Griffith Davies

**Griffith "Griff" Davies** is a rogue wolf living on Stanton Pack territory, though he roams wherever he pleases across Los Angeles either for business or simply because the desire strikes him. Not one for following rules (especially someone *else's* rules) Griffith is a reckless and rather cocky rogue who more often than not fails to look before he leaps despite the fact that he really should know better by now.

## Appearance.

Griff is a towering male standing at a more than respectable 6’3, all long limbs and toned muscle, weighing in at roughly 215lbs. with a frame perfect for not only movement but also for standing his ground, it’s clear from his posture at any given moment that he knows how to take care of himself and he also knows just how to present himself to make any potential opponents think twice about challenging him. It doesn’t always work, if anything his height and build tend to provoke other males into *wanting* to challenge him, like they have something to prove, but Griff at least has the skill and experience to back it all up. His brown hair is left to its own devices and best described as scruffy and the longer it gets the more shaded it gets, shooting through and naturally highlighting with copper and even blonde. His facial hair tends to be darker and he sports a constant scruff of that as well, he’s almost never clean shaven and in recent years he’s hasn’t gone any shorter than a generous amount of stubble. Griff’s most striking feature are undoubtedly his blue eyes, they’re vibrant and tend to draw attention, they’re always full of life and mischief and there’s a knowing light to them more often than not, like he’s got the answers to everything but won’t necessarily share what he knows. They also, if you look closely enough, have traces of green through them which actually makes them all the more striking when you take his dark hair into account. There’s no denying Griff is handsome either and the most unfortunate thing about that is that he *knows* it and uses it to his advantage, he has a charming smile, equal parts boyish and disarming, he’s tall and well built, all toned muscled and long limbs, he has strong features that have a youthfully soft edge that keeps them from being too sharp or too harsh, and one of the main reasons Griff has kept from tidying himself up too much in the last decade or so is because he’s aware of just how much it works for him, that scruffiness. Any wolf of a reasonable age is bound to have a few scars and Griff is no exception, he has several scattered over his frame from altercations with others of his own kind but they’re nothing to shout about and he’s not too bothered by them, he doesn’t much care if people see them. If anything having scars helps him to blend in with any humans he might be socialising with at any given time. In terms of clothing Griff opts for practicality and comfort, sometimes he struggles to find things that fit because of his sheer bulk but what he has managed to find is well worn in by now, things that will protect him in a fight but also allow him plenty of room to move. The colours vary and the only things he won’t wear are garish shades, he has a pretty good eye for what works and it gives him the appearance of someone who spends a lot of time putting his outfits together when really Griff just has a lot of stuff that pairs up nicely. His footwear is always tough and hard-wearing, boots with steel caps in the toes, he doesn’t like to screw around with footwear so he doesn’t really own sneakers or shoes that would go with anything like a suit which works out fine for him since he doesn’t even *have* a suit, let alone any reason to wear one. Given his proclivity for motorcycling he has plenty of gear that can withstand that sort of strain and will protect him in the event of a crash and he tries to avoid riding his bike without the proper gear but he has been known to do so in an emergency in the past. Griff doesn’t really go in for jewellery but he has a few things he’ll wear on a whim, simple brown leather bracelets he’ll slip on his wrists as and when the urge strikes and around his neck he wears a very minimalist but tasteful white gold chain with no pendant.

## Wolf Information.

**APPEARANCE:** Just as Griffith is an imposing individual in human form he’s no less formidable when he transforms, standing at a rather staggering 9’ on two legs and a more than respectable 5’4 on all fours, weighing in at around 560lbs. of sheer muscle and raw feral power. He’s a powerhouse, for all intents and purposes, there’s no mistaking him for anything less when he’s transformed and he has a great deal of mass and brute strength to throw around but at the same time he’s manoeuvrable and agile, his long legs make it easy for him to twist and vault his weight around, seeming to defy the laws of physics in doing so. Even in wolf form his muscle is well defined, plain to see through his torso and limbs, and every inch of him is tough and built for combat. His skull is broad and topped with wide-based ears that stand several inches tall when they aren’t flattened back aggressively, his muscle is long and packed with razor-sharp teeth and long canines. His hind legs are considerably longer than his forelimbs and possess the extra joint that allows for bipedal movement which gives Griff a wider range of mobility when he is transformed than those wolves who are confined to four legs. All four of his paws are tipped with tough long claws that could easily shred through clothing and flesh alike and allow him a great deal of purchase when climbing, and his form is finished off with a thick brush-like tail. Griff’s pelt is shock-white and fully covering, thickest along his underbelly, on the underside of his throat, and along the top of his neck and between his shoulders where it actually stands tall in a kind of rigid mane, not unlike a hyena’s. This thicker fur gives him extra protection when in close quarters with other wolves and anyone armed with a blade that could slash at the most vulnerable points of his body. Griff’s eyes, too, are just as striking as his fur, such a pale silver than they are practically white as well, giving him an almost ethereal appearance when he is fully transformed but enough of a shock when still in human form that it tends to give people pause when he lets them shine through.

