Borin

Borin is a forty-six-year-old dwarf from the Rumbling Deeps, currently in his final year at the Underpeak Academy of Practical Sciences. By his own admission — and his school reports, in red ink, underlined — he is, by most measurable standards, unremarkable.

Appearance

Blond-bearded, which is unusual among dwarves. Slight of build compared to the rock-hauling standard of his peers.

Personality

Self-deprecating, witty, and endearingly self-aware. Polite when panicking — a reflex that has served him poorly in every crisis so far. He overthinks everything, especially Gloria. He is curious and bookish in a society that values hitting rocks over reading them.

Skills

Borin is a decent smith — he once made a sword that was technically a very aggressive letter opener. His most notable talent, and the one that raises the most eyebrows, is reading. He has read every book in the Underpeak library. All eleven of them. The twelfth was eaten by cave moths in the Year of the Damp. He also trades with surface merchants for human books, elvish scrolls, and gnomish technical manuals.

Family

His father Dorin was a miner of some reputation and very little caution. Official cause of death: "an unfortunate interaction with an unstable ceiling." Unofficial cause: a bet, a pickaxe, and the phrase "watch this."

His mother Helga was turned to stone by trolls three years ago on the road to Granite Falls. She now stands in the garden between the rose bushes and the cabbages. Borin visits her on Tuesdays.

Notable Events

Borin launched an anvil into the Grandmaster's portrait at the Ironarm Tournament while trying to impress Gloria, earning himself a sentence of scrubbing every tunnel in the lower levels. Gloria mouthed "Nice throw" as he was marched away in disgrace.

While mopping the Great Crossing, he fell down an old refuse chute into a forgotten mage's chamber — built before the Sundering Compact, when humans still lived among dwarves. There he found a portal theory book by a mage named Aldara, accidentally activated an ancient portal, and was transported to an unknown land far from home. He fought off a charging wild boar with his mop handle, and the boar later returned with a rabbit as a peace offering. Borin cooked the rabbit over a campfire and spent his first night under the stars. The boar — later named Grumm — has followed him since, becoming an unlikely but fiercely loyal companion.

Stranded on the surface, Borin found a small farm under siege by unnaturally large wolves with pale glowing eyes and wrong teeth. He forged a spear — Rensting — on the farm's primitive forge, falling into an involuntary smithing trance during which he chanted ancient forge songs he had never learned. The finished spearhead bore a dwarven rune he doesn't remember carving. He is learning the local human language through the farmer's children, Mila and Ren.

Equipment

• Rensting (Clean-Sting) — a spear forged from scrap iron on a farm anvil, fitted to a mop handle. Bears a mysterious dwarven rune.
• Aldara's book — A Treatise on the Practical Application of Aetherial Conduits. Enchanted to resist decay.
• Grumm — a four-hundred-pound wild boar. Not equipment. Not a pet. A companion, though Grumm would probably dispute even that.