Eskar Armbreaker
Messy Miner

Appearance:  Eskar is a somber gray dwarf, with an ashen-face; literally. His charcoal consumption keeps his teeth and gums black, as well as his fingertips, and the clothing it dribbles upon. As such, he would look like an extremely dirty blacksmith if someone slapped an apron on him. In place of the apron, his large array of weapons, coupled with his dour countenance and overall dirtiness, make him an imposing figure at 4'2". His face is just starting to show wrinkles where constant smiles used to live, but those days are gone. He regularly looks as if he is as big as a man because of his massive musculature. His studded-leather armor is black as night, as are his boots, and he has a large and tough-looking belt with a silver buckle in the shape of a wolf's head howling. His weapons are covered in soot as well. Beneath his armor and weapons are a simple tunic and trousers, also black. The sword's hilt is also shaped just like his belt buckle. His hands are worn, scarred, and callused. He carries himself in a way that is testament to many adventures under that large belt of his. He has grey hair and the red eyes of his people. His beard is dirty and soot-smeared, obviously playing the role of napkin to his eating habits. It has grown to his belt since his abandonment of the smithy, and the coal-color shows in stark contrast to his thick silvery eyebrows.

Personality:  Eskar is stoic, even for a dwarf. He used to be a friendly person, well-liked due to his mild generosity and steady loyalty. He isn't as keen for deception and intrigue as his cousins are. As far as he is concerned, life is too short to be lying and scheming--even for a Duergar. All he wants to do is live contentedly. He is most proud of his nigh unstoppable determination to do something once his mind is set, as he says "Well, I ain't the brightest or biggest nugget, but at least I'm solid and true." He often finds himself choosing sides based on which side has less people, due to an instinctual urge for balance (something which has helped him in his job as a smith). He still retains some of his penchant for having a good time since the "accident," but a smile on his face is as rare as a solar eclipse. He enjoys listening to other people talk, and his favorite activity is still swapping stories over a campfire, trying to relive the magic that Tashyurn spun. He has no real ability or penchant for leading and is content to simply follow orders with the odd comment here or there.

History:  There are two kinds of Duergar in this world, the greedy, and the jealous. Duergar, as the stories go, sailed the world whence split from their cousins. They were a frozen and scared lot, and on one of the countless days of their journey they saw, and were attracted to, a brilliant flame. It lay inland, so they shed their ships and continued their pilgrimage on foot. A vast mountain range lay between them but the hypnotizing glow had caught the attention of an entire race. Being dwarves, they plunged into the depths of the mountains; but they were still drawn by the heat and the glow could be seen even underground as though just past the next turn in the tunnel. When they reached the glow, they fell to their knees and wept, for each knew that they were forever bound to the molten rivers they found. Some say the volcano had been lonely and unattended, wanting the ministrations of the Duergar and to feel a warmth other than itself.

Eskar knew better: they were just damned fools like himself and thought the molten rock to be rivers of gold. He meditated on that thought as he nursed the final flask of the spirits he had taken from his dwarven home in the Great Meridian, center of Renosian trade. Yes, there were two kinds of Dwarves in this world, the greedy, and the jealous. Those dwarves who lived in the Pride Mountains were just as the name suggest, the prideful and out of our two categories, the jealous. According to them, they chose to stay close to Mt. Ember (which at current is off limits thanks to the dragon), secluded from, mining ever deeper and staying mostly closed off for the purity of the Duergar people. They view the ‘heretics’ in the Great Meridian as foolish and removed from their people.

Those heretics are the second group, the greedy. They live in the circle of mountains around the country’s capitol which they humbly named “The Great Meridian,” for they believe it to be the center of Renosia in more ways than the obvious and literal. According to them, both sides had realized the promise of the circular range and they had seized it. It is their opinion that the fools in the Pride Mountains were too slow, and only adopted airs of purity after they realized the riches the Meridian would bring. Why have the rift in the first place? Simple: the Duergar love gold, and they hate to share it, even amongst clans. So those in the circle grew rich from trade, and those that weren’t grew rich from their superior ore and amazingly refined techniques, and both wanted to be the other, and thus the rift.