**POSITION:** None. If he and the ragtag group of misfit wolves he occasionally hangs around with *were* to be viewed as a pack most would quickly recognise Griff to be a dominant wolf but since they’re not it doesn’t really matter.

**TERRITORY:** His apartment, more than anything, and whatever patch of asphalt or concrete he happens to be occupying at any given point in time but Griff is smart enough to recognise that he’s living on pack turf and knows better than to cause trouble by laying claim to anything that’s already been claimed.

## Personality.

Cocky, forward, bold, fearless, these are all words people have used to describe Griffith over the years and they’re all good ones. There’s a definite air of confidence, almost *arrogance*, about him that’s practically unwavering and it’s not at all uncommon to see him with a knowing smirk on his face like he’s got everything figured out. It’s obviously important to him that people believe that, that they buy into all that confidence and swagger, and that’s why you’ll probably never see the mask slip, not even for a second. If he falls he’s going to get right back up, if someone challenges him he’s going to rise to it every single time, and you’ll be hard pressed to find him feeling sorry for himself. Griff hates to appear weak or compromised in any way, vulnerability is something he won’t accept in himself and so he builds walls and does everything in his power to keep them up and keep them strong, it isn’t so much distancing himself from others but there is a barrier there, one that prevents people from getting in close and knowing the real Griffith Davies. That’s how he likes it though, he doesn’t want the world to see someone who doubts or second-guesses himself, he doesn’t want any other wolf or vampire figuring out his buttons and just how to press them to take advantage of him, and God forbid a human ever regards him as in any way other than tough and indomitable. Griff likes to be solid and strong, he likes to be tough and unbeatable, the kind other people can lean on but never someone who needs to lean on anyone else, he’ll laugh off barbs, shrug off blows and act like everything’s fine even when it’s not because it’s better to bury any and all insecurity than let the world prey on it somehow. This does mean a lot of people, especially equally aggressively confident individuals, are more often than not likely to be riled by Griff, he has a knack for rubbing people the wrong way and getting himself in trouble but he at least has the physical prowess to get himself out of those tough scrapes and close calls, all too frequent though they might be.

People who do manage to get close to Griff will find him to be a fiercely loyal and reliable friend, someone who’ll have their back and stick up for them no matter what, having been born a pack wolf he was raised to believe in the whole and to defend those he trusts and cares for and just because his belief in packs in general has wavered you can never really take that programming out of a wolf’s brain. Wolves are social creatures, they don’t do well on their own and Griff loathes solitude and isolation, he can’t thrive on his own and over the years he has drifted from one collection of individuals to another with a steady kind of rhythm to the point that he wouldn’t know what to do without that kind of company. As a general rule he falls into a kind of leadership role, it’s the way in which he presents and conducts himself that makes people look to him and he doesn’t waver or hesitate when it comes to stepping up to fill that void. Griff isn’t good at following rules laid down by others anyway, if he ever were to join a proper pack he would struggle under the rule of another and as the son of Alphas himself he was raised with the intention of taking up that mantle himself one day so in a sense it’s hardwired into him, that dominance and that confidence, that refusal to stumble or falter and let anyone see anything but strength and drive and focus.

