Galleus Bloodcrest

Galleus was canny and strong, learned equally in courtly etiquette and street smarts. To survive as a senior commander of Arnoc’s city watch, and one of the few Lizardmen trusted by the largely Human overseers of Arnoc’s defense, demanded nothing less. He walked a narrow path of sterling fealty to his masters while rejecting his heritage and the ‘savage nature’ that most in Arnoc believed was inherent to his kind. This prejudice locked most Lizardmen out of respectable membership in society, creating an under-class of Lizardmen vagabonds and criminals which reinforced the bias and created a self-perpetuating cycle. Galleus, having no desire to be persecuted like the rest of his people, threw in his lot with the oppressors. Galleus was recruited after he ventured alone into Arnoc’s sewers in an attempt to rescue some kidnapped children that included one of his cousins, as well as collect the reward for killing their captors. Armed only with a sickle and hatchet better suited to farmwork, he cut his way through gigantic rats, living slime, and fetid drowned Undead just to reach the kidnappers, many of whom he killed. To his shame and dismay, he could not rescue the hostages, who the gang relocated when Galleus began his rampage. When he brought a dozen bandit heads before a magistrate to claim their bounty, the city guard took note of his grit, persistence, and capacity for bloodshed. They made him an offer he could not refuse. To vet his loyalty, Galleus was frequently pitted against his own kind as an undercover infiltrator of Lizardman gangs, and he cracked numerous smuggling operations, violent cartels, and ideologically-motivated insurrectionist cells. Galleus knew he was exploiting his fellow Lizardmen, that their virulent hatred of him as a traitor to his kind and class was at least somewhatjustified. Nonetheless he feigned an indifferent swagger when around them — which aggravated them further – and believed his overlords marked his commitment. Then came the Red Crusade. Intolerance in Arnoc reached a fever pitch as Orcs, Ogryn, Skinwalkers, and Lizardmen alike were labeled deviants and monstrosities. The more hatred swirled around him, the harder Galleus zealously purged the targets of the Crusade, all the while maintaining a nonchalant manner around the increasing fanaticism of his Human lords. He was a model crusader, and yet, being of ‘tainted’ substance, he was never truly accepted and in turn his crackdowns made him all the more despised by the Crusade’s victims. lnevitably, despite all his appeasement, the city turned upon him. Galleus was hauled before a show trial and accused of corruption, the verdict a foregone conclusion. In light of his service he was spared imprisonment, but was stripped of his title and cast onto the streets. Hated and hunted by those he had aggrieved while serving the state, Galleus could not find shelter in the squalid districts where Lizardmen were confined, and had to steal and scrounge to survive. He stole a chicken from the marketplace, but when he slaughtered and consumed the fowl, misfortune struck once again – he soon became a Skinwalker. The transformation was quick, but agonizing, and the pain of realization of what he had become hurt Galleus even more. He had fallen so far, betraying his people to stay in the graces of those who hated him not for what he did, but what he was. Self—pity clawed at his heart. With no one to turn to, Galleus was captured shortly after his transformation. The Crusade had become a murderous purge by then, and he would have been burned at the stake were it not for the intervention of a powerful Arnoc patron: a High Elf mage named Syrabon, an eccentric scholar and collector. He was intrigued by Galleus, a rare combination of Lizardman and cockerel, for it reminded him of the legendary beast known as the cockatrice, half-lizard and half-fowl. Perhaps, thought the Elf, there was a grain of truth to the legends. A few choice bribes secured him ownership of Galleus, and he took the Skinwalker to his estate in the nearby countryside. There, Syrabon subjected Galleus to horrific experimentation, breezily discoursing on magic and anatomy with his apprentices while gleefully sawing through Galleus’ flesh and bone, vivisecting the Skinwalker to observe his bodily functions. Syrabon sought to understand, by replication, the body-warping power of the Skinwalker curse. To this end, he enchanted Galleus’ flesh to be more pliable and mutable, and deliberately destabilized the curse-energy bound to his body and soul. Galleus’ guttural clucks of anguish that accompanied each new spell were taken as signs of efficacy. Finally, Syrabon caused Galleus to transform yet again – from humanoid rooster into a huge, scaled and feathered exaggeration of his previous state. Delighted, Syrabon proclaimed that he had discovered the ‘next stage’ of the Skinwalker ’disease’. Syrabon, like Galleus once had, thought himself safe from the powers-that-be. But, as it did with Galleus, the rising tide of violent intolerance consumed him. The Crusaders came to believe that Syrabon was a ‘sympathizer of blasphemy’ seeking to create empowered Skinwalker monstrosities to fight against the forces of Light, and stormed his laboratory. Galleus escaped during the chaos, slaughtering Crusaders and Syrabon’s apprentice flesh-crafters alike in the process. The maddeningly unnatural magic emanating from him, his stench of chemicals and gore, and his dreadful appearance, combined to drive his adversaries into an atavistic frenzy. They were easy prey as they charged recklessly at him, desperate to destroy a being that should not have been. As he loped away from the carnage, Galleus was confronted by a flash of white light: the Arbiter herself stood before him, sternly holding a glimmering Shard. She pronounced herjudgment, sympathizing with Galleus’ suffering but declaring that he could not go free to menace the wider world. Before the shapeshifting hybrid could attack her, the Arbiter subsumed Galleus in the Shard and trapped him within. He would serve her cause, or else remain imprisoned forever — he was too strong to ignore, yet too pathetic to destroy.