Name: Grendell

Gender: Female, she/her, pan

Age/DOB: ~18, aged, RY12

Origin: Rookery Earth, Rapture facility; currently placed at the Ranch

Family: ELL base with donor ELL Winell, and 'mother' (carried to 4 months) Venus, 'grandparents' Orchid and Emil; by extension all ELLs are her siblings, but also specifically Jezebell in this group, and 'cousin' Rosell (via Nasir, Venus' half-brother...)

Other: Grendell takes after her mother Venus quite strongly, for a variety of reasons, not the least of which she's named after a carnivorous plant too... She absolutely is a man-eater.

Height: 5'7", and built curvy and long

Weight: under 100 but don't try getting her on a scale. She knows how to use the curves she's got, and she's far less delicate than any flower

Hair: very dark brown, a strong ELL base influence; long and thick, wavy but not kinked like Venus'

Eyes: strong blue, narrow, under perfect brows

Appearance: Lightly tanned skin that may have ultraviolet patterns and coloration that human eyes can't see but insects might; while some of the BELLs smell of flowers or fresh cut grass, she has a deeper, more savory scent to her at all times, that for all the world is like barbeque smoke, somehow; her bright color combination for clothing is a far cry from most ELLs but it does display her level of danger

Icarus Processing: yes, the Plasmid mixture allowing for new and interesting powers to pop up in addition to adding physical prowess and lightening her bone structure considerably; Grendell is about 3x stronger than a normal human, and is quite durable, able to resist casual damage, and she seems able to glide by on very little food and water even when the weather is quite hot or very cold; not faster than typical, but with an exacting aim, she's known to be able to literally catch a fly with chopsticks; her sense of touch is extraordinary, almost 4x more detailed than most, and her sense of smell is 2x stronger than typical; she is essentially immune to animal or plant based toxins or poisons, though radiation is still not good for her

Image Credits: Candy's World Perfect Dress

Genetic Abilities: connected to ELLs at distances up to 10 miles, she can also sense Vortal energies within 200 meters, and emotions of strong Vortal individuals (only) at 20 meters. Like Venus, she can communicate to Vortigaunts using other means than either verbal or mental energy, with scent and apparently with hidden colors that she can 'smear' with her power into the air. This is a sort of spore-based pollen or waxy stuff, but it does linger weirdly wherever she leaves it including simply in mid-air. Learning from Venus as well, how to create semi-ambulatory plant life that can trigger a variety of responses, she has developed a wide network of plants that surround the Ranch and particularly locations where they know Combine forces are likely to attempt to enter. These plants are a mixture of Xenian and native - sometimes actually hybridized, which is saying a lot because they really shouldn't be able to do that. She can sense through plant roots and runners effectively up to 50 miles distant as long as they're living and connected to one another, so a lot of her effort has been put into making such runners cross the entire Ranch. This does also help in retaining soil, as well as reinforcing certain areas below ground. Growing and withering, blooming and modifying leaf structure, and experimenting with new types of hybrids, all done generally underground near the Vorts areas, with a greenhouse entrance near one of the larger Ranch buildings.
Skills or Profession: Protective plant life is her business, and she is serious about it. How to weaponize a plant without turning it into a spear or staff? Pretty easy if you can shape a living noose or pit trap that opens when a heavy Combine foot falls on it. Deviously clever, she has designs for pretty much any Combine enemy ready and waiting. Others deal with food and upkeep type shaping of plants, and gardens that are pretty can come later. For now, she is very much the one you want to count on to make sure the perimeter is laced with thorn vines that leap on command, and won't harm dragon, Vort, or Human...
Personality: serious and dangerous, highly protective and territorial. This all means that she sees the Rookery and all its inhabitants, from the smallest flitter to the most aged Vort to the loud and annoying hounds, and even the antlion colony that are harvested for food... They are hers, and she will defend that all with every ounce of energy she has. She takes instruction or orders from very few people, but respects that others have different personal boundaries than she does, and will ask first before shaping something in an inhabited building or a field that's not being used.
Events or History: It was very easy to place her at the Ranch, and there's a sort of hidden reason why - Paxton wants to keep an eye or six on her. Not because he thinks she'll betray them, but because she is a force of nature that impresses him. They can't send her to places that have too many people living in them as she seems to get a bit cranky, so the Ranch is ideal for her. Two of Pax's Replicas are stationed specifically for her to use, they often wind up dragging in Combine soldiers, vehicles, or Synths to experiment on so they know what she's doing is going to work. If she was in any other setting, she might be considered a mad scientist; if she was in New Vegas with the Mojave Conglomerate people, she would probably up and murder several of their 'rescued' Aperturth prisoners... given that they're bugs...