Griff doesn’t do very well when it comes to relationships though, in that way he’s quite unlike your run-of-the-mill wolf, he doesn’t really go in for all that mate for life business that his kind are so well known for and over the years he’s flitted around and had plenty of one nights stands, in his social circles that’s something he’s known for and it’s rare for him to see the same girl twice. It has happened over the course of his life but it’s more common for him to see them once and move along to someone else, it’s less complicated and messy that way, there’s less chance for heartache. Griff saw what happened to his father after his mother died and that grief left its mark on him, essentially, he saw his father, once a proud and powerful leader, change into someone hollowed out by loss and pain, a sorrow so absolute that it played a big part in his death as well. Griff doesn’t want that for himself. It scares him. Not that he would show that, of course, Griff doesn’t show fear or uncertainty or confusion or intimidation or anything else that could lead people to believe he isn’t in full control at any given point in time. In keeping that brave and confident face on, never letting it slip, Griff shows the world that he’s tougher than anything it can throw at him even it that might not necessarily be the case.

## Abilities.

**STRENGTHS:** As a werewolf Griff has all the regular perks and attributes: enhanced strength, speed, stamina, endurance; heightened senses, reflexes, and agility; an increased pain threshold; the capability to leap to, from, and across great distances; and of course the ability to transform to and from his wolf form as and when he chooses. Because of his age Griff is in control of his wolf side at all times and can resist the pull of the moon during the three nights when it is at the peak of its monthly cycle. This enables him to keep up appearances among ignorant human companions, giving them less clues to his supernatural heritage, and it means he doesn’t miss out on any fun that might be happening during the full moon.

Griff is an incredible shot with a gun to the point where it seems like he barely has to aim in order to hit his target dead centre, it’s the kind of precision most people have to train their whole lives in order to achieve but of course has the benefit of immortality and several decades’ worth of experience under his belt. As well as being a highly skilled marksman Griff is an undeniably talented driver and motorcyclist, he’s tried and tested in both fields and there’s next to nothing with an engine that he can’t handle on the road, honestly, even at breakneck speeds that would terrify most humans. To Griff that just makes it all the more exciting. Griff can even drive an actual *tank*, such is his skill, and he has a few years of practical experience doing so, not that you would think it to look at him. He is also an incredibly capable combatant when it comes to hand-to-hand, Griff knows how to twist and move, how to use an opponent’s weight against them, he can land blows to disarm or disable an enemy with or without bone-breaking force depending on what exactly he’s up against, and if he has to he knows just how to strike to kill without needing a gun or a blade or any other weapon. As the son of Alphas who were raising him to take their position one day he was trained how to take care of himself and that gives him an edge against other younger wolves, and of course his height and muscle mass give him an advantage as well.

Physical prowess aside Griff is bilingual, his first language is actually Welsh but when he left home and travelled he picked up English and ensured he was fluent in that as well. He knows bits and pieces of French, German, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese from time spent in Western Europe but he couldn’t carry a conversation in any of them and it’s clear when he uses it that he only picked up what he needed in order to get by. He’s resourceful and keenly intelligent even he isn’t book smart, he has a tactical mind and he can think on his feet if needs be (which he quite often does if only because he’s always getting himself into trouble). Griff knows not only how to ride a horse, of all things, but how to hunt and track and set traps, he can build a fire and a crude shelter, and he can cook pretty well if only because he’s been taking care of himself for so long. He’s a handy guy to have around and naturally he would be the first one to tell you as much.

**WEAKNESSES:** Silver, first and foremost, given its ability to burn and poison a wolf. On contact it causes great physical pain, burns the skin, and scars the flesh if left there for too long, and if it were to work its way into his bloodstream it would poison him, potentially fatally if it were to work its way to his heart or lungs. Even though Griff can resist the pull of the moon he tends to be a little more aggressive and short-tempered during those three nights, he’s more easily riled and provoked and it’s plain to anyone who knows what to look for that his wolf is much closer to the surface than it would be at any other time of the month. The fact that he’s so averse to packs could be seen as a weakness as well, he doesn’t have the support structure or the backup that a pack wolf would as and when needed and while he has plenty of associates and companions he spends a lot of time with, several of them he would even call friends, he doesn’t have many people who would leap to his defence if (when) he gets himself into trouble he can’t get himself out of again.

Those walls Griff puts up leave him at something of a disadvantage even though he believes they make him stronger. In presenting to the world a constant façade of confidence and strength he sets himself up for the fall time and time again, unwittingly he’s constantly establishing himself as this figure who could do with taking down a peg or two and it leads others to *want* to challenge him and sooner or later it’s going to back him into a corner against an opponent he just doesn’t have the skill or strength to overcome. The fact that he doesn’t like to rely on anyone else just makes that all the more dangerous, Griff is constantly shrugging off help from those around him, insisting he can do everything himself when the simple fact of the matter is that no one person can do everything alone. It’s not healthy and it’s reckless and foolish. Those two words sum him up pretty well though.

