Oreweed Everforge was a mountain of a dwarf, broad-shouldered and barrel-chested, his frame forged in the relentless crucibles of border wars and wild frontier skirmishes. At forty-five winters, his beard hung like a cascade of iron-gray wire, braided with beads of blackened bone from foes long slain, and his scalp bore the scars of a helm long discarded—jagged lines that spoke of axes glancing off dwarven stubbornness. His eyes, sharp as flint under bushy brows, burned with the unquenched fire of a man who'd stared down death in the frozen passes of the Ironspike Mountains. Clad in weathered leather armor patched with rusted chainmail, he carried a massive greataxe slung across his back, its blade notched from countless clashes, and a tankard of ale seemed ever at hand, sloshing with the dark brew he swore kept the demons at bay.
Born in the deep halls of Khazad-Dur, Oreweed had been a soldier in the Iron Legion, marching under banners stained with the blood of orc hordes and rival clans. He rose through the ranks not by cunning politics but by the sheer fury of his swings, cleaving through enemies like a storm through pines. But war's toll carved deeper than any blade; the loss of his brother in a betrayal by a treacherous captain shattered his faith in the old codes. Now, he wandered the wilds as a barbarian exile, his heart a forge of rage and regret, seeking the lost artifact of his ancestors—a rune-etched hammer said to bind the earth's fury and heal the wounds of clan and kin.
What drove Oreweed was a burning need to reclaim his honor, to wield that hammer and rally the fractured dwarf holds against the encroaching shadows of the underdark. Yet the artifact lay buried in goblin-infested ruins, guarded by curses and the ghosts of his past failures, and his own berserker rages often blinded him, turning allies into unwitting foes. He pressed on with grim determination, allying with unlikely companions—elven scouts and human rogues—forging pacts in mead halls and battlefields alike. His unique quirk was a gravelly laugh that erupted like thunder after every kill, a manic bark that echoed his unyielding spirit, masking the hollow ache within.
In the shadowed taverns of border towns, Oreweed's conflicts raged eternal: the pull of old loyalties clashing with his solitary path, the whisper of ale tempting him toward oblivion, and the ever-present specter of vengeance against the captain who doomed his kin. He fought not just with axe but with words laced in a thick, rumbling accent from the deep delves, spitting dwarven curses that could curdle milk. His arc twisted through betrayal's thorns; he'd nearly claimed the hammer once, only for his rage to unleash a cave-in that buried his closest companion. Undeterred, he rose from the rubble, bloodied but unbroken, his want sharpening into a blade of purpose. In the end, as the underdark's horrors surged, Oreweed's fury would either shatter the world or mend it, his legend etched in stone and song—a barbarian's odyssey from soldier's shadow to earth's furious champion, where victory tasted of ash and ale, and peace was but a myth for the dead.