Khazul Drekhenn

Race: Duergar
Class: Runepriest (Wrathful Hammer)
Role: Divine Leader

Alignment: Neutral Good
Deity: Pelor
Background: Geography - Underwild

Most Recent Sheet

Snapshot: Pious, seeking to start anew, wants to become a better person than he once was, wants to prove himself in a 'good' way, taciturn, cautious and hesitant, full of uncertainty, proud, strong sense of personal dignity, meticulous about his appearance, conscious effort to control once-violent temper, outsider, innate unfamiliarity with 'civilized' society, deeply internalized guilt and shame about past actions, tries to avoid conflict, still deeply loves battle, meditates and prays frequently.


Appearance:
Khazul stands at 4'6, and is sturdily build, as most dwarves - even among the duergar - are known to be. The tale-tale sign of his kind, grey-tinted skin, is indeed his, visible most clearly in bright light and when standing next to a true dwarf, for comparison.

Once, Khazul had long, wild hair that he was quite proud of, but these days he keeps his head neatly shaved, carrying a razor with him at all times for the task. His beard, of course, is still thick, long and meticulously groomed. It is bright red in color, as his hair once was, and reaches the bottom of his rib cage.

Though his skin is marred by a variety of small scars and blemishes that attest to the difficulties of life among the Duergar, none stand out as particular notable. Most of the time, Khazul wears his armor - he has gotten so used to it that in truth he is as comfortable in it as most are in regular clothes. When forced to remove in, the Duergar man is indifferent to his dress as long as it is decently clean and not 'beneath him' - a very circumstantial standard indeed.

In less than bright light, he can usually pass as a dwarf, not least because it is what people are expecting to see. His speech does have an accent that can draw notice, if only for being so hard to place.

Personality:
Quiet, cautious, and sometimes even outright hesitant - this describes Khazul's demeanor much of the time. This wasn't always the case. Once he was brash, loud, violent. Now, trying to put those days behind him, the duergar often finds himself at a loss. He knows that he doesn't want to act like he once did, but he isn't always sure was 'good' behavior and actions are supposed to mean. He has few points of reference, given his upbringing, to refer to. Proud, and unwilling to humiliate himself with blind fumbling, the man usually prefers to say little or nothing at all when what to say or do isn't clear to him.

Pride is, indeed, one of his defining characteristics. He is not arrogant, per se - in those aspects where his abilities are inferior, he recognizes his weakness and will admit it if needed. But where he is skilled, he is proud of his skill, and he holds his personal dignity in high regard. This is why he is careful about his appearance, especially in his personal grooming, and why he is especially sensitive to slights to his pride - insults, mockery, a certain kind of patronizing tone. Once this would have provoked violence; now, he tries to reign in his temper, and instead is more likely to grumble or curse under his breath, or to simply stare at someone without a word until they become unnerved and back off - usually, at least.

He will not back away from a fight or a challenge, but neither does he seek these out. The same goes for talk with others, and friendships - he does not approach, but is not uncivil to those who talk to him. Sometimes, those less often these days, people take what he says as offensive or insulting, even when he didn't mean it that way at all: cultural clash, duergar society being what it is as compared to that of his new environs. In general he tends to be very vague in talking about his past, where he came from, what race he truly belongs to. Part of this is to avoid unnecessary conflict, and part of it is shame.

Guilt and shame, of a very personal, internalized sort. He feels it constantly, that ball of intense emotion he doesn't quite know what to do with. He is forty years old and only for the last half decade or so did he suddenly become so very violently aware of how wrong some of the actions he'd taken prior to that point had been. He doesn't talk of this much, but the awareness of how much he has to make up for is with him constantly.

His faith is likewise newly found, strong but private. He prays and meditates alone and rarely speaks of his convictions, except to other followers of the same faith.

In spite of his change in attitude, Khazul's love of battle remains, and he approaches it with intensity and earnestness. He has even less of a sense of humor about battle than he does most things: whereas most jokes just go above his head, a too-light attitude about battle and war actively annoy him.

