Hrothgar Starbrow

Full Name: Hrothgar Starbrow
Age: 19
Class(es): Barbarian/Wizard
Race: Human
Alignment: Neutral Good
Deity: Aragen

A rugged barbarian, his brown hair pulled back in plaits, his clothes a hard-worn collection of leathers and rough homespun. He seems more controlled than most, and his glance is penetrating.

Hrothgar was born on the second Worship Day of Snow Deep, a child of the Hardrada clan on Barbarian Island. His childhood progressed in the way all such do: the hard labor of finding food, keeping the clan safe, dealing with the cold. In his fourteenth winter, however, Uthgrim the Wise declared that Hrothgar was to become his assistant. This was several years later than was traditional, and some objected, but Uthgrim was growing old and insisted: he needed to take an apprentice before he joined the ancestors, and none of the younger children was suitable.

Three hard years passed. Denied the right to take his trial of manhood, Hrothgar was mocked by his young peers as a baby. Uthgrim taught him, but Hrothgar's native curiosity and determination - used to dealing with the problems of mountain life - was slow to wake to the wonders of the sagas and magics. Uthgrim insisted that Hrothgar was the proper student, but he seemed to have no natural talent for magic, and no divine inspiration, having to learn arcane skills slowly and painstakingly.

During the third year of his apprenticeship, Uthgrim seemed to change. More distant, more cutting, with fewer lessons and more harsh beatings. Driven to desperation, Hrothgar inadvertently discovered the cause: Uthgrim had been corrupted, somehow. Practicing banned magics that called up the souls of the ancestors bore a sentence of death, and Hrothgar reported his master to the tribal council that same day.

The old man's magics took two strong warriors with him to the grave, and memory of his fall also took away Hrothgar's place in the tribe. If the teacher was foul, how could they trust the student?

For two years, Hrothgar wandered the island, only half-caring for his own survival. Awakening one day in an ice cave, the cloud seemed to clear from his vision. Much that Uthgrim had taught him before his fall began to make sense. Even if his clan rejected him, someone would need what he had learned. That night he was visited by the great dragon in his dreams; the next morning he set off for Raven's Watch, and took passage south.

[NitaThompson]

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