlpool galaxy, but quickly changed their mind after  they found it hard to pronounce.
* **Alcyone** is named after the Ancient Greek myth of the halcyon bird (kingfisher), whose building of their nest at sea would guarantee weeks of calm weather.
* Pinwheel was a huge fan of Aegis' Gryphon Rider set that they decided that their whole character would be based on it.
* Pinwheel became good friends with the mindbreaker Attar beginning in their AQWorlds forum days and back when Attar was still a white-haired cyan mage. They were proudly part of the in-game guild **Valour**, composed mainly of forum regulars and friends.

## Real life story

Pinwheel the artist is a hobbyist artist from the Philippines, whose real-life career is in no way related to art. Pinwheel has been playing Artix Entertainment games since 2007. They were introduced to the game Dragonfable  by the first friend they made back in highschool, on the very first day of school.

Pinwheel became a huge fan of Dragonfable and played through every subsequent AE game released since then, from MechQuest to BladeHaven, and finally to AdventureQuest Worlds. An active and helpful member on the AQWorlds forums (especially on the Art Gallery thread), Pinwheel's first achievement was being granted a "Creatively Friendly!" title. Soon, they were also recruited as a moderator/Archknight for the AQWorlds Suggestions sub-froum.

During this time, Pin has been honing their skills on Adobe Flash with the hopes of matching the art of the legendary AQW artist, Dage the Evil. They began joining AQWorlds art contests, where every entry managed to win third place. When a call for volunteer in-game artists was made in 2015, Pinwheel immediately applied, hoping for the best.

Eventually, their application was accepted and they began work as a volunteer artist for AQWorlds itself, training under Alina and Memet. They also worked as a volunteer in-game moderator during this time, working mostly on Filipino reports.

As an AQWorlds volunteer artist, Pinwheel worked on various new Suggestion Shop weapons, the Brimstone Teppes Marauder armors, some Achievement badge rewards, a number of Living Dungeon weapons, and Final's and Prime's armors for the "Trapped in Time" quests from the Release Design Contest 2015.

After almost a year, due to an increasing college workload, they retired from all official game duties, but remain as a huge fan of AE games still.