Social Interactions
Relationships and Companions
Having received much of his education from his clan, Kurgun holds his fellow Amberbeards in high regard, whether or not he has been personally introduced to them. Notions of family loyalty and respect owed to one's elders have been firmly drilled into his skull.
Personality
Kurgun is a jovial sort, smile lines worn into his cheeks from many nights spent laughing into a mug of ale. He is quick to make acquaintances but seldom friends, happy to trade jests and discuss the weather but deeply suspicious of more personal inquiries. The years away from home have softened him to the other races, but Kurgun often finds himself suffering from culture shock when surrounded by tall-folk in the market square, not quite sure how to behave without being shoulder-to-shoulder with his kinsmen in the deeps.
Background
- Age:
- 43
- Origin:
- Domrhask
- Residence:
- Southern District, Fellsgard
History
Born to Dranna and Durgun Amberbeard, Kurgun spent much of his childhood within his clan’s delving, amusing himself with mock smithing tools and building blocks while his mother instructed him in basic arithmetic and Common letters. Born to craft-caste parents, Kurgun was raised comfortably, until the first few wisps of curly hair began to sprout from his cheeks, and tradition dictated that he began to serve in his family’s jointly-owned mine, which was known for producing substantial quantities of iron ore. Long hours swinging hammers and pickaxes quickly added to his bulk, and Kurgun found a deep sense of comfort with the press of rock walls all around him, adapting more readily to the absence of natural light than many of his kin.
His adolescence passed quickly, as after several years in the mine he was taken as a mason’s apprentice, where he spent his early adulthood discovering the secrets of stone. Fundamentally lacking the talent for sculpture, Kurgun became enamored with structural design and as his apprenticeship came to an end, he ventured to the upper halls of Domrhask where the Architectural Guild could be found. Fortune blessed him with being taken on as a student, and the Guild became his home until his twenty-fifth year, when his beard became full and he ceased to be regarded as a child by society at large.
Duty drove him away from the Guild despite his fondness for academic study. Near-every man, and almost half of the women of his clan had volunteered for service in the The Shield, and Kurgun did not hesitate to follow suit. While well-suited to physical labor, basic training exercised a vastly different set of muscles than swinging a pickaxe, and the emphasis on discipline and cooperation was wholly new. Still, he sweated his way through basic training, and was assigned to a patrol unit on the outskirts of Domrhask, tasked with securing the roads between the main gate and the Irtuen Reaches at large. For a dwarf that had spent the better part of twenty-five years indoors, the sun was blinding even through moderate cloud cover, and for the first few days outside the city walls he found himself wracked with shudders, disoriented and confused without the comfort of being entombed in stone. He was not alone – many of the recruits suffered similar symptoms, and while Kurgun recovered several days into the venture, others did not. Unsuited to the world above, these unfortunate few were escorted back to the walls of Domrhask, but the rest carried on.
Despite the monotony of duty, fresh air and the vibrant greenery did much to make the decade and a half Kurgun spent with The Shield bearable. Few troublemakers braved the cold and heavy snowfall, and so his combat experience was limited to skirmishes with his demented and depraved brethren, many of which had turned to scavenging and banditry to stave off starvation following their banishment from Domrhask. Blessedly, despite the occasional brush of danger, it was a time of relative peace for the realm, and Kurgun completed his term of service at the age of forty, returning his armor, spear and shield to The Armory to be repurposed for future soldiers. Having earned a reputation for stubborn dedication to duty, and being better suited than most to the outside world, his father, Durgun, requested that he serve as part of an escort for a caravan headed to Fellsgard, where the Amberbeards were hoping to expand their business.
Hesitant to leave home, but heeding the promise of excellent mead served in the tall-folk city, Kurgun was not difficult to convince and after a short year home he ventured forth once again. A journey of approximately two thousand miles, no single caravan was equipped to make the full journey. Instead, Kurgun followed the cargo from one city to the next, where the goods were transferred between caravans until they finally reached their destination several months later. Thus, Kurgun found himself in a foreign tall-folk city, occupying the loft of a merchant’s home with whom his kin were negotiating, dividing his time between serving as the merchant’s guard and slumping over a table in a tavern, poorly singing along to foreign drinking songs.
