Grendel the Orc would not have been most people’s choice to become the heir to the sprawling Archduchy of Renatus. In fact, it was arguably the last option that anyone in any of the neighboring nations would have voted for even jokingly. Yet it was this oddly fierce child that won the heart of his adopted father, Lord Alexander, and even after the Archduke began having children of his own to further the dynastic bloodline it was upon Grendel that the burden of becoming the next Archduke fell. The former ranger that had nursed a seething hatred of orcs had not only gotten over that hatred but had made an orphaned orc child his heir.

To say this didn’t sit well with some of the Archduke’s allies is a comically understated statement. Every neighboring power to Renatus had at one point or another had a plan to marry off one of their daughters to the future Archduke of Renatus in order to cement an alliance and increase their own influence in the lands of the unified little states. But nobody was going to suggest that the royal princesses of Fanolania, Geldenreich, Lusatia, or anyplace else actually take an orc for a husband. That was not only absurd but entirely unthinkable. This naturally placed Grendel in the most awkward of situations when it came to the socializing and networking required of the young prince. He had a well earned reputation for not talking to the point that it was believed he was entirely mute. Normally this would have been a welcome trait in a child of royal lineage. For Grendel, however, it was just another reason for the human and elven nobles of foreign lands to view him with even more suspicion.

It would be a grave mistake to think that Grendel was at all unhappy. His days were spent largely free of any adult oversight while he played with the other children he happened to be near to or in the company of one or more of the dragons he had befriended. One of these, the green dragon Grungaar, had become such a close friend of the orcish child that he voluntarily allowed himself to be Grendel’s winged steed. Grungaar had a gift for languages and where Grendel refused to speak Grungaar was more than happy to do the talking for him. How Grungaar knows what it is that Grendel wants to say remains a puzzlement, but when a juvenile green dragon is doing the talking you best be assured that everyone is listening.

Among the children that Grendel associated with were those that lived in the orphanage in the capital city of Resurrection, the children of his father’s adventuring companions, his adopted parent’s children, and literally any other kid that was curious about getting a free dragon ride. Despite the wariness of the rulers of neighboring states to accept Grendel as an eventual peer, Grendel made friends with extraordinary ease. His natural fearlessness around dragons and other formidable beasts made him a curiosity among adults but among other children he was something far more legendary.

There was one adult other than his adopted parents that Grendel was entirely at ease with. That was his Aunt Lucinda, the Duchess of Condamner. Lucinda had been mute for several months after her rescue from the clutches of first the illithid and then the Lotharingians, but she had been trained by her illithid creators to use telepathy to communicate. Grendel and Lucinda would spend hours together sitting quietly all the while chattering ceaselessly via this mental link. Lucinda was physically over twenty years old when she first met Grendel, who was just turning seven, but they had spend about the same amount of time alive. Lucinda found in Grendel a comrade spirit of sorts, a much more mature individual than his age would suggest while she was considerably more naïve than her apparent age would have hinted at. Their favorite place to sit and commune was in the rooftop gardens of the castle of Xubrelle. While they yammered telepathically Grungaar would slip around the potted trees and plants like a cat in a field of catnip, growling happily and nuzzling anything with a leaf.