As he downed what was left and peered into the bottom of the flask, Eskar came to the fruition of his ruminations: there was only one kind of Duergar, the damned foolish, and he was one of them. His life had gone to hell about 3 years ago when he got it in his head that he was actually intelligent…

Everything had been going well for Eskar Armbreaker, of the Armbreaker clan. He had a steady job at the smithy (although good ore was hard to come by), which he did well at. Sure, he was no genius, but he was good. He had a family too: a wife who didn’t spend his money faster than he could make it (Ortega), and one who had borne him two sons and three daughters in their 80 years together. Two of the females were even twins, and the ale had flowed that birth night. He was training his eldest son, Dresh, to follow in his footsteps, and the younger one, Kurtz, showed promise his father had never had by joining the Renos priesthood. The ale had flowed the night of that acceptance. His daughters were doing fine for themselves as well, the eldest, Safeer, was even going into the Meridian Trade Federation. The twins, Rubra and Dia, were just starting to notice male dwarves. The number of times Eskar had to threaten adolescent Duergar with broken bones in that year had to have been a record.

Yes, he had been living the good life. The ale was flowing, he adored his job, and his family was flourishing. If only he had not gone on that trip to the surface. It had been Safeer’s idea to convince him to leave the smithy and meet his commissioners in-person at the surface. “For that personal touch,” she had said. He had brought along Dresh too, in part for the experience, but mostly to gain leverage against Safeer so he couldn’t be too easily influenced by her. Indeed, her philosophies proved correct, coming in person had allowed him to convince his clients to give him more money than was normal. There was just one catch, going for the personal touch requires befriending those people who you want the money from, and these weren’t any ordinary people: they were adventurers. Their leader, an awe-inspiring man with a mandolin in his hands and a rapier at his waist, was one of the only cordial and kind people Eskar had ever met and any way you looked at it, that spelled gold.

The man, Tashyurn, invited them to spend the rest of the night (for Duergar do all business top-side at night) with his group on the surface. After agreeing, Eskar, and Dresh were treated to tales of great intrigue and daring exploits. As the fire at the campsite crackled, and the stars above winked coyly, the world suddenly seemed a much larger place for the two gray dwarves. They were sucked into Tashyurn’s stories and when they pulled their heads back into reality, some of that world came back with them. Father and son were quiet all the way back to the city, dreaming up their own adventures. Soon after their return Dresh confronted his father and confided his wishes to become like that man. Eskar too admitted he had become discontent at his forge and could not concentrate.

The pair made plans for a brief foray into grimlock territory; a small tribe was nearby their home town. After all, Eskar had been a member of the city guard back in his day, and knew how to handle a weapon. And he had passed those skills onto his son, who had briefly joined the guard himself, but found himself better-suited for the forge. They planned and executed their trip, under the guise of a mineralogical survey. Everything went according to plan, they snuck up on a pair of grimlocks and did battle, coming out victorious. Flush with their victory, they returned home, and how the ale had flowed that night! Things had gone too well to make it an isolated incident. Soon the two of them were up to monthly excursions into the unknown, never straying too far from home, and always picking their targets easily.

After four or five of these events, the two happened upon a trio of Kuo-Toa. High on their past victories, they decided to try to slay the beasts who were considered enemies to the Duergar people. The fish people, however, has other plans and had soon grievously wounded Dresh's left arm, thinking fast, and by some divine intervention, Eskar managed to ensnare the three in their own fishing net, and slaughter them. He and his son limped home, and Eskar’s fatherly senses kicked in declaring that such pointless ventures were thereafter forbidden.

As normal life fell back into its comfortable routine, Eskar found himself strained. He couldn’t focus, and on top of that, the ore he worked with was becoming less and less usable. So he came up with his “brilliant plan,” his “life’s work.” Ortega was doubtful and worried, she even threatened to leave him, but he wouldn’t listen. Safeera was worried, the twins were fearful, Dresh was excited, and Kurtz was curious. He emptied his coffers, and borrowed heavily, and conscripted the High Priest of Renos, but he did it. He had the solution to his problems, both in lust for adventure and financial issues, and the solution to the problems of his clan. The mithril divining rod, was made. Although it wasn’t a divining rod, it was more a bracelet. And when the user spoke the phrase “Onward, to riches,” it gained control of the arm it was attached to and pointed it at the largest lode of mithril nearby.

He had it, and the only people who knew what he was doing happened to be the High Priest who made it, the highly-trusted elite group of clansmen he was going to bring on the journey, and the gray dwarves who lent him the substantial amount of money to make it. So when the High Priest, a man of considerable clout and power, turned up dead for no reason other than the knife in his back, Eskar knew it was time to leave. So, after a hurried packing and explanation to his family about why they had to disappear and how fast they needed to disappear, he contacted the group he had pre-chosen to leave on the expedition.

The plan: The locater always pointed in the same direction when used, which meant the mother-lode of mithril. They were to go and scout the location and meet up with an Armbreaker clan representative to report the information, and decide where to go from there.

The group: Himself, a mining expert, his son Dresh, one elite warrior from the clan and his two subordinates, one priest of Ratak, one scout (Corts).