## Other Information.

**WEAPONS:** Given his skill with them Griff tends to rely on a pair of Glock handguns which he has actually gone so far as to have licensed so he can carry them without running the risk of getting arrested. One of the guns is holstered at his right hip while the other is tucked under his left shoulder in a harness, kept tucked under whatever light jacket he happened to be wearing at the time so it isn’t obviously visible. He doesn’t always carry them, more often than not Griff falls back on his combat skills but there are times when he knows it would be stupid *not* to carry them. There is a pump-action Savage Mod 30 12g shotgunstashed in his apartment as well, tucked up on a light fixture in the lounge out of most people’s reach, hidden from sight in case of emergencies. Griff owns a pair of Colt Frontier pistols as well and while it does still work it’s more nostalgic sentimentality that drives him to keep it around than anything else.

**PRIZED POSSESSIONS:** The chain around Griff’s neck has been handed down for generations and once belonged to his father and as such has a lot of value to him, it’s something he would actually go out of his way to retrieve if it was taken from him or lost. The pistols have been with him for years but it wouldn’t be the end of the world if he did lose them. He’d be annoyed, certainly, but it wouldn’t break his heart. Griffith owns and rides a Ducati 848 motorcycle and is extremely attached to it, it’s not unusual to find him tinkering with it and he races it so it actually provides a source of income on top of his love for it. Though he’s more often than not seen on the bike Griff also owns a classic car that he’s extremely fond of in the form of a 1970 Dodge Challenger.

**HOME(S):** Griff lives in an apartment on Cole Stanton’s side of the city. It’s a top floor apartment with a lot of exposed brickwork, a fire escape access just in case he needs to make a quick getaway, and the overall style fairly screams bachelor pad to most who step inside.

## History.

Griffith Davies was the first and only child born to Iain and Sioned Davies, the Alphas of a moderately sized pack that had claimed territory just outside of Dolgellau in Wales. The Davies Alphas had been leading the pack for many decades by the time they finally had a child and as was tradition within their ranks he would be raised to take up the position of leader when the time came. As such Griffith was trained from an early age how to fight and hunt and defend the territory, everything an up-and-coming Alpha would need to know. He took to it well enough, finding time in between those lessons to get into all kinds of trouble with the other younger wolves in the pack, taking up the role of leader within their ranks effortlessly, showing his natural leadership qualities. The young wolves got into all kinds of mischief during their adventures, riling up the livestock of local farmers, entertaining themselves spooking wayward humans, even going so far as to torment lone vampires whose paths they crossed when they snuck out at night. Griffith’s parents didn’t take too kindly to their son’s activities and tried to rein him in but he was strong-willed and fiercely independent even from a young age, seeing no need to curb his enthusiasm for such things while he was still young. So he rebelled and continued to make trouble, something that might have ultimately led to the downfall of his parents and their shared rule, his activities and the attention they garnered certainly didn’t do much to ease the building tensions within the pack among those who were less than happy with the way things were being run.

A male wolf within the pack, Macsen, had gathered something of a following and lead the rebellion, such as it was, that would spell the end of the Davies’ times at the top of their ranks. Behind the backs of his Alphas and with the help of those most loyal to his cause Macsen hatched a plot and made a deal with a small group of local vampires, the very same creatures the young wolves had so ignorantly and childishly been tormenting: if they played their part they would be permitted to hunt freely on pack territory with no challenge from the wolves whom they would leave in peace and allow to come and go unchallenged. The bargain was struck and one night while leading a patrol through their territory Sioned and her party were attacked by the vampires who concentrated their efforts and aggression on the Alpha Female herself. Outnumbered and with her companions unable (or unwilling, a few of the rebel wolves were among those present and as such simply stood by and watched the ambush take place) to come to her aid Sioned was overwhelmed and killed. Her body was brought back by the survivors and Iain was obviously devastated, hit hard by the loss and essentially retreating into himself, unable to cope with the death of his mate. Griff did everything in his power to bring his father out of it but Iain would turn on him, snarl or lash out, more than once he blamed his son’s reckless behaviour for Sioned’s death. There was nothing Griff could do, certainly not in the wake of those accusations, words that would stay with him for the rest of his life and colour his behaviour for centuries to come.

