Griswald Sullivan

Intro

• Gallery

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• Disclaimer

  Don't let the grimdark™ bits of the backstory fool you, there's a bunch of monstery cannibal stuff in there but this dude's actually a goofy useless nerd (who just happens to be possessed by an insatiably voracious void spirit, as ya do)

• Basic Info

  • Name: Griswald Sullivan
  • Gender: Male
  • Played by: aydenburd
  • Nicknames: "Gris," "Sully"
  • Race: Human
  • Class: Rogue
  • Alignment: Chaotic Good
  • Age: 27
  • Height: 5'7"
  • Weight: 165lbs
  • Body Type: Scrawny and emaciated
  • Complexion: Sickly
  • Hair: Sandy blonde, short, disheveled
  • Eyes: Dark brown, nearly black
  • Voice: High, reedy, and sort of hoarse. Charlie Cox doing his American accent in Daredevil, but pitched up a couple octaves
  • Scars: prominent slash across his mouth on his right side, manacle scars on both wrists
  • Orientation: Prefers men
  • Likes: Books he hasn't seen before, naps, dogs, garbage liquor
  • Dislikes: Horses, cold weather, cannibals, violations of free will and choice
  • Personality: Paranoid and jittery, wary of strangers but reaches "ride or die" status with acquaintances with alarming speed. Has a wry sense of humor and enjoys bad puns when you get him out of his shell
  • Mannerisms: Sleeps poorly, jumps at shadows, will ramble at length unprompted about history, walks very tenderly, dislikes being touched unless you know him

• Bio

  Gaunt, twitchy, and sunken-eyed, with a wild dirty-blonde thatch of hair, unnervingly burned and blistered feet, and a sickly look to him, Griswald is a rather sad and uninspiring human man. While unintimidating in appearance and weaker than most in combat, Gris possesses a sharp wit and a skilled tongue for negotiation, as well as an obscure medley of knowledge and a knack for blending into the shadows. He is doggedly loyal to his friends and companions, and while he harbors a cynical streak (especially in regards to authority), he will try and help those in need even at significant cost to himself.

• Backstory

  An amateur scholar working as a low-end private investigator to pay the bills, Gris found himself far out of his depth when following a mundane case lead resulted in him stumbling upon a much bigger conspiracy than he was prepared to handle- a full blown cannibal ring being run by the Captain of the City Watch himself via the sewers beneath the city. Captured and imprisoned by the corrupt guards before he could escape to share his horrible discovery, he was forced to participate in their vile consumption for their amusement until they grew bored and he was forgotten in the holding cells to starve. Alone for weeks, he found disturbing comfort in his gradually more vivid fantasies of rending and devouring his captors; when one of the guardsmen eventually recalled their prisoner and went to put him out of his misery, Gris discovered that his impulses were more than famine-induced delirium when he transformed into a monstrous wendigo and killed all of the guards in the sewer base. Regaining awareness of himself before he did properly consume his victims, Gris was able to contain the creature, regain his own form, and escape back above ground.
  
  While the wendigo had relinquished its literal control of his body, as Gris tried to plan his next move in the days that followed hunger for the flesh of others and whispers of the void haunted his waking moments, and nightmares of debauched carnage plagued his sleep. Hours of research and reading suggested that something in the creature's attempted possession process had not gone as it had intended; in every recorded instance of wendigo psychosis he could find, the transformation into its bestial form was always the process's final step, where the original host's soul was destroyed and from which there was no return. Becoming human again following this change was unheard of, and no suggested courses of action to rectify his affliction seemed to exist; wendigo victims were typically euthanized by the paladins or the military before they could turn if they could not be cured by the healing powers of the church in the sickness's early stages.
  
  Already saddled with a dangerous extraplanar problem with no apparent precedent, he was next faced with the dilemma of how to expose the surviving members of the cannibal ring and its leaders without knowing who among the city's elite and powerful were also entangled in its operations. If its corruption stretched all the way up to the captain of the city guard, it was uncertain if anyone else in positions of authority could be trusted to be uninvolved. After deliberation, Gris decided that the only option available to him was to find a high enough power to confide in that he could be sure of their integrity- while also finding someone that would listen to the rantings of an unimportant stranger afflicted by an unstable and contagious curse.

• Wendigo Mechanics

  When in danger of dying or when under extreme psychological duress Griswald can lose control of himself to the wendigo that shares his consciousness, who will go to extreme lengths to protect the investment it has made in taking up residence in his body until it is finally able to corrupt him permanently. Directly influencing Gris's actions while he occupies their human form is incredibly difficult for the wendigo to achieve and requires an immense amount of its energy, though it is possible; however, it can exert itself to transform fully into its own shape if his situation is dire enough, and in this state it exercises full control over their body and is a significant danger to anyone nearby. When satisfied that its vessel is safe, it seems obligated to return Gris to whatever previous state he was in before they shapeshifted, though its compulsion to do so seems incomprehensible.
  
  Indirectly, the wendigo influences most of his day to day life. Gris experiences varying degrees of hunger for sentient meat most of the time, which he ignores to the best of his ability; food rarely satisfies him no matter how much he eats (though that doesn't stop him from trying to quell the hunger pangs whenever he gets the opportunity to glut to his satisfaction). The creature has extensive power over his dreams and torments him with vivid nightmares of indulging in his cannibalistic impulses whenever he tries to sleep, so he often chooses to forgo rest for as long as he can get away with (to the obvious detriment of his faculties). The two share experiences and memories and do not appear as "separate" psychic entities when examined magically, though they cannot directly communicate. Perhaps most strangely and specifically of all, its cohabitation in his form comes coupled with an incurable disfigurement to both feet, which appear horribly burned and blackened until just below the knee. While Gris's research into wendigo lore unearthed a clear connection to his symptoms- the legends about them say that when a man afflicted with wendigo psychosis finally transforms, he rockets up into the sky with such speed that the bottom of his legs burn to stumps- it is unclear why this strange expression of the the creature's physicality manifests upon him in human form. While the burns are slightly painful and make it nearly impossible to wear shoes, they appear to be mostly symbolic and illusory; if they were anywhere near as severe as they looked, his legs would probably be unusable. Though the wounds resist all healing magic and have not improved over time, his legs also seem to resist becoming further damaged, either- the burns have not become infected despite constant exposure and lack of treatment, and he seems to suffer no ill effects for walking barefoot everywhere he goes despite temperature or rough terrain.
  
  If he were ever to give in to the wendigo's whispered urges to eat another sentient being, Gris would transform permanently into the wendigo as they merge and his soul is consumed by the beast.

• Pathfinder Stats

  STR	8	INT	18
  DEX	12	WIS	13
  CON	8	CHA	14