Drazhul Harkuun - XERES LIVE!

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Basic Information

Full Name

Drazhul Harkuun

Nickname

None

Race (Grade)

Dragonborn (D)

Class

Barbarian

Height

7'1"

Birthday

Sunspeak 24, 1021

Age

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Birthsign

The Sunscale Wyrm

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Bloodline Ability

🔮 Unknown

This Bloodline ability has not yet been unveiled to you.

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Physical Description

Drazhul Harkuun on a rain-wet street, the runes on his axe still warm

Appearance

Drazhul is two hundred and eighty-six, and as a D-grade he is a dragonborn in his prime; by human reckoning he would pass for about thirty. He is seven feet tall and enormously muscled, covered in thick, pebbled scales the deep orange of a forge fire, with a crown of jagged spines sweeping back from his head and a long, spined tail. His eyes are gold and usually narrowed, more from thought than suspicion. He goes bare-chested under a heavy mantle of grey fur, crossed with dark leather straps and buckles, with studded leather pauldrons, a broad belt fastened by an iron medallion, and a layered war-skirt of dark leather strips. His bracers and the strips of his war-skirt are carved with runes that glow a dull orange even at rest. His axe is a long-hafted, crescent-bladed thing with spikes at the head and back, and its blade is carved with the same runes, burning brighter than any of the rest.

Unique Characteristics

Drazhul is warm to stand next to, literally. Rain steams faintly off his shoulders, and the runes on his gear brighten and dim with his heartbeat, his temper, and how long he has been fighting. He speaks slowly, rarely raises his voice, and has a dry sense of humor that most people only notice a moment too late. Children tend to like him, because he answers their questions seriously, including very important inquiries about whether his scales are hotter after he sneezes. The surest sign of trouble around him is not his voice. It is the runes on his armor beginning to glow before he has said a word.

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Personality & Temperament

Positive Traits

Stern, patient, and surprisingly thoughtful
Never panics, whatever is falling on him
Dry sense of humor, delivered slowly
Takes children's questions completely seriously
Respects endurance in anyone, warrior or farmer

Challenging Traits

Enjoys battle enormously, and does not hide it
Ignores orders to retreat if anyone is left behind
Radiates heat; a fire hazard in a wooden town
His runes glow before he has decided to be angry
Treats a fortified door as a minor inconvenience

[To a small child, after serious consideration.] Yes. Hotter after a sneeze. Only for a moment, and mostly the nose. That was a good question.

A farmer who gets his family through a famine has done something harder than anything I have ever done with this axe.

[The runes on his armor already brightening.] You seem very strong. Show me.

Likes

Children's questions, the more serious the better
A good fight against someone worth fighting
Watching things grow, which he never saw at home
Farmers, healers, and soldiers who hold their ground
Cold streams, which hiss when he wades in

Dislikes

Cruelty disguised as strength
Needless killing, and the people who enjoy it
Panic, which he considers a waste of time
Being ordered to leave people behind
Anyone who torments the helpless

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Background & History

Trials of Endurance

Drazhul Harkuun was born among a dragonborn clan that measured adulthood through trials of endurance rather than age. Its young warriors crossed volcanic fields, hunted predators in ash storms, and carried heated stones until their hands bled. Drazhul excelled at all of it, but his defining trait was never simply strength. He had an extraordinary tolerance for pain and an almost stubborn refusal to panic.

The Final Trial

During his final trial, an eruption trapped several initiates beneath collapsing basalt. Drazhul ignored the order to retreat, dug three of them free with burned hands, and carried the last one nearly four miles through falling ash. His clan stopped wondering whether he would become a warrior after that. The only question left was how dangerous he would eventually become.

The Answer to Siege Problems

Over the following centuries, Drazhul fought as a mercenary, a monster hunter, a clan champion, and occasionally as the answer to problems that would normally have required siege equipment. He enjoyed the fighting enormously. He never enjoyed the killing, and he made a point of never wasting his strength on anyone weaker than himself.

The Rune-Axe

His famous axe was forged after he killed a magma-burrowing drake that had destroyed three mining settlements. Drazhul personally dragged chunks of the creature's mineralized bones to a runesmith and demanded they be worked into something "heavy enough to remember the bastard." The runes carved into the result store the heat of his body and burn brighter the longer he fights. The axe has followed him ever since.

Silmarithil

Drazhul moved to Silmarithil on Goldenleaf 13, 1307. He has spent nearly three centuries in places that burn: volcanic fields, ash storms, mining towns, and battlefields. When people ask why a fire-breathing barbarian would settle beneath the oldest trees in Haven, he says he wanted to live somewhere that grows. The Lanternwalkers asked him, very politely, where he intended to keep his axe. It now sleeps on a flat stone at the edge of a stream.

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Goals & Aspirations

A Full Turn of Seasons

Drazhul has never watched a forest go through an entire year, and he intends to. He wants to learn the names of the things that grow in the Elderwood, see what the town does with the autumn, and find out what the trees look like under snow. In the meantime he makes himself useful where great strength is welcome and great heat is not: hauling stormfall timber, lifting what needs lifting, and keeping a respectful distance from anything dry.

Strength, Defined Broadly

Silmarithil is full of the kind of strength Drazhul admires most: hunters, growers, foragers, and wardens who endure without making a show of it. He means to stand between its people and anything that would torment them. Silmarithil holds that exploiting the desperate or abandoning the helpless is a grave offense, and Drazhul has never agreed with a law more completely.

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Development

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Current Status & Relationships

Residence

Silmarithil

Role

Barbarian

ATTENTION!

Drazhul Harkuun is a D-grade dragonborn barbarian, two hundred and eighty-six years old, and an overwhelming melee combatant. His battle rage is unusually controlled: it does not make him sloppy, it makes him faster, stronger, and frighteningly focused. The runes carved into his axe and armor store the heat of his own body and grow brighter the longer a fight goes on, until the axe radiates heat like an open furnace. At full fury he can smash through fortified doors, shatter shields, rupture stonework, and send heavily armored opponents sprawling with a single strike. His breath is not an ordinary cone of flame but a short, dense blast of superheated embers that can melt weaker metals and turn exposed stone red-hot. He dislikes needless killing and considers slaughtering weaker opponents beneath him, so he is not a danger to anyone who is not looking for one. If the runes on his armor begin to glow before he has said a word, someone nearby is tormenting someone who cannot fight back. Make very sure it is not you.