Macsen was poised to strike and when the opportunity presented itself he didn’t waste any time in taking advantage of it. When Iain’s position as Alpha was at its most vulnerable, when he had already failed to make important decisions that affected the pack as a whole, Macsen gathered everyone together and publically challenged their leader. There was nothing anyone could do, tradition dictated it be a fight to the death without outside interference or assistance and the only way out was exile. Griff pulled his father aside and begged him to choose exile, he knew Iain was in no condition to win against a challenger as formidable as Macsen but by that point it was too late. Iain was too heartbroken, too hollowed out and ruined by his grief. Simply put, he didn’t want to live anymore.

The fight was brief but brutal, a bloody and savage affair that left Macsen wounded but victorious, his opponent dead on the ground with the pack looking on. Griff watched his father die, his throat torn out and his belly laid open by his challenger’s fangs and claws, utterly destroyed. After losing his mother as well the loss of his father in such a vicious fashion stunned him enough that he didn’t hear the pack’s new Alpha issue his first command until it was almost too late. Macsen ordered his wolves to dispose of their former leader’s offspring and before he could get clear one of them had driven a knife into Griff’s side, under his ribs, the shock and the pain almost floored him but he managed to fight and scramble his way free and make a break for it, running off into the night with blood pouring out of him but he had no other choice. If he didn’t run they would kill him.

Thankfully the blade had been a simple steel one and as such Griff managed to heal from the injury, finding shelter as and when he could, living off the land until he crossed paths with a female werewolf by the name of Elain. By that point he was still recovering, still trying to pick up the pieces of his former life and she showed kindness, inviting him to join her when she returned to her pack home. Exhausted and clueless as to what to do next Griff agreed only to find that Elain’s pack was a matriarchal one and an alarmingly strict one at that. All males were inferior and to show submission to the sole Alpha, Elain’s mother, a formidable and ferocious female by the name of Nia, and Griff quickly found himself locked in the basement of the house with several other males who had either been born into the pack or brought in the same way he himself was. Angry with himself for falling for such a cheap trick and frustrated at the way his life had been turned on its head Griff rebelled, doing what he did best and causing nothing but trouble, hoping that Elain and her mother would get sick of him and decide he wasn’t worth the trouble. Ultimately he made things worse for himself, humans foolishly saw females as lesser and weaker than males but werewolves knew better and the Alpha and her followers wasted no time in striking down their rebellious newcomer. Griff might have been much larger than any of them but they had numbers and therefore the advantage and on several occasions he was thrown back into the basement bloodied and battered but no less determined to put an end to his unwelcome captivity. The males in the basement were kept for one purpose and Griff had no intention of being used to breed a new generation of fanatic she-wolves but they had proven themselves to be more formidable than he had first anticipated. If he and the others wanted to get out they would have to be smart about it.

So it was that Griff started to play along. Elain in particular had taken a shine to him and when she had him brought up from the basement he showed an increasing tolerance for her presence and proximity, making sure to take it slowly so she wouldn’t be suspicious of his change of heart. It took weeks for him to win her trust enough for him to set his plan in motion but when Elain had relaxed enough that she was content to be alone with her chosen male Griff didn’t waste the opportunity. The third time Elain permitted him to be alone with her he attacked her, managing to overpower her and keep her from calling for help, securing her as a hostage to use against her mother. Nia intended for her daughter to lead the pack one day and as such was unwilling to let any harm befall her, furious as she was that Elain had allowed herself to be fooled and overpowered by a *male* of all things she conceded to Griff’s demands: the other males were let out of the basement but things quickly went south from there. One of the females acted out of turn and attacked one of the males, at which point everything descended into chaos. In the confusion Elain managed to land a blow against Griff and break free of his grip, quickly turning on him and attacking him in return. The whole house was filled with battling wolves and at some point lanterns were smashed and fires broke out. Elain was a fierce opponent, she transformed as soon as she was able and Griff followed suit, they smashed their way through the house and out onto the grass beyond at some point where the fight came to an end. Griff managed to land a blow that rendered Elain unconscious but he couldn’t bring himself to kill her despite all the trouble she had brought down on him. Instead he waited as long as he dared for the other males to make it out of the blazing building before limping off into the night to lick his wounds and figure out what the hell to do next.