Out of the group, Corts was the only one Eskar knew well, being an old buddy from the guards and a school-mate. The trudge through the underdark groaned on, and on, and their supplies ran out with no visible end in sight. They began to feel like their ancestors, wandering the world in search of a new home. They kept their spirits high though, and relied heavily on Corts for his tracking and foraging abilities. Being a friendly dwarf, as duergar go, he also taught those with interest how to perform the same feats (both above and below ground). They came to the border of the disputed zone between dwarves and drow, but hesitated not after such a long trek, and plunged forward even into the unexplored.

In the battles and perils that followed, they lost one of the lesser warriors in fleeing a hook horror. The priest of Ratak followed shortly thereafter in a small cave-in. Still, the duergar pushed forward, encountering a two-man drow party, which they crushed and stripped for supplies. Life is hard in the underdark. As the smaller party now began to question just where they were and if there was any chance of finding any mithril, Dresh noticed something. The pebbles underneath their feet gleamed in an odd way, so they lit a torch and gasped; they were pockmarked with mithril. Rejoicing, the dwarves pursued the tunnel they were in, looking for a sign of mithril on the walls of stone around them. What they failed to note in their haste was the transition from rough natural tunnel, to hand-carved deliberate passage. But then the torch they had forgotten to put out, winked out, along with a scream from the mineralogist who was in the lead. With eyes that couldn't adjust fast enough, Eskar heard the terrible agonized screams of his group and did the only thing he could do: he screamed and ran, and didn't stop running until his body forced him to.

Utterly lost, tears streaming down his face, and a mission so arduous ending in failure, he crawled into a ball and began to eat the only supplies left to him, the charcoal he carried in his pack. Looking back, he was unsure of why he had started consuming it, but something about it comforted him, as if reminding him of his comfortable days at the forge. After he recovered himself, which involved sleeping for a long time, he tried to find his way back to his group but he could not, and something in his mind told him that he should not. There was nothing left to him, so he just kept on walking.

As he walked, he decided that he would pull through, he cursed his idiocy and every aspect of himself; yet, he was determined to divine the fate of his group and return to his home triumphant. He had nothing but his own will, and he felt fueled by the charcoal he had consumed, and had continued to consume unconsciously. He decided to go topside, as it was the only thing he could recognize, and knew that at least he could easily find his way home if he got to a human settlement, if home was where he wanted to go.

So here he was, sitting in his room at the Wolf Blaze Inn, in some town called Voxis. He discarded his flask and reached for a piece of charcoal, playing over bits of his journey again and again, and praying to any God that would listen (but most fervently to his patron, Renos) that his son and the rest of his family were somehow safe. Damnable fool I am, he thought. "Well, time for another drink."

Campaign Events:  Eskar joined the Shadow Bats the same time as Aidan.  It had been his hope to earn the party's trust and then confide to them the location of the mithril mines, so he could return to it with backup.  Unfortunately, Eskar didn't do very well in winning many friends.  Gaheris disliked him from the getgo.  He managed to alienate Jasmin when he tried to convince her to usurp the party.  He tended to cause too much trouble to win over Daufer.  Really, his only friend in the group was Meschior.

Despite this, when Eskar died in the Wrath Day Tournament, most of the party pooled their resources together to have the Nightmaster raise him.  Although the ceremony was successful, Eskar was never quite the same afterward.  He pledged himself to Shadowbite for more power, but this power was later revoked due to his actions.  In the end, Eskar fell in the final battle--turned to stone by Teheth-Obz.  Ironic.

DM's Commentary:  Like with Aidan, I feel like most of this backstory went to waste.  Eskar's quest was never undertaken, as he only mentioned the mines to the party once, cryptically, and never brought it up again.  That's too bad, because I had planned on reuniting him with his son (who had been petrified, as it turns out, by a basilisk).

Most of the problems we had with Eskar, I think, were really more with his player.  At some point, Keith seemed to lose interest in this game.  He would barely show up for the sessions (even after claiming he would be there) and when he did show up (often late and leaving early), he never paid any attention to what had happened or was happening.  As a result, his character came off as senile or even traitorous because of his wild, unpredictable actions.

Should Keith continue this behavior with his next character, there will be no more chances.  I'll clean out his sub-forum and make him sit out the rest of the campaign.

Relations:
Aidan:  Friendly
Jasmin:  Indiffernet
Daufer:  Indifferent
Siara:  Indifferent

Favored Weapon:  Broad Sword
Favored Spell:  N/A
Henchmen:  None (3)
Birthday:  Chrysote 3, 511
Zodiac:  Renos

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