Dragor Ironhand

Born in the mines beneath Kheran'vher to a pair of Dwarven slaves, Dragor did not see the sky until the day that city fell. He toiled ceaselessly beneath the earth, watching his parents sicken and die when a bout of the Silverbone Plague passed through the mines. He lost one hand to a rockfall, and fashioned an iron replacement with the help of a nearby fellow slave, a quiet foreigner who the other miners had christened 'Outlander'.

The prosthetic was crude but allowed the dwarf to continue to work, holding the mining ram alongside his fellows, and so the slavemasters allowed him to remain alive. He and the Outlander became friends, and with the help of the young Danton Dyre, they would guard each other's backs in the depths of the mines for the next year. They would plot escape together, and with the others that would join their group, while doing their best to avoid the slavemaster's whips.

When the day of reckoning came, and the mineshaft walls began to shudder as the Dominion collapsed. it was said that this young dwarf seemed to embody the Chaos Lord himself. With a roar of fury that seemed to shake the cavern around him, Dragor laid about with his iron hand, into which he had fitted the broken blade of a pickaxe. Slaying at least a dozen of the silver mine's guards himself, his iron axe-hand was said to be dripping blood almost to the elbow. He was known as Ironhand from that day on.

Dragor proved to be a warrior tested and true in the years to follow, guarding his friends and followers for the long journey south. He was particularly close to the Night Hammer, Janna Davar, and the two were said to have shared more ale together than the rest of the refugee caravan combined. He road his mighty boar into battle time and time again, naming the creature Tina (after the mining ram that the slaves had been forced to carry).

It was said that the Ironhand faced down the champion of the Dominion on the Bridge of Radiance, when the column was forced to cross the bridge that connected the continents together. The Last City of Arahna'dar held the opposite bank, the settlement that is now called Evermarch. Much of the city had no care to oppose a well-armed column of slaves, but some amongst its nobility were loath to allow such escapees to provide an example to their own slaves, who had not yet revolted in the wake of the Dominion's collapse.

They met the Outlanders and their column on the bridge, at the head of an army a thousand strong. They were dug in and fortified in the centre of the bridge, with constant supplies being brought up from the south. The Outlanders' people were wearied by almost a year of travel, and left nothing behind them except the desolate wastes of the Scourge. They would have lost 5 men for every dominion soldier, had they stormed the bridge.

But Dragor proposed a different option, supposedly suggested to him by Anharak. He rode upon his boar to the Dominion's encampment, shouting for them to face him. When the nobleman in command emerged, Dragor challenged him to single combat, claiming he would face as many men would dare to meet him with steel. He rode before the enemy lines for hours on end, shouting obscenities and waving his axe overhead. His boar dodged every arrow the incensed Adari sent at him, and refused to back down until his demands were met.

Eventually, it seemed as though the Dwarf would need to shout through the night as well, a party emerged from the enemy camp. Fifteen strong were they, clad entirely in red steel from head to toe, longaxes and glaives gleaming in the afternoon light. What words were exchanged between the party's leader and Dragor Ironhand did not carry to us on the wind, but they did not speak for long before steel was brandished on both sides. Both the refugee column and the Adari soldiers were hushed, as the fight began.

And so it was that Dragor Ironhand and his faithful mount faced down fifteen elite soldiers of the dominion, as the shadows of the mighty Bridge of Radiance grew long, and its span began to glimmer as the day neared its end. He rode into their midst, scattering them with charge after charge, eventually leaping from Tina's back to hack amongst the Adari soldiers. Off balance, chilled to the bone by the Dwarf and his boar's incessant roars of fury, half of them ran before a minute had passed. When the fighting was done, nine of them lay dead upon the ground, the noble leader of the contingent among them.

The remaining Adari quietly withdrew from the bridge, and did not trouble the caravan any further.

Dragor served his companions faithfully on the remainder of their journey south and celebrated the founding of Dal Evar at their side. He forged many of the weapons the Outlanders would carry with them throughout their lives, from Danton Dyre's Axes to the Black Hammer that gave Janna Davar her name.

He and his dwarven followers built the first Forge-Tower, in the days that the city was only beginning to grow. The dwarves would eventually move into the Depths in great numbers, and settle in the Khalyn Pass as well. The towns of Stonespire and Khordan were built on the slopes of Vanhar's Peak, and the Zanbar Citadel was built to watch over them all from on high. The Ironhand, by then in the twilight of his years, was said to have laid the final stone himself.

He fought bravely during the War of Shadow, climbing atop the walls of Dalasira at Janna Davar's side to slay undead soldiers in their hundreds. If not for the pair's tenacity, the battle could well have been lost.

The dwarven craftsman eventually passed from this world, dying peacefully behind the walls of the Citadel he helped build alongside his people. He was buried with honours in the very same place, in a simply decorated tomb (at the dwarf's own request). Tina, dead now for several years, was buried beside him.

From 'The Outlanders : Their Names and Stories' by Tila Fiannon.