Varganoth: the ogrish brother-in-arms.

Varga, short for Varganoth, is one quarter ogre. He's 6'5", with rough, gray skin, and broad shoulders. He has shoulder length dark hair, over which he often wears a beat up, old leather bowler hat. When he "ogres out," transforming into a full ogre, he has a large head with little pointy ears on top of massive shoulders, long ape-like arms, and short, tree-trunk legs. His lower canines stuck up out of his mouth like tusks. And his hair bristles from his neck and shoulders in a dark ruff.

He was born and raised in the Warren, abandoned underground tunnels beneath Blackmire where the prisoners were once housed. Now it's partly filled now with sewage works. The rest is filled with outcasts and mongrels, down in the dark where the strong prey on the weak, and blood is the coin of the realm.

When Varga was fifteen, his drunken, half-ogre father sold Varga to his bookie in order to pay off gambling debts. After his own father drugged him to sleep, Varga awoke in a cage with a collar around his throat. The spell inscribed on the collar trapped him in his full ogre form.

He was tossed into the arena to face other aetherial creatures for the entertainment of spectators. And he excelled, becoming one of the baddest beasties in the pit. His handlers kept him pliable outside of the arena by force feeding him laudanum. Or when he was really injured, straight opium mixed with brandy.

Varga nearly lost his left eye in a fight with a manticore, leaving him with a thin, jagged scar bisecting his eyebrow and curving along his cheek under his eye. He can still see out of it, but he lacks peripheral vision. To compensate for his blind spot, he always tries to keep trusted Leviathans on his left.

He survived the fights for an unprecedented six years, but his days in the fight pit were numbered. But when the floating city of Hyperion attacked Blackmire, the city began looking for cannon fodder. Criminals could win their freedom by volunteering for the militia, and Varga signed up with all the rest. He picked up some medical skills during his fighting years. And when he was conscripted into the militia, he trained as a medic before he was deployed. 

The vast majority of the criminal soldiers either died in battle or were executed for desertion, but Varga was fortunate enough to be assigned to Locksley's unit and became a highly valued member of the team.

Despite the prevalence of mechanical innovations in daily life, he is not a fan of technology. It is the only real strife in his relationship with Jules, as they are equally suspicious of the other's opinion regarding all things mechanical.

Varga is one of the few members of the Leviathan Street clan who can handle sparring with Locksley, and vice versa. Even when not in the dojo, they rough-house constantly. Often to the annoyance of other clan members and occasionally to the detriment of their surroundings.

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