After all of that it just made sense to Griff to leave Wales completely, as sad as he was to say goodbye to it there had come a point when there were more bad memories attached to the place than good. There was nothing left for him there now. So he travelled east, crossing into England and picking up what work he could as a farmhand, a blacksmith, a hunter, basically anything that would earn him a roof over his head or food in his belly while he tried to figure out where to go and what to do next, all the while learning the English language so he wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb or draw unwelcome attention. Unsatisfying and dull though it was he managed to scrape together enough money to book passage on a boat heading to Europe and Griff repeated the whole process there as well, moving from one place to the next, picking up bits and pieces of the languages as he went. At every turn a pack would eventually catch wind of his presence and approach him either to demand he move along or extend an invitation of membership, neither of which he was particularly interested in but he always opted for the former. His birth pack had turned on him, they had killed his parents for all intents and purposes, and the next one that had offered him a place would have kept him as little more than a captive for the rest of his days. Griff was done with packs, he decided, and so when they came calling he packed his bags and moved along.

Griff made his way back over to England after several years of this, tired of the toing and froing and returned to the business of making ends meet however was necessary, doing odd jobs for money or supplies. By that point America was blossoming in the west, it was a growing nation and Griff listened to stories about people moving over there to start new lives for themselves, ultimately decided to do the same himself. By some stroke of luck the journey across the Atlantic Ocean coincided with the weeks in which there was no full moon and so Griff booked himself passage on a boat setting sail, taking his meagre possessions with him and spending the better part of a month sleeping in a bed far too small for him in a room shared with three other men, only one of which spoke English. Despite all of that Griff actually enjoyed the journey, he found in those other men a kind of easy company with no pressure and that time taught him that perhaps other supernaturals were not the best choice when it came to companions. Along with others from steerage they spent nights drinking terrible alcohol and dancing below decks or amusing themselves during the day by heading up and watching the fish and other strange sea creatures from the railings. Griff was almost sorry when they arrived in America and everyone went their separate ways but to his surprise his bunkmates asked him to go along with them on their travels.

Reluctant though he was at first Griff agreed, heading inland with them, ending up in the vast wildernesses that would one day become known as the Wild West. They were ranch hands at first, making a more or less honest living doing menial work and manual labour in return for shelter in the barn and three meals a day. Griff had his first real introduction to firearms during this time and his companions (Tony, Luis, and Alfonse, affectionately known simple as Al) wasted no time in showing him the basics. After that Griff took to it quickly, his naturally enhanced reflexes and senses gave him a distinct advantage when it came to aiming and reloading and before too long he was the best shot in their little group, not that they had much use for the weapons in their line of work. Not until they switched employers, at least. The owner of the ranch took ill and passed away quite suddenly, his lands and properties seized by the bank and sold off to the highest bidder who had no interest in retaining four strangers to maintain his land or livestock. So it was that Griff and the others found themselves without work, heading into town to find more only to end up falling in with a rough crowd. It started rather simply, a few drinks and rounds of cards in a bar, but by morning they had all agreed to run with the group. A gang, basically.

To Griff it was actually rather exciting, at least the idea of it was, it was different to what he had been doing for the last several years since leaving Wales and it was long past time for a change. He couldn’t deny there was more satisfaction to be had in work that didn’t involve manual labour, regardless of how easy such a thing was for him as a werewolf. The fact that the new work was less than legal bothered him less and less as time went on and for the most part the others felt the same way, life had been tough for all of them and they struggled to see why they shouldn’t turn to less honest pursuits in order to get by, at least for a while. So Griff and his companions ran with the gang, running jobs robbing coaches and trains and even banks, living the life of notorious criminals and enjoying it for the most part. There was a line they refused to cross, however, Griff and the others never actually harmed anyone unless they absolutely had to and then it was only punching or cold-cocking the odd guy here and there to move things along more quickly.

