Denhod Halfhelm the Legend of the Battlefield, Taleteller of the Eternal Star

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Role

Chapter 9

My training with Captain Gronholm goes beyond learning about how to fight duergar.
He spoke at length about the importance of discipline in one's personal life,
his mother's mash and haggis, his father's hobby of brewing ale, and the dwarfess
who stole his heart before the breech.

It was the witching hour, as he told the story, when the mines in Mortorn went
so deep that they broke through, letting that demon into the bowels of the mountain.
He was asleep, and following the demon through the hole was a host of duergar
who had been burrowing toward Mortorn with the intent of surprising the mountain
by circumventing the main gate.

Boiling out of the bowels of Thera came the duergar-horde, their crude iron
weapons cutting down miners and guards and nearly blowing past the men and women
guarding the Forge. Lieutenant Gronholm, then, heard the alarum bells and rushed
through the halls, still strapping on his armors, and with the blessings of
a whole host of dwarven gods he and his men pushed back the duergar until a stalemate
could be maintained.

Soon it was discovered that orcs and their minions: goblins, trolls, hobgoblins and
dire wolves and flooded the valley leading toward the main gate.

Mortorn was under siege.

Role

Chapter 8

Those were lean years, hunkering down in the mines beneath Arangird with Captain Gronholm
and his men. I am not sure how I became recruited for his squad, but subsisting
on orange fungus stolen beneath the noses of the stinking duergar is strengthening
my strength of will. Despite the hardships, I am going to survive.

These mines are miserable, poorly constructed holes in the rock rather than works
of art. From the miners, however, I've acquired some skill with an axe. You learn a lot
about what to do and what not to do when you fight against them for so long.
Their approach to mining is to wage war against the mountain. However, I am the mountain,
and I fight back.

Role

Chapter 7

My first visit with my Lord struck awe into my soul, as it would yours.
Imagine having the a character from your childhood stories stepping into sight
for the first time, and his presence exuded confidence and strength and assurance,
fulfilling your hopes and expectations.

This is maybe the essence of a true pathfinder--a person who has faced trials
and found his or her own way has an effect on those near. They are the warmth and light
of a campfire, the stories told to awaken the spirit before battling a daunting foe.

This is Lord Korsgaard. This is what I aspire to be.

Role

Chapter 6

A rumor circulates, and a blunt dark-elf asked me straight out: do you know your lineage?

I took a long pull on my waterskin before I answered him. All my life I had
only known the stories my father told as we sat beside the campfire, stories of
my line, the clan Halfhelm, and the values we held dear.

I never had a mother to confirm them or correct them.

What if those stories were all lies?

Role

Chapter 5

As I moistened my gullet at the Inn of the Eternal Star, a fela with a mischievous
glint in her eye leaned in as I spoke with Olin, and after giving the barkeep a smile,
she led me over to the corner.

'I overheard your conversation, and there is little demand for a metalworker at the Inn.
You might be able to find part-time work with the occasional travelers, but I don't see us
bringing you on staff for just that.'

Lady Daphedee, as I soon discovered, managed to pull out of me a bit of doggerel
about Arkhat, and apparently she thought there was enough potential there that she
would take a chance and enlist me as a storyteller.

Shortly after my induction, I met a young man by the name of Jeakk, who thought I was
a mindreader after I recited my poem and then read him as wanting to join the Battleragers.
I pointed out a few items of gear he was wearing that would get him in trouble with Tahren,
and then I suggested he check out tales of the village of Battleragers that could
be found in the history section of the Lyceum.

It was a good first day.

Role

Chapter 4

Lord Korsgaard is my lord, as you may have guessed, but the tale of my faith
is a long one, beginning like so many journeys of faith at the knee of my father.
We had pitched our tents among the scree outside of Udgaard, removed somewhat from
the busy paths of miners and cowherds, and the night winds howled at the cold
twinkling stars overhead. I huddled against his leg seeking a bit of
reprieve from the cold.

