Donovan

Mate – Alexandra
Breed – Tundra
Gender – Male
Element – Wind
Talent – Can summon a powerful eldritch ally (pact familiar).
Faction - Scholars
Role – Researcher (primarily on his own behalf).
Dark Secret – Often loses himself in fantasies of an alternate reality in which he has attained the omniscience that he seeks.
Traits – Arrogant and superior, deity complex, obsessed with knowledge, bookish intellectual, easily embarrassed or flustered, defensively rationalizes his behaviour, attempts to seem emotionless and detached (but isn’t fooling anyone).
Appearance – The wisps of gold that trace through his fur are in fact the metaphysical scars inflicted by his forcible removal of his own conscience.
Sins – Greed, envy, premeditated murder, mass slaughter, crimes against sanity (eldritch pact).
Likes – Obscure information, correcting grammar and syntax, artichokes, squandering magic for his own convenience and comfort.
Dislikes – Theodore, slights to his intellect, Theodore, disrespectful treatment of ancient texts, Theodore, being corrected, Theodore.
Theme Music - Night Castle (Trans-Siberian Orchestra)

The uneducated dragons of Donovan’s birth clan often joked none-too-kindly that he was hatched with a book in his claws - which may explain why he killed them all.

Even in his youth, the Tundra had scholarly inclinations, and an insatiable desire to seek out knowledge in all its forms. Perhaps if he’d come from an intellectual and supportive clan, this desire could have been harnessed to constructive ends. However, Donovan’s clan treated him with disdain and ridicule.

As such, his attention was drawn to forbidden magics and eldritch rituals – knowledge with the potential to destroy his tormentors. In the course of his unnaturally long life, he would go on to commit many atrocities in the name of his research. Logically, the destruction of his birth clan was the first such atrocity. A single sacrifice was all that it took to summon a dark beast that possessed an insatiable hunger for flesh.

There were no survivors, and Donovan had no regrets.

As his studies progressed, now at an academy of considerable repute, the Tundra entered into a pact with an eldritch being. It claimed that the only way that he could attain ultimate knowledge and attain the omniscience he sought was to separate himself from the burdens of his conscience.

Donovan took that advice. However, it seemed that the being was either lying or stupid – the process stripped away his conscience and empathy, but subsequently manifested them into a separate being. A being which called itself Theodore, that seemed to exist for the sole purpose of annoying the life out of him. He was less than amused to discover that he could not destroy this irritating being without destroying himself in the process.

Despite this new burden, the Tundra proceeded to spend several centuries engrossed in study – first as a student, then as a professor, and finally as an esoteric academic. At long last, Donovan neared the end of his search. All that stood between him and ultimate knowledge was one last atrocious ritual.

The ritual was detailed in one of the academy’s oldest texts, a text stored in their deepest vaults. His respect for the tome was such that he refused to remove it from those vaults, attempting the ritual within the academy itself - a foolish and costly mistake. His fellow academics and professors were able to interrupt the process at the last possible moment, turning his magics against him.

Rather than gaining omniscience, Donovan gained a new (and seemingly permanent) residence. He had been trapped within the pages of that ancient tome, with only his conscience for company. The spell that bound him dictated that he would be forced to serve any unfortunate dragon or beast that ultimately freed him, and the Tundra frankly couldn’t decide which fate was less appealing. Eternity spent with the most irritating creature on Sornieth, or spending even a single century in indentured servitude.

Unbeknownst to Donovan, his tome was stolen from the vault by a Coatl named Thundercloud. Posing as an archivist, she had subtly relieved the academy of anything and everything remotely valuable, including the tome. Though most everything else could be pawned quickly, it proved difficult for her to find a suitable buyer for such ancient and presumably esoteric information.

As such, the text travelled with Thundercloud across the breadth of Sornieth, at last making its way to the Clan of Second Chances in a pack slung across her shoulders. This clan of monsters was the first (and the last) to catch her in the act of thievery. Though her punishment was surprisingly lenient, one of the conditions was that all of her stolen possessions must be surrendered – the tome among them.

Punishment dealt and tome surrendered, the text remained in the archives of the Unrepentant Clan for several decades. It had been placed atop a towering, uncategorized stack by the archivist Orion, who had subsequently found every possible excuse to spend his time reading rather than categorizing.

At long last, the tome was opened and read by a young Tundra dragon – a scribe named Alexandra. Donovan thoroughly loathed the idea of servitude, and it seemed that his supposed mistress thoroughly loathed the idea of possessing a servant. She callously deemed it to be “too much trouble.”

Compelled by the spell to remain by her side, he and his conscience instead acquiesced to become her mates.

Now freed, Donovan seeks to complete the ritual that had been interrupted all those decades ago, and to finally attain ultimate knowledge. However, the ritual involves killing dragons who meet specific criteria under certain conditions – and that information seems to have been detailed on the tome’s sole missing page.

Far too embarrassed to admit his predicament, the Tundra is instead relying on his understanding of forbidden magics in order to recreate the ritual without guidance. To date he has killed nearly fifty dragons in his fruitless search for the correct combination.

Donovan cares nothing for the rules of the Clan of Second Chances, which he sees as petty and thoroughly beneath him. In fact, each murder he has committed is in direct violation of those rules, and if discovered, could lead to his own execution.

The Tundra remains wholly unconcerned. When his ritual is completed, he will be beyond all mortal concerns, including those of crime and punishment – and Donovan is confident that completion is well within his grasp.

He’s not wrong.