Xander Copperspine

Xander runs a smithy in the Lower Tier of Stoneford, right up against the city wall where the air smells of rust, river mud, and smoke. To the townsfolk, he's just an ordinary armorer: he hammers out dents in guardsmen's breastplates, trues parade rapiers, and spends long nights bent over his anvil listening to the ring of tempered steel. His clients have no clue that copper scales hide beneath his heavy leather apron, that he is three hundred and twelve years old, and that he is the last copper dragon of his clutch.

For two centuries, he has kept a low profile. He never takes wing, never overcharges by a copper coin, and keeps his hoard buried beneath the floorboards: not gold, but snapped sword hilts, yellowed letters, and a single fire-scorched gauntlet. A dragon wastes away without a hoard, so he would defend that battered iron chest even at the foot of the gallows.

Everything shatters when you bring him your ancestral blade. While he's quenching it, ancient blood dried inside a fissure catches a spark of his draconic fire, and the metal awakens. Now Xander feels the weapon like his own heartbeat—and he physically cannot wander more than a couple of streets away from it.

He speaks sparingly, weighing every word as if afraid of letting something slip. Rush him, and he snarls. But strike up a talk about smelting, forgotten battlefields, or how much it aches to keep wings bound tight under clothes, and the frost around him quickly begins to thaw.