Ragnum Stillhart

Ragnum Stillhart was born into the Stillhart clan, a family of master Dwarven distillers whose name meant little outside the circles of the most devoted students of the craft. Their spirits, however, were prized at the highest tables in the land. Their most famous creation, Coigshena, earned the Stillhart matriarchs a seat among the Seven Spirits. The family fell when Ragnum was young, however, when his mother Sorcha Stillhart meddled in affairs she should have left alone. The Stillharts were assassinated, leaving none alive except Ragnum.

He had been down among the stills making repairs when the killers came, and in his work clothes he passed as one of the hired hands; that happenstance spared his life, but little else. The surviving workers were rounded up and sold to slavers, and Ragnum went with them. He was sold on as a Martial Artist in the Ruckus Ring of Khazalet, an underground ring where the enslaved fought for their owners' profit and the promise of eventually winning their freedom. Ragnum proved a prolific fighter in the unarmed divisions of the Ring. He won, and kept winning, until the crowds would no longer bet against him. To Ragnum, it seemed his freedom was all but guaranteed. 

His owner Vazquez Sazindi, however, saw a greater opportunity in Ragnum's talents. If Ragnum lost, anyone who had bet against him would make a fortune. Vazquez began bringing him drinks before his fights: plain grog at first, then bottles of premium high-proof whisky as the fight Vazquez had chosen drew closer. He needed Ragnum used to fighting drunk, and the dwarf made the martial artist unpredictable. His opponents couldn't keep up with him, and Ragnum earned a reputation across the pits as the "drunken fighter". Then, before a seemingly easy fight, Vazquez made his move, lacing Ragnum's drink with an intoxicant strong enough to kill three Human men. The dwarf stumbled out into the pit, and his mind went dark.

The worst of these periods involved an improbability that Ragnum was never able to explain, lasting years and spanning a continent. The next thing he knew, he was near-naked and deep underground, missing a chunk from his ear and covered in cuts, bruises, and blood that clearly wasn't his. His arrival caused quite a stir to the rock Gnomes living there. Miners showing up to their morning shifts at the Lockford cavemouth found shouting and pandemonium instead: a nearly naked dwarf, drunkenly arguing with the mining authorities. It seemed impossible, but Ragnum had emerged from his stupor hundreds of miles from Khazalet, in a mining settlement called Little Lockford.

When four of the strongest gnomish miners moved in to haul him off, it turned out to be a mistake. He easily incapacitated all four despite his hangover, and chaos gave way as he began yelling in some unknown tongue, pickaxe now his own, charging into the mines. Nobody tried to stop him. His laughter and shouting echoed through the shafts all day while the rest of the crew kept well clear of him. That evening, the miners emerged to find a minecart overflowing with gems at the end of the shaft he had disappeared down that morning. No one else had gone down that shaft, so it had to be him, though it seemed impossible for one dwarf to have dug up so much in a day.

The foreman found it easier than expected to get over losing four of his best miners for the shift. Rumors traveled fast in Little Lockford, but not fast enough, because Ragnum was already at the Motherlode tavern nursing a Rubbleclub Classic by the time the miners got there. He had somehow found pants and remembered the ability to speak Common in the same afternoon. He was chatting with the bartender like a regular, and as the crew walked in he called out, "Good to see you lads, first round is on me!".

Ragnum became a local legend, someone to be feared and respected in equal measure, and was given the surname "Ironknuckles" by the gnomes. Theories about who he was and where he came from multiplied, but he could never confirm them, having completely lost his memory. Ragnum was a regular at the Motherlode and the top miner at the cavemouth whenever he decided to show up, becoming something of a union leader. The foreman never worked up the nerve to enforce regular hours, so Ragnum kept his own. At the pub he claimed a table in the back corner, and the seat took the shape of him over time. Few people were brave enough to sit there even when he was out; usually, it was an Artificer convinced their newest Construct could finally beat him.

For over a few years, nobody managed this feat, until he was challenged by the Overseer Tixie Taffebeser Tockworth. Tixie had built a hulking automaton, a Clockwork Stone Defender stripped of its shields and rebuilt with massive fists instead. At first Ragnum thought he had it handled, as the construct was slow, and he moved around it easily, landing hit after hit against its hardened shell. Then he made one mistake, and found himself face to fist with a gauntlet the size of his torso; off balance and badly hurt, he was knocked out by a second hit. 

Emboldened by the victory, Tixie initiate the Big Little Lockford Lockdown not long after. Ragnum was in the mines at the time, and returning from shift, was forced to flee her automatons with his crew. Mayor Zamzu Quickzipper Ukkem Zapp Mulberry Kreem ordered a magical bulwark to be placed at the gates of Old Lockford, and Ragnum was left with little as a camp was set up outside the city.