It all went horribly wrong eventually, of course, as most everything had so far in Griff’s life. Their reputation was bound to catch up with them sooner or later and it finally reached a point where the Federal Marshalls were brought in to hunt them down. Al was the first of their little group to lose his life in the harrowing weeks that followed. During a robbery they were ambushed by law enforcement officers who opened fire after only one warning to stand down and Al wasn’t quick enough to get behind cover. Griff knew it was too late even when Tony and Luis tried to pull their fallen friend to safety. After that they were picked off one at a time, their ranks thinning to the point that they couldn’t even sleep for fear of being caught unawares. Luis was arrested after being sent into town to fetch supplies and packed off on a train to face justice, ending up at the end of the rope most likely. Tony met his end at the hands of their leader after trying to challenge a decision. Tensions were so strained and frayed by that point that the man simply turned and drove his knife right into Tony’s gut without warning. Griff snapped. Before Tony had even hit the floor Griff was attacking his murdered, breaking his neck without even pausing to think about what would happen in the fallout. With a sickening crunch the body fell to the floor, Griff turned to see Tony was bleeding out at an alarming rate, but before he could even think to carry him away and possibly turn him and save his life he was shot by one of the others. Everyone opened fire on one another after that. Griff got a few shots off before he realised that they were being surrounded and after that he knew he had to get out of there, if he was arrested it might get out that he wasn’t human and he couldn’t afford to risk being discovered. So he ran. Again. As much as he hated to turn tail and flee he had to get away and so he made it to a horse and just rode out of there, having to stop and cut the bullet out of his shoulder several miles later when the wound started to close over with the thing still inside of him.

There was nothing for Griff to do but lie low and wait for the dust to settle after that, he had to live off the land and steer clear of towns for weeks at a time so he wasn’t recognised but eventually things died down and he was able to return to civilisation. All things considered keeping his head down and staying out of trouble wasn’t so much a choice for a while after that so much as it was a necessity and so it was that he went back to his familiar if dull existence as a wandering handyman, doing odd jobs for whoever happened to need things doing at whatever town or ranch he happened to be passing at the time.

As months became years and Griff started going by various aliases and changing his appearance enough that he could pass for different people in different towns and cities. He started drifting from one group to another, making money by various means, sometimes under some very legally questionable circumstances but he made sure to keep others out of the line of fire. After losing Tony, Luis, and Al as brutally as he did Griff had finally learned his lesson about dragging people into his messes with him and so when he did run jobs that might get him into trouble he made sure to do so solo. It was safer that way. Easier, cleaner, less painful in the long run.

By the early twentieth century the motoring industry had started to truly take off and as soon as the vehicles started to hit the streets Griff was fascinated by them, the circles he ran in managed to get their hands on a few of the earlier models and he was among the first to volunteer to try them out. They weren’t fast by any stretch of the imagination, they were awkward and cumbersome but they were *fun*and Griff fell in love with them, he couldn’t get enough of them, and before too long he was burying his head in that world completely. World War I came and went and like so many people residing in the United States at the time Griff watched from a distance, read the stories in the papers and listened to the reports on the radio.

It wasn’t until World War II came around that Griff was drawn into all that conflict. By that time he had fallen in with another ragtag group of outcasts and drifters and when they all signed up to join the Army he saw no reason not to tag along with them. All things considered that was probably a *really* dumb choice but it certainly wasn’t the first of its kind and wouldn’t be the last either. After signing up and powering through training along with so many other volunteers Griff found himself overseas as part of a five man crew manning a tank, of all things, specifically as a loader, the man responsible for keeping the machine’s main gun primed and ready to fire. It was gruelling work, exhausting and miserable, the crew worked each other’s last nerves most of the time but when they weren’t at one another’s throats they were watching one another’s backs and talking about families and girls they’d left back home, the sorts of things all soldiers on the front discussed with their closest friends. Griff invented everything, obviously, memorising all the details of his little fantasy so he could keep up the façade through the entirety of their time together, hating that he was lying to these people he had grown so close with but they were white lies, necessary to keep them from finding out the horrible truth about him. Thankfully by that point Griff had mastered control of his wolf, he didn’t need to abandon his post during the full moon, the only danger came from his short fuse during those nights but he did his best to keep to himself when those times rolled around and they were able to avoid catastrophe as a result.

When the crew’s driver, Jonesy, was killed in an ambush on their position while they were checking their supplies at what should have been a safe waypoint during their journey between German towns Griff didn’t even wait for his superior’s command before he put himself in the seat and got the tank moving. The enemy was too close for the main gun to be of any use and in the end they had no choice but to abandon their position and hope that the German soldiers didn’t pursue. They were lucky. Lucky enough, in fact, to get through the rest of the War with survivors though their gunner, Weston, was permanently crippled during the last days of their service. On more than one occasion while they were heading back home to America Griff thought about offering to turn Weston into a werewolf but ultimately he didn’t go through with it. That’s a decision that still haunts Griff to this day, not the only one certainly but one of the ones that he sometimes lies awake thinking about.