Thinking back on the moment, I cannot paint a flattering picture of my character.
I was tired, cold, and hungry, and my words and tone dripped with the
weakness of youth and an ignorance of spirit. My father, bless his heart,
did not discard the inferior metal but set out to work it into something better.

He cleared a place of gravel and began to draw in the dirt with a finger.
In truth, it was so crudely drawn that I thought it was an archer's target,
and so when he asked me what guided me through life, my answer of 'An arrow?'
should not have come as a surprise. I was baffled, of course, for we were not archers,
and although my father used to sell crossbows, he held them somewhat in disdain
and never used one in my sight.

'Son,' he said to me, 'If you want to find your happiness, but more importantly
help others find their own happiness, you need to start by developing a sense of
direction. Find your guiding star and follow it always, and if your sight
is good enough, help others keep their eyes to the heavens as well.

'Now ask yourself this: is complaining going to help you or me find our way through
the night? If not, be done with it.'

I have since found my Lord's shrine, but happiness and purpose can be found
wherever you stand if you read yourself like a map: know where you are as a person
and where you want to go with your life.

Role

Chapter 3

The Star

Consider the impression the Star would make on such a young dwarf.
A meeting house filled with a menagerie of races and professions, a living
stew of cultures and tales, of heraldry and ribaldry, of faith and fiction.
Among the sawdust and worn tabletops were ideas and dreams born of imagination,
ambition, and the courage of ale.

The young boy I was quickly became enamored, and I knew then that I would
find a place in my life for the Star, as surely as it the Star had found a place in my heart.

As soon as I could muster up the pence to purchase ink and parchment, I sharpened a pen
and left my letter of intent with the guard to the inn's doors.

Role

Chapter 2

I spent my early life traveling, a helping hand to my father as he sold
his sweat and blood in an endless parade of villages and markets.
A tinker's apprentice he would call me, and I would fetch him his
tools off the wagon so could fix the pump of a farmer's well, and
some days I was the coal boy as he would fire up his portable forge
he could reset a thrown plowhorse's shoe. I earned the forearms of a dwarf
polishing axe heads he had forged and filed smooth ironwork he had wrought.
Fingernails black and split and smashed were mine as a byproduct of honest work.

The road provided me my education. I learned how to make a fire out of damp wood,
how to make camp during high wind. I gained a sense of where it was safe to bed
down for the night, and whether the glint in the gambler's eye was due to
his actual hand or because of the card up his sleeve, and which alehouses watered
their drink or pinched your coppers while you slept.

I dreamt, though, of traveling farther afield than the next marketplace or farmer's
orchard. I had learned a trade, but where it could take me? How could it serve me?

And then we came to the famed Inn of the Eternal Star, and I came to see it as
a crossroads to culture, an avenue to adventure, and I just knew, deep down in
the bones of this mountain-born, that this was my home.

Role

Chapter 1

As a boy, I remember following my father around the shop as he put
together an order for a lieutenant in the king's guard. Simple belt knives,
two score drop points with simple leather-wrapped hilts, for his guards.
The King Kirgni was holding a banquet, and the lieutenant wished to
reward his men for the extra service the banquet would require of them.

The lieutenant was stern-faced, with a scar gouged into his impressive nose,
and when he saw the box of belt knives and inspected their quality, he was pleased.
He pulled out a leather pouch and placed it on the workbench, and Da' swept it up
with a smooth gesture and immediately slipped it into the pocket behind his leather apron.

'In addition,' my father said, 'I have a ceremonial dagger for you, milord. A
decorative piece for the occasion.'

The customer left the shop, and I stared after him. 'Da, you gave him the dagger
you've been working on for eight days, and you didn't even count the coin he gave you.'

'Integrity is the only meaningful currency among dwarves, Den. When we question
the integrity of an honorable soul, we spend the only coin we can take
we can take with us from this life to the next.'

Having seen it, I strove from then on to live it.

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