John Dean

A lonely human man in his 60s ("Johnny") who, during the party's downtime week in Gwyndinas, became an unlikely surrogate grandfather to Draak. Sent out to find blacksmith supplies, Drak instead "found a responsible adult": John took him to the dog park and local lunch spots, invented a scavenger-hunt mystery to share, and gave him a taste of the family warmth he rarely gets.

Through John, Drak met Gwyndinas's anti-human prejudice head-on. John explained that humans are second-class citizens and barred from certain places because, long ago, the God-Emperor — a human tyrant of the Era of Kings — "got real weird" and murdered nearly all the gods, leaving only the All-Flame Queen. Ordinary humans like John still carry the stigma of that ancient atrocity. (John also gave Drak his folk cosmology of his own parentage: "the Fire Queen's your dad and the boat's your mom — because you came out of the boat.")

Session 12

• Befriended Draak for the week; the dog park, the fake mystery hunt, the grandfatherly care.
• Explained the source of Gwyndinas's anti-human bias (the God-Emperor's god-killing). Likely a one-scene NPC, but warmly remembered.