Bryn

### Titles

Caern Alpha, Eldest Philodox of the Nation; also claims Eldest of the Welsh Fianna

### Caern

Ocean's Lament

These days Bryn is considered the wisest Philodox in the Nation of Albion.

As a Garou, his instinct for fairness and grasp of the wider implications of the Litany and Gaia's wider laws is second to none and after decades of friendship with Delwyn is probably as good as any Bard on the traditions of the Fianna. Along with Fergal of Ulster he is generally accepted as the joint leader of the Celtic Fianna.

As a man he is lauded for his successes as well, immensely wealthy after years of shrewd investments. There is a fair chance that he owns at least half the isle of Anglesey and most of Cardiff's old dockland. He is a major shareholder in the port of Holyhead and a couple of ferry and shipping lines that run from it and he has diversified interests in urban development schemes in most of the major welsh towns.

He uses that wealth to provide scholarships and housing funds that offer support and opportunity for a great swath of Wales, not just on Anglesey but all through the old mining towns dotted through the Welsh Valleys.

He occasionally guest lectures in Economics at Bangor University where he holds a Professorship and his opinions on Marxist economics and critiques of privatised industry are a must read in many courses.

Hi is married to Tabitha, his wife of twenty years and runs the largest Caern in the Nation of Albion. He is by all accounts also an amazing cook.

In short; the Elder Fianna Bryn Dragonsbane seems like a compulsive overachiever with a storybook blessed life.

The truth is a little different. Born Gareth Ellis Bevan in the 1950s as the eldest of three children to a mine owning family in Seven Sisters in the upper Dulais Valley his future looked assured, but when the mine closed in 1963 his family's fortunes went with it. Having to sell the big house and leave the town for fear of reprisals, the family moved east to the other deep mining valley and settled near the big pit at Aberfan - his dad to work the mine, his ma to teach in the local school.

In 1966, Aberfan was the largest mining disaster on record as the spoil piles above the village collapsed after heavy rains burying the school and surrounding houses. For the two years previous the locals had petitioned the NCB for the removal of the spoil heaps as they were a risk to the town. It killed 144 people, mostly children. Gareth, 9 years old, was one of 28 people that were pulled out of the wreckage. His mother and two sisters were not.

After national outcry the largest fund of donations in British history was set up, worth an equivalent of £25 million. Parents of dead children were asked questions like 'How close exactly were you to your dead child?' before funds were released. The Fund and the following enquiry were termed by the press as 'The second Aberfan disaster'. No one was charged, no jobs were lost and no one was fined at the NCB. Each family was paid £645 as it was deemed that working families would be 'unused to dealing with larger sums'. The majority of the rest of the fund was removed to pay for the clearup as a 'forced contribution' by the government when the NCB were cleared and refused to contribute to the cost.

In the following years Aberfan was a hellhole, marked by crippling poverty and social dysfunction. Alcoholism and depression ran rife, and there was a strange bitterness between families who lost children and those who hadn't; people just could not help it. And no one could forgive or forget.

Gareth's father died when he was 16, a suicide found hanging from his bedroom door while Gareth was out working in the mine. He first changed three years later during a drunken fistfight outside a local bar and was dragged away to the Anglesey caern ahead of police charges and wronged relatives.

They say he was a violent, sullen cub, given to dark moods and terrifying displays of rage. But he passed his rite of passage, beating a vampire to death with his bare hands while his pack held it down. As soon as he was permitted he left, headed to Tara to confront the High King about why he did nothing for the Welsh. They say he waited for his audience with King Brennan Oenfar impatiently, then blamed him with scathing bluntness for failing the Welsh people and even offered him challenge. Needless to say the challenge was ignored, but the young Cliath did get both his legs broken later that night as a quiet reminder of his place.

When he was recovered a few weeks later he was sent on his way and told to take a local outcast galliard with him. The pair were ill matched - one a blunt angry miner's boy, the other a dramatic, heartbroken young Bard. They say the two argued and fought each other and everyone else they met for two years, from Dublin to the Highlands of Scotland, until they washed up in Griffin's Glen having been kicked along by every caern in between.

There they met a slightly older Get woman who had come seeking a pack on the back of a vision, and were almost killed by a just turned Cliath Fury when they tried their usual shit, in insulting Skadi. Neither man was happy when the Caern Alpha made their loss very public at the evening's moot, as she declared their insult had been an open challenge to the Get's rank and that the caern applauded the Fury for defending her sister's honour. The boys were given a choice, accept a punishment rite for their transgression or accept that the girl had proved her dominance.

Now they were young and embarrassed, but not quite that stupid. So they stood and the Galliard made the best of things with a colourful and extended ode of submission, offering the young cliath their services for as long as they stayed in the caern, absolutely expecting to be gone by the morning.

By the end of the moot the young Cliath had sworn to join the Get's questing pack and declared that the two boys would be joining as well. The laughter of the sept at the two young men was both raucous and loud. A young rainbow haired Ragabash laughed so hard that she fell off her branch and needed healing. By morning she was in the pack too. Skadi named the pack Naglfar and to this day no member has admitted to what Spirit it followed on its many adventures down the long years of its wandering.

Those long years made Gareth Bevan into Bryn Dragonsbane.

## Events

When the cubs arrived at Ocean's Lament, Bryn greeted them at the gate, introducing himself as Gareth. Later, Delwyn described Gareth as a Fianna kinfolk and the closest the kinfolk village had to a mayor. His identity was revealed to the cubs later that evening when he entered the moot through a Moon Bridge and all attendees took the knee in respect.