Leoven

Art by StayingBehind!

Leoven, Leo to his business acquaintances -or 'that damn junk picker' to the disgruntled landowners of the properties he's caught digging holes in- calls himself a professional salvager. He loves fossicking, digging with his claws in junkheaps and picking through abandoned buildings anywhere across Sorneith- uncovering old pieces of scrap metal, useful bones, minerals, parchments- anything he can turn the least bit of a profit from. In the Oakheart Clan, he makes a comfortable living as an expert 'scavver', cobbling together new things from bits of old, finding and selling relics- old or 'new'- often travelling miles on the merest rumour of an unpicked trove. He's the sort of junkshop scavenger who sells absolutely anything you need, or at least something vaguely similar and always *reasonably priced * (*reasonable as a relative term, another learned from Sisca). He has a friendly rivalry with his competitor, Portobello the antiques dealer, and they often squabble over the tarnish-cleaner or similar at Belial's apothecary, where they inevitably run into one another. Once, Leo bought an entire gallon of furniture oil- the entire shop's supply- just to spite Porto, but then couldn't shift it, and had to sell the whole shipment at a loss. Porto just paid hatchlings to go in and buy jar after jar of the stuff, and bring it back to Artful Dodgers Antiques around the back way, so that Leo could keep his pride and Portobello could keep his oil. And both dragons are interminably smug about the whole thing.

In occupational interest, he takes after his mother Sisca, from clan XenoVirus. He doesn't have her ferocious horns and frightening demeanor, but he certainly took more after her than his father. Cherri the potion master never had much time for his children, between tending to the sick and brewing up potions, and despite knowing what good and necessary work it was, Leoven resented him very much for it. Leo resembles his father so closely in looks that dragons in his old clan kept mistaking them, which galled Leo no end- "I'm not a coward!" He'd snarl, "Do I look like I"m a coward?! If you take a swing for me, I'll damn well swing back! I'm nothing like my father!"

Leoven spent his hatchling days toddling amongst his mother's vast scrapyards in the wasteland. Sisca found him playing with rare and expensive items once too often, and banned him from the sorting room- but when little Leo still dug them up and brought them back home from the rough scrap yards, she started to take him under her wing, recognising a born scrap-picker when she saw one. He had an excellent eye for intrinsic value, and he quickly learned her opportunistic and flexible brand of morality, with terms like 'relative ownership' and 'liberating goods'. Seeking broader horizons and the chance to prove himself- ideally somewhere without extradition treaties- he signed up with a fighter's guild for a few years early after becoming an adult, easily fitting the post of quartermaster.

When Leo decided to move on to pastures greener, he walked away from the job with a network of reliable contacts, treasure enough to buy his way anywhere, and favours aplenty to purchase what coin couldn't buy. Unfortunately, because the leader of their mercenary band didn't approve of Leo's leaving like he did (as in, while still able to walk- the Black Sabre Crew were more or less for life), they parted ways only after roughing him up and then leaving him for dead in the wasteland- battered, bruised, empty-handed and with *none* of his fangs.
Leo wasn't the kind to let a small setback, like a crippling physical disability and absolute destitution, stand in his way. In a few months, closer a year, with single-minded determination he'd scavenged enough that he could hire a bigger, nastier mercenary company to completely decimate the ranks of the crew that had burned him. People think twice before crossing a tundra like that, because unlike many of his race, he has an exceptional memory- especially for what, when, and how much people owe him.

With the spoils of war, he hired expert jewellers craft him some metal and diamond fangs as prosthetic replacements, and the best dentists in Sornieth fixed them carefully to his jaw, but they still have a tendency to lock up if he snarls. Since many little things can make him angry enough to snarl, he has a reputation for being overly aggressive and wearing a nightmarishly terrifying metallic grimace. He wears a mask most of the time, to avoid scaring customers… unnecessarily. But people can tell if he's getting angry because he still breathes with an audible hiss through the metal visage.