GROTHEK SLAG-BORN
ElementalsUnemployed (former Lava-Smith, now vagrant laborer)
Identity
- Residence
- Outer margins of Lava-Flow Workshops, squatting in abandoned smelting tunnels
- Civilization
- Elementals
Appearance
• Physical: A massive, slow-moving figure of dull red flame streaked with veins of blackite slag — impurities that have accumulated in his form over two millennia of heavy labor. His fire burns low and uneven, guttering in patches, and his outline is rough and lumpy rather than the elegant forms of younger elementals. He moves with the careful deliberation of someone whose body has become unreliable. • Clothing: A battered apron of triple-layered asbesite cloth, so old and stained it has fossilized in places, tied with fraying wire. • Distinguishing Marks: His right arm from elbow to fingertip has cooled into solid basalt — a condition called stone-creep, common in ancient fire elementals — rendering it a crude, heavy club of rock rather than living flame.
Relationships
- Family - All Nexus Cradle siblings dimmed long ago; he has outlived everyone he was born alongside
- Allies - A small group of elderly Lower-class elementals who share the abandoned tunnels, and a young Ember-Gardener who brings him heat-moss without being asked
- Rivals - The Workshop foremen who exploit his desperation for cheap labor, and a tunnel-gang of young outcasts who periodically try to drive the elderly squatters out
Personality
- Traits: Stoic, bitterly humorous, unexpectedly kind to the young, proud despite his circumstances
- Mannerisms: Cradles his stone arm with his flame hand as though it still aches, spits embers when disgusted, stares into middle distance recounting memories no one alive shares
- Voice: A grinding, gritty rumble like lava cooling over stone — slow, heavy, with long pauses that dare the listener to interrupt.
Backstory
Grothek was born through Confluence Birthing at one of the oldest Nexus Cradles in the Lava-Flow Workshops, back when the sub-realm was still being carved from raw volcanic rock. He spent eighteen hundred years as a Lava-Smith, shaping molten rock into building materials and tools. When stone-creep claimed his arm three centuries ago, he was retired without ceremony. The pension he was promised never materialized due to a bureaucratic error that no one has cared enough to correct. He now survives on odd jobs — hauling slag, cleaning vents — and the occasional charity of younger workers who remember his reputation.
Daily Life
Grothek rises before dawn to claim day-labor slots at the Workshop loading docks, competing with elementals a fraction of his age. When no work is available, he sits in the abandoned tunnels he calls home, maintaining a small, carefully tended flame-shrine to colleagues who have dimmed over the centuries. On good days he earns enough heat-fuel to keep his fire stable; on bad days the slag impurities in his form spread a little further.
Secret
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Story Hooks
- 1 The tunnel-gang has accidentally broken through a wall near the hidden Nexus Cradle, and Grothek desperately needs help re-sealing it before anyone realizes what lies beyond — but his stone arm makes the physical work impossible alone.
- 2 A bureaucratic reformer in Inferno Spire is investigating pension fraud and needs testimony from affected workers — Grothek could be a key witness, but testifying would expose him to retaliation from powerful foremen who profit from the current system.