Randal

Randal is the 19th hero that you will unlock at stage 2550.

## Story

A great dwarven kingdom, long forgotten, once dominated the Hinterlands. How, why, or when it collapsed is a mystery, or a well-kept secret. Its remains are scattered throughout the rolling hills and grasslands, a reminder that even the mightiest will one day meet the mightier. Among the great stone-works and half-buried wonders of this ancient architecture, live the Hinterland Dwarves.

These Dwarves are not like other Dwarves, or any other race of Alandria. They believe they are the descendants of the broken kingdom that surrounds them and dedicate their lives to simple living. Their only core belief is that great dreams lead to great downfalls. If their needs are met, these simple but strong people live their lives hunting, telling stories of old, and roaming their ancestral lands.

Randal was one such Dwarf, and lived a happy life, free of pride and ambition. He lacked the keen eyes of a bowman or a spear-fisher, or even the nimble fingers of a basket-maker or fabric-weaver. In place of these, he possessed great strength, a valued asset for his people. Randal, like all Dwarves with such power, served his tribe as a bear hunter. The pelts, meat and strong bones of these beasts were of great use in the Dwarves' wild lifestyle.

The bears of the Hinterlands were great, powerful predators. Those who considered hunting them often hired a team of Ebony Jungle Skullhunters, a Stormspire mage, or even a crate of Irongard's famed muskets. The Hinterland Dwarves, their skills never for sale, had a different philosophy. Pack hunting, magic and mechanics were too complex a concept. Complexity was the road to development, and development led inevitably to collapse, as their ancestors once did. Bear hunters like Randall, fought alone. They would prepare for days, stalk their prey, and fight it hand-to-hand, trading blows until either hunter or bear fell defeated. Randall had lost count of the hunts he had completed throughout his life.

It was only a few years ago that Randal noticed changes in his beastly foes. They seemed more aggressive; stronger, faster. Some unleashed unearthly high-pitched screams instead of roars, haunting the sleep of many folk in the surrounding tribes. Randal saw their nests, once simple and respectable like the living spaces of his own people, turned into littered lairs covered in the gore of messy kills, rot and filth. The bears were warped, frothing at the mouth, relentlessly attacking without reserve or defense. Ever more of them showed rotting flesh and exposed bone, eyes burning with the animating force of magic. Many hunters fell to these abominations, and fear had returned to the spirit of the Hinterland Dwarves.

One morning, as Randall rested, he heard some fellow tribesmen talk. They spoke of undeath, and tales of plagues and the rising armies of darkness from passing travelers and traders. Randall paid no mind. To him, things were simple. If there was a threat, it would be dealt with. Times were hard, but so was life. As fortune would have it, the winds of fate blew the news to Randal's ear. The village elders had decided: it was time to leave tradition behind, build fortifications, and trade with neighbors for weapons and magic. If Randal felt some way about this, it did not show. He simply got to his feet, took a coil of rope from his tent, and began to walk.

He had not been entirely prepared, or stalked his next prey enough, but to him it mattered little. What mattered more was that the Hinterland Dwarves had lost their way. He walked for hours to the vile nest he had scouted to some nearby ruins. As he approached the collapsed ruins of his forefathers, now infested with whatever was warping his and his people's simple lives, his face and mind were blank. He made no effort to hide his footsteps. The runed floor and walls echoed as he strode deeper into this monument to the past. Before long, a scream from the shadows.

Randal, expressionless, ducked to avoid the monster's leap, twisted claws grazing his hunter's hair-knot. He watched it tumble, scrambling back to its powerful feet, its face illuminated by a single ray of light as it stood on its hind legs. Its muzzle had been torn, half its skull exposed and the other covered with rotting flesh. The bear screamed again and charged.

Without thought, Randal bent his knees and turned, his strong hands gripping a carved slab from the ground, twisting his body upward as he came around to meet his foe. The force of the blow as it smashed the bear's skull made a resounding crack that whipped around the ruins. Before the thing could rise again, as it snapped its jaws and screeched, Randal leaped above it, rope in one hand and a stone in the other. With practiced movements, he bound its feet and stuffed its mouth. As calmly as he had arrived, Randal left, dragging behind him the monstrous creature and the slab with which he bested it.

By the time he had returned, the elders had gathered his brothers and sisters in their village center. Their hearts were in the right place, Randal certainly knew. It was fear that had clouded their judgment. If they chose to leave behind tradition, even if they won this war, they would ultimately lose everything. The reminders and lessons of their fallen ancestors were being ignored. When Randal strode into the village center, it was to remind them.

With a mighty twist and swing, he launched the trapped bear between the crowd and the elders. Stunned, they watched in silence. The frothing monster struggled in a hungry frenzy, horrid sounds escaping its muzzled snout. Without a word, Randal lifted the stone slab above his head and brought it down on the beast. There was a terrible crack, and quiet. Randal looked at the elders, and his fellow village-folk. They did not need to speak to know that their ways did not have to change. Their strength was their dedication, never forgetting the lessons of the past. The Dwarves of the Hinterlands would not have to adapt to face the darkness. The darkness would have to adapt to face them.

And so it was that Randal showed his people that they would teach the monsters the lessons that they held so dear. With heavy stone weapons fashioned from the ruins of the old kingdom, Randal roams Alandria as a living reminder: fear changes the weak.

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