He is loyal to those who he feels are deserving of his loyalty, and will go far to aide and help them, driven in part by that guilt for wrongs done previously, and partly by desire to prove to himself that he too can fit productively into this new society which he has ostensibly joined.

Background:
Khazul was born among the Duergar that had long retreated into the deepest parts of the catacombs - an insular, brutish, violent community where might determined a man's prestige and standing in the community. Khazul was one of four brothers, all of them know for being fearsome and strong. He prided himself in his ability to wield a hammer in battle. He prided himself in his ability to dominate, in his family name, in his carefully polished armor and wild red hair. He took what he wanted, when he wanted it. He fought and he cursed and he had his way with the women he wanted, and never once in his first thirty years of life did Khazul question his path, or his place in the world.

This all changed not long into his thirtieth year, when, after a fight with another Duergar of his clan, Khazul set off alone intent on finding something else to smash, an outlet for his frustration. What he found, to his delight, was a pair of adventurers who had wondered far too deeply into the catacombs and had become utterly lost. This was his first true experience with city folk, and Khazul made the most of it. The man, a minotaur, he slew after a fight far more fierce than he had expected. The woman he beat and raped. It was only afterwards that he noticed that the entrance to the chamber had caved in during his fight with the minotaur, leaving the two with only one way out of the chamber. Realizing that the dwarven woman's strength would be useful, he let her live, and the two grudgingly attempted to escape through the second, much narrower passage. She would not speak or even look at him, for days. Eventually however, Khazul, tired and hungry, had let down his guard and fallen into a pit trap. Holding on to the edge of the floor, the Duergar prepared to die, knowing he could not continue to hang there for long. So this would be his end. So be it then, he thought, and even tried to laugh.

It was at that moment that the woman, whose partner he had killed and who he had hurt so brutally, pulled him out. Khazul was shocked, unable to comprehend why she would do that, risk falling in herself to pull him out. His own brothers would have let him fall, if nothing else than for his own stupidity. It was the right thing to do, she said, and then continued walking, not speaking to him. Some time later they made their way to a central passageway, and parted ways.

For months afterwards, Khazul could not stop thinking about that moment. It bothered him, to the point of distraction. His brothers noticed the change in his demeanor, pressed him about it. He had no answers. No answers, only questions, and the sense more and more that life among his people was suffocating. After a time he could stand it no longer and left. He eventually made his way to the city of *Dros'Kelah, tried to find the woman, to talk to her, to ask her why, to say...something. He didn't know. What he found was that she had killed herself not long after returning home, overwhelmed by the death of her longtime partner. Perhaps it was an accident, her neighbor said, mistaking him for a dwarven kinsman, but Khazul knew. And then he began to feel...something. He couldn't describe it, didn't have the words. Only that it hurt, and it slowly turned into self-hatred, shame, guilt, something. Nothing meant anything anymore. He began to drink, drink to the point of unconsciousness and again and again because he didn't know what to do with that feeling and with himself and he didn't understand why the things he had done without a thought for so long suddenly felt not right and it was all too confusing to bear.

A dwarf found him eventually. Farne was his name, and unlike most who recognized what he was, Farne did not curse at him or prepare for a fight. He took him, too drunk to stand, to his house and gave him a bed to rest in. Later they talked, in bits and pieces. He told Khazul about Horus, about righting wrongs, turning over new leaves, transforming oneself into something better than you once were. It was an answer, of sorts, and Khazul desperately needed answers. So he stayed, and learned about the god, about runes and casting them and not just swinging hammers but using divine power to help others. After a couple of years he decided he must venture back into the catacombs - it was there that this began, and there that it must continue. He secretly gained permission from the council and went back. Now he wanders through them, now looking to be useful, assist rather than hurt, others also wondering in those same tunnels and paths.

*Character created specifically for a particular setting, of which much background detail is part. Horus is setting equivalent to Pelor.