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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aramalian" data-source="post: 6977708" data-attributes="member: 6672752">I'd like some help polishing up the backstory to fit the setting...[sblock='HIS STORY']Barakor Bloodbarrow was born in the Mahakam Mountains, in the dwarven city of _______. The Great Father of his clan was shieldbearer to _______, the founder of the city that had, over the last (long period of time?), spread a network of dwarven enclaves and cities under the Mahakam. Over the years, the Bloodbarrows became the chief mining family of _______, and Barakor had been apprenticed to more than one of his uncles, master miners all. The young dwarf struggled to grasp the simplest concepts, though, and his father despaired of finding a place for him in the family work. The lad was strong and tough, even by dwarvish standards, so (reluctantly) his father sent him to dwell in the houses of the Guardians. Here, Barakor learned how to fight - but again, complicated maneuvers and tactics were beyond him. Obedient and loyal to a fault, though, he made an excellent guard, and fought in many defenses of the lower mines of the city. The lower mines sometimes touched upon deeper caverns and crevasses, and awful beasts would wander into the dwarven tunnels. Barakor felt no fear of these, only a deep love of his fellow dwarves that drove him to lash out against such beasts that would devour his kin.Over five decades, the clanging of Barakor Bloodbarrow's warhammer and shield was a welcome sound to many mining parties pinned down by marauders.Then The Darkness came. In secret meetings far beyond the simple dwarf's imagining or understanding, bribes were offered, territories divided, and deals struck. The Cult of the Eternal Fire found ironic balance in their belief that the Light must sear away the impure from the surface of the world, but darkness should naturally rule under it. This convenient theology empowered the (ruler?) to bargain with (natural enemies of the dwarves) -- for if the nation of mountain dwarves was erased from below, why shouldn't the Nilfgaard Empire, in its beneficence, annex the territory from above and use the rich veins of ores and gems to bolster their efforts to spread the light of civilization throughout the world?The Darkness boiled up from the deep tunnels and overwhelmed the Guardians. Barakor was captured and set to work breaking stone for the vicious enemies. Beaten daily, mocked for his slowness of mind, he mourned his failure. He was supposed to protect the family -- and he had failed so, so miserably. The captors loved telling how the Cult had sent an Emissary to simply make a deal - that all their hopes and dreams and lives and loves were meaningless, extinguished to feed the glory of others. For many months Barakor worked like an automaton, his name and personality receding deeper in his guilt and rage. He would have been lost in those depths forever, if the vile (enemies) had not been so cruel and foolish as to pit the muscular slave against a (horrid beast from under the earth) in a bit of sport. Fighting the horror reminded him of his old self, his old purpose. When he fully came to himself, not only was the horror shattered, but he had slain a dozen or more of the enemies.Armoring himself in the group leader's dark chain mail and shield, he fought and fled his way around the fringes of the enclave and slowly up to the surface. He dispatched more than one human miner as well, once he reached the old tunnels of his people. In the passages he knew so well, he made his way to his family's clan secret shrine where the Old Gods of Dwarfhome had been revered. It had been desecrated by Cultists, but he remembered something they never knew: the secrets of the sanctum. In a secret compartment under the (deity's) statuette was hidden a holy symbol, reserved for a dwarf who would take on a holy calling for his people. Affixing the sigil to his shield, he swore that he would not fail again the only name he had for himself. Barakor - one who defends.Barakor Bloodbarrow now wanders the surface world, working as a mercenary guard on trade caravans and the like, knowing that in order to avenge his people, he must find a friend that can THINK.[/sblock]</blockquote>

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