Borun Cinderhand
Foundry Bouncer · Dwarf Common · Forge Dwarf · Male
Appearance
Borun is short even for a dwarf and exceptionally broad across the shoulders. Soot darkens the creases of his hands, and every brass button on his coat is different.
Profile
A soot-handed dwarf offers close protection and heavy work, hoping to take his trade back on the road.
GM background
Borun Cinderhand is short even by dwarven standards, built across the shoulders like a smith's vise, with soot permanently worked into the creases of his hands. He wears a coat whose brass buttons are all mismatched because each came from a different watchmate. Borun spent seven years as the night muscle at a municipal foundry: moving hot scrap, breaking up drunken arguments, and dragging workers away from accidents. He was dismissed after striking a foreman who ordered two apprentices back into a smoke-filled casting room. He laughs too loudly, speaks in blunt declarative sentences, and becomes embarrassed when anyone thanks him sincerely. Borun does not think of himself as a hero; in his mind, decent people simply stand between danger and whoever cannot stand for themselves. He wants enough money to buy a portable forge and become a traveling repair-smith, but he is functionally illiterate and ashamed to admit that contracts have to be read to him.
Concept: A compact dwarven bruiser who learned to fight while hauling furnace doors and bellows chains. He is dangerous in a doorway and almost useless when a problem cannot be solved by carrying, threatening, or hitting it.
Mechanical inspiration: Brute road map; Guardian-style protection.
Quality breakdown
Statistics
Speed: Land 20 feet
Senses: Darkvision
Attributes
Attacks
Damage 1d6+3 bludgeoning
Abilities
Requirements You stand on solid ground. Until the start of your next turn, gain a +1 circumstance bonus to AC, Fortitude DC against Shove, and Reflex DC against Trip. The first time an adjacent enemy Strides away, its first square costs 5 additional feet. Stepping, forced movement, and teleportation are unaffected.
Trigger An enemy you can see targets an adjacent ally with a Strike, before the attack roll. Give that ally a +1 circumstance bonus to AC against the triggering Strike.
Skills
| Skill | Modifier | Tier ? | Effective level |
|---|---|---|---|
| Athletics | +7 | High | 1 |
| Hauling furnace doors and using the hammer's shove trait. | |||
| Intimidation | +7 | High | 1 |
| years breaking up foundry fights with voice and presence before weapons came out | |||
| Lore: Foundry | +6 | Moderate | 1 |
| seven years around furnaces, casting floors, scrap sorting, and industrial safety | |||
Inventory
Weapons & Shields
-
Sledgehammer worn
Armor
-
Padded Armor worn
Outlook & boundaries
Strength obliges Borun to protect the exposed. He respects a foreman who shares the danger, never a title used to excuse it.
Edicts
- step between immediate danger and someone unable to defend themself
- finish work you have accepted unless the employer breaks faith
Anathemas
- knowingly send an unprepared subordinate into a danger you refuse to face
- mock someone for lacking education or physical strength
Recruitment facts
Browse individual details or try them in the player-safe preview. Share facts with players from a room.
Fighting style 1 detail
Borun fights at close quarters with a heavy hammer, using his weight to push enemies back.
Abilities 1 detail
He can brace against a rush and help shield someone standing beside him.
Skills 2 details
He knows furnace work, scrap handling and the warning signs of unsafe casting floors.
He is practiced at breaking up arguments through intimidation before weapons come out.
Disposition 2 details
When thanked in front of others, Borun abruptly offers to carry a pack or fix a sticking door. A quiet thank-you over a shared drink gets a much warmer answer.
He checks that the least experienced worker has left before abandoning a dangerous site.
Personal 1 detail
Borun cannot reliably read a contract and disguises embarrassment as impatience.
Payment
Usual rate 1.6 gp/day · Suggested minimum 1.2 gp/day
Employment terms
Unless stated otherwise, the employer provides ordinary travel food and shelter. The daily rate includes the stated role's ordinary risks; there is no automatic loot share. Agree exceptional expenses before accepting the job.
- Scope & risks
- Guard and evacuation work; imminent collapse requires a rescue plan, not a percentage surcharge.
- Loot & expenses
- Wages, no loot share; permission to salvage discarded scrap is welcome.
- Working conditions
- A dry tool roll suffices; no private room required.
- Bargaining
- Recovering his pawned tools counts toward upfront pay, with their price agreed beforehand.
- Why this rate
- A low entry wage buys dependable muscle while he rebuilds his trade.
Motivations
- Immediate
- The pawnbroker will sell his tools at the next market; he needs a job that pays before then.
- Long Term
- Own a mule-drawn traveling forge and learn to read contracts without help.
- Reason For Mercenary Work
- Heavy fighting is the only work currently paying enough to rebuild his trade.
- Loyalty Trigger
- An employer who takes the same risks they ask hirelings to take.
- Leave Trigger
- Being ordered to sacrifice a weaker companion merely to save time or money.
Relationships & hooks
- Contact
- Hessa, an apprentice Borun pulled from the foundry fire, can introduce the party to the injured workers. She still works under Foreman Kel Marris and asks that her name stay out of any public accusation until the others agree to speak.
- Conflict
- Marris offers Borun a clean reference if he retracts his account of the accident. Borun's older sister can read the proposed statement to him, but he has been avoiding her since their last quarrel about accepting help.
Development
- Opportunity
- Recover his pawned tools and find a traveling smith willing to take him on for a repair job. Borun asks a companion to sit with him while his sister reads the apprenticeship agreement; getting through that conversation matters as much as finding the work.
- Direction
- After several supervised repairs, he can begin taking paid work between expeditions and save for a forge cart. Let him read the next short contract aloud himself, accepting help with the difficult words.