Dragon

Name: Sherbet (allows for people calling him Sherbert, or even Bert)
Gender: Male
Size/Shoulder/Length: medium (burly) 10' s / 40' l / 58' and 48' wings with 60' carapace at full extension
Colors: every lovely pastel shade of yellow, gold, pink, and shiny metallic blue! highly metallic and reflective on body and carapace, more muted on horns/antennae and wingsails; pink claws, light blue eyes
Features: Beetlewing, with a lower frame than some but four strong legs, taloned claws, four insect-like wings with an added carapace to cover them; many horned head shape with sleek antennae and external ears, spiked tail
Powers: Winged Flight, powerful in the air for short flights, able to carry intensely heavy things for that time, prefers straight lines to leap across and boost with wings than wander through having to weave around things
Burrowing, as a Beetlewing he's able to dig and move through loose dirt, sand, or soil with ease, and at the Ranch, or even just the desert where Black Mesa Rookery sits, this is where he spends a lot of time helping out. He can vibrate his carapace in a way that loosens clay-based dirt or soil into quicksand in an area about 20 meters around himself, and while 'striding' underground or encased, this leaves a long broad furrow of basically freshly-turned dirt. He will pride himself on helping till soil as the Rookery grows, so as long as the area is protected from Combine above, they will have large farms once more with his aid
Ground Sense and Affinity, since he spends much time under the ground, or buried within it, he has methods to sense where caves, tunnels, solid stone, or other features are just by vibrating his wings a little here and there. While not true echolocation, as it requires him to be within the soil to work right, he can sense where the ground would be best to reinforce or hollow out, and if there are any smaller items such as Combine sensor arrays, Antlion tunnels, and hidden water tables. With his aid, the entire area under the Ranch and its surrounding hills will be mapped out in no time! Since he can basically loosen the dirt or clay, he has to then physically compact it with his paws, or, a more favored move, by rolling over it with his carapace and tamping it down so that others can go back over it with Vortal powers or machinery, and reinforce the walls and ceilings along tunnels. He can scrape out harder stones, rocks, and even go through veins of ore and crystal with his claws and head horns, though that's much slower than his burrowing power
Verbal Speech, he's seemingly much smarter than a number of Beetlewings around, and quite chatty to boot. He can speak both Draconic (an earlier version than some) and English. Though his vocabulary is mainly about stone, dirt, caves, and the like, he will listen to stories and songs and 'get it' rather than being lost or over his head. He does 'sing' using his carapace as well as his tail, rattling them to produce cricket-like but not cricket-high sounds. These vibrations are the same as what he uses to move through dirt, and above that dirt they come across as a rolling, rattling timpani drum or staccato sounds
Venom Bite, a bite from his crushing jaws will easily kill, and he has what equates to gila-monster or komodo spit, so whatever he bites, it's for him and maybe others with a strong resistance to the venoms produced by some Pyrrhan dragons. It paralyzes and stings, and if it lingers on any living thing it will begin to dissolve the flesh and even bone in time. He can actually hunt Striders or Combine Synth Tanks, embedding them in softened dirt and then delivering harsh bites, and eventually just curling around their carcass to enjoy a week-long feast...
While he has the ability to extrude silk from his wrists it kind of comes out more like silly string than anything else, and as such does no more than laying a trail for Grendell or Vorts to follow along in tunnels
Parentage: none known, unrelated to any currently in the Rookery
Origin: adopted from SynthwaveJinx with K9Pestilence lines on Deviantart, WoF by Tui Sutherland
Other Info: As strong a contrast to Grendell as could be, Sherbet is as bright and genial as you'd imagine with his colors. He enjoys serving the Rookery at large, and appreciates the presence of every inhabitant, whether they're dragons, humanoids, or other creatures. He knows the importance of defense against their enemy the Combine, and would prefer that the fighters do their thing, so that he and others can then provide full support for the population in the form of soft dirt, good soil, and transportation tunnels safe from view. He does however really enjoy the view from a nice hillside ledge, so he does spend a bit of time at the Rookery proper just to do that from the top of the Mesa itself. The sunsets look like him, why wouldn't he want that!