Talk:Kraggur

History

Childhood

Long have the people of my line dwelt in what was once a remote mining outpost of the Dwarven Empire now contracted to the areas of Forfedhar and the capital city of Hibarnhvidar. As the might of the Empire receded in the face of other challenges, my kin remained in their outpost, mining and trading with the nearby human settlements of Fornsted and Therenborough. However, a protracted series of raids over the course of centuries reduced the kin in my family’s holding down to a handful. In the last six decades we dwindled to merely my mother, father, and, upon my birth, myself.

In my third and thirtieth year, disaster struck my family. We were following a vein when an earthquake occurred, dropping a reinforcing beam on my father’s leg. While my mother and I were able to free him, the leg was amputated. Things went by for several years, but eventually my father died from the strain working in such conditions without a leg. My mother followed him shortly into the grave at that point. Being some forty and one years of age, hardly more than a youth with a beard, I packed what limited supplies I could carry, collapsed an escape route behind me, and turned to wandering.

Such it was that I turned up several weeks later in the hands of human slavers operating from the wastelands between Langenfirth and Muspari’i.

Life as a Slave

For five long years I toiled under the hardship of forced servitude crafting minor trinkets for that rabble scum. Yes, it turned me stronger, harder, and more disciplined than I had ever been in my life. Yes, I learned again the names of stars, moons, and sun. But I was not free. Never again shall I live in shackles or allow any other to suffer in any guise of slavery again in my sight, hearing, or knowledge. Well do I understand the souls of the Kaldar and let me name them first as friend who hold strongly to that tenet.

Worst of the disgraces I suffered at that time was the ritual shearing of my beard. I believe it was not only an attempt to cow myself but also those other slaves they ruled over. Instead it fueled the quiet flames of my rage into a slowly burning inferno. Nothing, not even Kertigen himself, stands in an enraged dwarf’s path and lives.

It was my sixth and fortieth year of age when my anger exploded. Along with the day I sealed the family mine it is burned into my memory. I was working at a forge crafting more of the trinkets the slavers wanted for market – bracelets, rings, and so forth – when a slaver band rode into camp dragging an elvish lass behind them. It was the first time I had ever met a woman other than my mother. Perhaps the color of her hair reminded me of my mothers, or maybe the color of her skin. Regardless, the fires I had been building inside for half a decade flared to life.

Almost a Ranger

It was a long month’s journey through snow, sleet and rain, across open plains and volcanic valleys before I found myself at the fallen northern gate of the River Crossing. Spring was rapidly approaching, yet I found myself weary from the long journey from northern climates. It was with both gladness and trepidation that I found myself entering a city of such magnitude. Surely nothing to compare with the wonders of the halls I walked when they were in their more glorious days, but for the populations I had been directly exposed to it was enormous. Glad was I when I stumbled my way towards a gated area with a journeyman cloaked in drab colors and leaning upon a staff. Entering the gate, with a suspicious glare from the journeyman, I found myself in a wooded area set aside from the bustle of the city. A number of weather-hardened folk were in this area doing various tasks from weapons training to mending worn garb. At one end lay a hall with statues out front, yet I found that I had not the heart to pass them into the building, even though I felt more comfortable here than in the areas passed in my earlier sojourn.

Becoming a Moon Mage

After several more days thought I traveled out the East Gate of the River Crossing and followed the path to the Observatory. Upon reaching the top, a task I will let others discover the doings of, I met a frightening man by the name of Kssarh T’rinnirii, a man whom I called master and trained under for many moons. Needless to say I trained, learned to hunt the hob, gifar, and other manner of creature, all the while toiling under Kssarh’s yoke and stern ways. Yet after two years and many adventures, including trying to teleport to a beam after it had set, I was finally elevated by Kssarh himself to the status of Moon Mage. I had passed the ranks of Novice, Apprentice, and Journeyman to become a fully-fledged member of my guild. With the new degree of freedom allowed, I was finally allowed to leave from under Kssarh’s stern emerald gaze. I was now forty and nine years in age.

Nomad

I wandered in the Dragon Spine mountains for a time...

In one frightening encounter I entered a cave and prepared to settle down when a gargoyle ambushed me and sundered my shield. I fled into the storm holding my broken arm close to my body, most of my supplies abandoned to the creature. Fate was with me that day though, for in my stumbling I came across human spoor that the snows had yet to eradicate. Following the tracks, I at last stumbled upon their encampment, where I was directed to the white yurt.

Within the tent I met a person in visage truly worth the title of ‘ancient’. Under his tutelage I learned the crafts of the wild. Hunting creatures for their meat and furs, how to silently approach my prey, the woodland and mountain herbs, and other skills critical to living in the wilderness. As I look back upon these times, they are some of my fondest memories, living on the edge of death from day to day. It is when I finally cast off the last spiritual shackles from my imprisonment, my parents’ death, loss of our familial hold, and learned again how to live.

Ultimately I learned what the word freedom, saarnur in Haakish, truly meant. It is not the right to do what one wills, or what one wants, but the ability to live truly in the moment with neither the past nor the future limiting ones actions. Yet for me, it also is a hatred of the forces and actions which constrain ones spirit so they cannot experience saarnur themselves. For long ago I suffered without freedom, bound to another’s will, and I will never countenance it again so long as my mind still inhabits my body.

It was when I returned from a foray back to the encampment, and met again with the ancient shaman of the tribe, that he took me aside and bade me leave as a proud Nomad, or ‘Dan gwen tage’ as they are called in my language. He gave me a carving I still bear. It has a series of small blue animals etched into the carving. I also received a fantastic angiswaerd tooth knife carved with symbols sacred to the Tribes, a ceremonial robe embroidered with symbols in silver, and a magnificent cloak of fine wool bearing other sacred symbols. Wrapping them in my pack, I gave the man whom I had trained under for half a year a tight hug, and then left the tent.

Forfedhdar

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