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« on: May 15, 2014, 01:38:09 pm »
Etur Sculptanvils was born in 434 in Scaldedfigure, as a member of The Hammer of Snarling. He was abducted when he was but one year old, and imprisoned by The Dungeons of Baiting. He was abducted once more in 438, by an elf of The Ponderous Cruelty; but in 445, he managed to evade his guards and make his way back to Scaldedfigure.
He had not seen what happened to the captives on their twelfth birthdays. All he knew was that his friend Sakzul Spryinked had left their shared cell a prisoner, and had returned days later in the livery of a Ranger of Cacklefiends.
"Sakzul! Let me out!" Etur had whispered to his friend; but Sakzul wore a glassy-eyed non-expression which, now that he thought of it, most of the non-goblin adults of the Dark Fortress shared.
Etur had been 10 years old at the time, and the incident left a lasting impression on him.
As I said, he escaped and returned to his family in Scaldedfigure in 445. His father broke down sobbing; his mother held him tight and wouldn't let go. After a few days, he also learned of Cerol, the sister he had not known he had. She was two years younger than he, but shortly after her birth her mother had been ambushed by a snatcher, and had her second baby torn from her arms to be raised among Goblinkind.
Atis and Rovod did not try again. They couldn't bear it.
The years of Etur's young adulthood ticked by in breathless dread. Would Cerol, too, escape her captors? Had he unwittingly known her in the dungeons of Cacklefiends? Had the goblins tightened security after his escape - would he be responsible for her continued imprisonment?
Cerol's 12th birthday came and went, and the family went into mourning for their lost daughter.
When he was 15, Etur met and fell in love with Thob Bustgoal, an adventurer from Relicbore; but though they married, and he moved to Relicbore to be with her, she was not happy, and after six years of marriage took to wandering the wilds again. They never had any children.
In the year 458, The Hammer of Snarling received word that The Ponderous Cruelty was amassing forces to retake the Dark Fortress of Devilzeal, which the dwarves had won from them after centuries of war. The great Glass Monster Sahthet Mirroredvice the Cloak of Thieves would be leading the goblins into battle, and if they hoped to prevail, the dwarves would need the support of the entire kingdom. Everyone who could be spared from The Hammer of Snarling amassed in Devilzeal; Etur, his mother Atis, and his estranged wife Thob were all there, to defend against the onslaught and wreak revenge upon the Ponderous Cruelty.
The Attack of Rage was a bloodbath. Over 10,000 attackers fell upon Devilzeal, which, even with their call for aid, had only mustered 4200 defenders. Nine out of ten defenders perished, including Atis Fleshfountain, Etur's mother. Etur did not see the troll gore her to death, thank Vetek - that would have been too much to bear.
Etur shot and killed but a single human of the goblin forces, an old captive like he had been; and Thob with her war hammer amassed ten kills to her name, plus one coward who had run screaming after she bashed his nose in.
Despite their losses, The Hammer of Snarling prevailed, and The Ponderous Cruelty gave up on Devilzeal seemingly for good.
Etur bore his mother's body home to her husband in Scaldedfigure, and then returned to Relicbore, again without his wife; they had quarrelled again after the Attack of Rage, and she did not even stop at home before returning to the wilds. They never saw each other again.
The unhappy mason lost himself in work and drink until The Hammer of Snarling called another muster in 482, this time to attack the Dark Fortress Halehate.
The Fierce Attack was a fiasco. Though The Hammer of Snarling outnumbered the defenders 90:1, 88% of the invasion force was slaughtered. Etur survived only by chance: on the outskirts of the town before the attack, he stirred up a goblin scout, which relieved him of his left eye before being pincushioned by rest of the dwarven outriders. Injured, and with newly ruined depth perception, Etur Sculptanvils retired to the supply wagons and so escaped the massacre.
Plagued by a lifetime of survivor's guilt, Etur signed up for the next boneheaded scheme that was sure to get him killed that he came across: the colony Demontrap, with its insane mission to conquer the Underworld and put its denizens to work for the benefit of Dwarfkind. But he arrived early, only a year after it was founded; and after he had proved himself a dwarf of few desires, the Overseer recommended him for the Nobility.
So it was that in the year 505, Etur Sculptanvils - raised by goblins, abandoned by his wife, a survivor against all odds of the two great massacres of his lifetime - became the Baron of Demontrap.
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