Griff kept in touch with the other men from his crew until it no longer made any feasible sense for him to do so, leaving the alias and the life attached to it behind when enough time had passed that the man he had been pretending to be would have passed away. It saddened him to do it, he was sorry to leave it behind and when the other men from those days passed he travelled hundreds of miles to attend their funerals, risking exposure just to pay his respects, telling those present that he was the descendent of the man their loved ones had known to explain the similarities from those photographs they were all so familiar with.

Having people drift in and out of his life, their mortal existences so fleeting, so brutally abrupt, never really stopped being strange or bewildering to Griffith. He understood mortality, of course, but he had been born a werewolf, essentially immortal so long as he didn’t back himself into a corner with the wrong enemy. If anything it struck him as cruel, humans lived such short lives and they seemed so hard, every struggle and hardship crammed into such a small number of years, every pain and loss compounded by that brevity. That was never clearer to him than it was when his path first crossed with that of someone he would later come to consider a close companion, possibly even a friend. Maybe something more.

It was the 1990s, Griff had been making a living sneaking around doing Robin Hood-style jobs for one person or another for a couple of decades by that point, drifting in and out of groups and crews as was his way and he had just shoved a roll of notes into the depths of his pocket when he caught the sound of a young voice coming from nearby along with the scent of blood. When he followed the scent and the voice what he found shocked him to his core, the last thing he’d expected to find was a young girl no older than twelve hunched in a phone booth with a hand pressed to an ugly bloody wound, ranting at someone on the other end of the line about being set up. Unable to help himself Griff moved close enough for the girl to know he was there. She pulled a gun on him. Griff hadn’t been expecting *that* either but he didn’t give the kid the satisfaction of seeing that she’d startled him, instead he waited only a second as she told him she wasn’t afraid of werewolves (how she’d known that was what he was he had *no idea* and wasn’t about to ask, there was no point in denying it either) before he moved and disarmed her without even so much as spraining her wrist, able to snatch the gun away from her hand and unload it with a few deft motions, tossing the pieces back at her feet perhaps a little cruelly before he told her, quite simply, to get somewhere safe and get herself patched up. Stating the obvious, certainly, but despite the fear he’d been able to pick up radiating from her in waves she seemed so much tougher than any human kid ought to be and Griff hadn’t known what else to do. All he’d known at the time was that he thought it would be a shame if she died.

To his surprise their paths crossed again the better part of a decade later, she had grown up and come into herself, an incredibly tough and seasoned hunter by the name of Teresa Reign. All traces of the scared kid who had pointed a gun at him were gone save, of course, for the fact that she still occasionally pointed a gun at him. There was something familiar in her eyes too, a hard quality he came to respect. Tess (as she preferred to be called) impressed him enough that he sought her out occasionally and the two spent an increasing amount of time around one another, their lives intersecting regularly enough that they ended up becoming associated with one another in their respective circles.

Griff ended up in Los Angeles, living the life of a hustler for all intents and purposes, fencing stolen goods and working odd (often illegal) jobs for those figures who would be considered shady or questionable by most upstanding citizens, and as was his way he built up a small but solid social circle of misfits and outcasts around himself, varying in race and background and age, those few who had nowhere else to go and didn’t ask questions about backgrounds best left private and untouched. That was the way Griff liked it, leaving his various demons and skeletons in the closet so to speak, respecting the privacy of the others as well but watching their backs as much as they watched his. For several years now Griff has been living a fairly easy and relatively quiet life but he expects to go absolutely batshit insane at any time, as his world usually does. It has a tendency to turn itself upside down, after all, and he can’t see that changing any time soon.

## Trivia.

* Is fully fluent in Welsh, naturally, since it’s his native tongue but he no longer speaks with an accent. Griff sounds perfectly American when he speaks and the only times he slips are when he’s compromised mentally or physically and can’t check his language and accent. In times of extreme duress he will revert back to the Welsh language completely.
* Still has his dog tags from his time serving in the United States Army during World War II. The name on them identifies him as Ian Stephen Roemer and his rank was PFC (Private First Class).
* Is primarily right-handed but can wield a gun and perform several simpler tasks with his left as well.