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Note: I started losing intrest in him yesterday and couldn't jumpstart the feeling.
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A crazed one-eyed dwarf is planted here. His skin is gnarled and covered with scars from the lash. His skull where his missing eye is , is misshapen where a powerful blow crushed it in some battle long ago. His hair is shock white, and radiates wildly about in all directions. His beard too resembles a wispy cloud as it splays out over his broad chest. His single eye is a deep bronzed color and blazes crazily. It is complemented by a badly healed nose, cauliflower ears and a mouth full of broken teeth. What ever happened to this tortured soul he has suffered greatly.
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A battle raged in a valley somewhere between the mountains that held both the dwarven village of Akan and the orcish village of the Grinning skulls. Small expeditions of dwarven surveyors had inadvertently stumbled on the base camp of an orcish hunting party and were not successful in avoiding detection. The battle was joined and their situation was desperate.
True to their nature the dwarves held themselves in good form and their courage didn’t waver as they suffered the barrage of stone and spear that the orcs sent them. When ever a spear clattered off a shield, it was hewn by a dwarven axe as it lay on the ground. When ever a stone struck a cheek or a knuckle, the pain was accepted. The howls of the savage orcs was ignored and their only thoughts where on each other. They were dwarves and they were kin.
The orcs in contrast where in a fury and scampered about the battleground, each in search of a higher vantage point or an opening in the dwarven formation so that he could claim a kill. Two dwarves had been pulled from the ranks by a particularly ferocious and brave orc of great size. It had boldly stepped in and literally picked them out of their place in the dwarven line and yanked them backward. That same orc now lay screaming piteously and suffered the jeers of his comrades. It seems one of the dwarves was unhappy with his situation and hacked off the arm of the now dying orc. The two dwarves lay about desperately in order to drive back the orcs that hooted and rushed at them. They tried to take it back to their line but their efforts where futile.
The dwarves howled in their own fury and stopped their retreat and began to press their formation forward now, to retrieve their lost brothers. Alas for one of them it was two late, his brains where dashed out buy a terrible orcs massive war-club.
“Get back damn ye” Cried the remaining dwarf to his brethren, even as his shield was split asunder!
“We be comin fer ye!”
“Ye ‘old on Bregan!”
“Not getting’ nowheres with out ye two!”
“Hold the line, keep in step! Forward and steady! Hang in there Bregan!”
“Damn ye all! I’m a gonner!” the dwarf named Bregan cried even as he suffered a blow to the head from an orc he simultaneously disembowled, “Get gone!”
“At ease Bregan! We aren’t leaving you! Put your backs in it! Put your arms in it! For Bregan! For Tolgan!”
“For Bregan!”
“For Tolgar!”
“For Bregan!”
“For Tolgar!”
Bregan woke up screaming, “Above ye! Look out!”
“Gluk bar dreth!” came a guttural command in an odd tounge followed by the hissing crack of a whip.
Bregan suffered the lash as he looked around his surroundings. His chains prevented him from defending himself and his pride prevented him from cowering. Neither was strong enough to hold back the tears that leaked from his eyes and into his beard as the vestiges of his nightmare faded to be replaced by a reality that was just as bad.
He was a prisoner of the Grinning Skulls.
It had been a good day the day he lost his freedom. They had found orc-sign in a creek bed and where following the creek to it’s source to see if they could find the load. Instead they found the orcs and their number of eight wasn’t enough to over come th onslaught.
Bregan felt a great shame and he blamed himself for their deaths. His only condolence was that he’d been knocked into oblivion before he saw the last of them, Felmur --Odd he could never remember Felmur’s surname--, fall. A Lower ranking Paladin from Akan who’d offered to come along with his little brother. Bregan couldn’t remember his name at all.
Bregan couldn’t recall many things, his skull had been violently cracked and while his wit remained sharp, many of his memories seemed hazy and just out of reach. What good did they do him here though? Names meant nothing to him in this hole.
He was alive only because he was sport for the orcs, when ever they desired it, (Every night it seemed) they would toss Bregan in to a pit along with some goblins and let them fight often to the death.
The events where violent and bregan, who found himself ever without ally in these matches, abandoned all pretenses of organized fighting, and gave himself over to wild furies, spilling out his rage and grief into every blow, his love for his fallen comrades, and his feelings of guilt for each of their deaths brought him face to face with those he fought. He’d tear them down in singles, or in groups, and seemed ever ready for more.
It didn’t take long for the orcs to come to grudgingly respect the bearded creature and some of them even sought accolades by challenging the dwarf personally. Some of them died much to the amusement of their bretheren.
Bregan had become a berserker in his own right.
Then one day they came, a party of adventurers who moved like death through the camp as they sought to raze the village. They didn’t completely succeed but managed to free Bregan and secure him home to Akan.
His freedom nearly overwhelmed him. All who were able came to him, Grand Dam to the newest babe came to embrace or be held by him welcoming him back. Still he was unable to fight off all his demons and the years he’d spent in the village had left their mark.
He kept few friends, and became fanatically protective over his people. Parents grew concerned when he once flew into a towering rage over a dog that snarled at a child. He’d slaughtered the animal in front of the children and in brutal fashion.
Still accepted as a dwarf, but marginalized none the less Bregan kept to his own, swearing privately he’d suffer for each of them, so that none would suffer or him ever again. That Paladin’s stricken but determined face still haunted his dreams.
Bregan has taken to fighting in the fashion of orcs. He has become what he hates, a berserker and as a result his training and practicing emulates it. He's not even allowed in the warriors guild anymore so wild are his methods.
He won’t take a skill until the time it would be available to a berserker. Exceptions would be ones like War cry which he can’t achieve until later than a berserk would be able to, or fast healing which he took in place of forced march and seemed fitting given his dwarven constitution.
The Spheres that rule over him are Rage and Dedication. He’s a born fighter but his experiences have aligned him under the other spheres as well. Chaotic and eccentric, he is something of a Pariah, but he is dedicated absolutely to the dwarven cause.
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