Dwarven Historian - The One Ring theoretical - Company of the Marsh Bell

Scholarly pursuits are not what dwarves are known for, it's not hard to make a dwarven scholar. We don't see much in the way of scholars in the few dwarves we see, Balin is likely the best example of it. That said, let's get started.

Dwarves start with relatively few skills but more of them at higher level. In this case, good capabilities in Travel, Craft, and Search with Craft being favored. They have decent skill with Riddle, Inspire, and Explore. They have some basic skill in Song and Battle. Their cultural blessing is Redoubtable allowing them to hold great loads. The Dwarves of Erebor are a Rich culture.

So now we come to the choice of weapons. Both lines of weapons give Short Sword 1 and Dagger 1 but the choice is between skill in all Axes or favored skill with a Mattock. I'm already eyeing a particular background so I think I'm going to pick up the line with favored Mattock skill. Plus, it's Middle Earth and while axes are iconic to dwarves, the average soldier drafted from the miners will use a mattock rather than an axe. So there we go.

Now we come to the first two specialties for the character. We have two to choose from between Fire-Making, Smith Craft, Smoking, Stone-Craft, Trading, and Tunneling. Given the idea of the dwarven scholar, I think I am going to go with Smoking and Stone-Work. Smoking specifically its use for focusing the mind and Stone-Work because of the association of dwarves of yore working incredible things into the stone and researching on the chronicles stored on the walls. This will also fit into the background I am thinking of.

Speaking of that background, I am going for A Life of Toil the standard of which being that they come from a family of miners. I imagine that they got their start in a scholarly pursuit in study the old stone-works they uncovered while opening old mines in the Blue Mountains. This gives them Body of 2, Wits of 6, and a Heart of 2. It also gives us a second favored skill of Explore. Then we have to choose two distinctive features out of a list of eight: Energetic, Fierce, Hardened, Proud, Stern, Vengeful, Wary, and Wilful. For this, I will be going for Energetic and Wary.

For the Calling we already know this character is going to be a Scholar. That gives them the Rhymes of Lore trait, the Lure of Secrets Shadow Weakness, and two more favored skills from a choice of Perception and Vocation. One of these is going to be Lore and I will make the second Search. As a note, this means that the character already has stats in three of their favored skills: Craft and Search at 3, and Explore at 2.

The choice between Valor and Wisdom is easy here. We're going to go with Wisdom and choose a Virtue. Two virtues stand out immediately from the set of Dwarven virtues: Broken Spells and Ravens of the Mountain. For the first, the character will have some minor spells that they can cast given time starting with one and unlocking others later. The second gives them a friend among the intelligent ravens of the Lonely Mountain who can do favors for you. I think for this, we will go with Broken Spells and look at our choice of spells. There's Spells of Opening and Shutting which are used to lock or unlock doors, Spells of Prohibition and Exclusion which allow them to make a camp safer, and Spells of Secrecy allow them to hide small things. I am going to use Spells of Prohibition and Exclusion due to the Wary trait.

For favored Attributes, we're putting the 3 into Wits, 2 into Heart, and 1 into Body. This sets their favored Attributes to 7 for Body, 4 for Heart, and 9 for Wits.

So now we go on to spending Experience and my plan is to spend most of that on increasing Lore. In fact, we can put all 10 points down to increase Lore straight to 4. This is unusual for me when I've been making characters in this system, or any system really. I usually prefer to have a collection of decent levels of skill rather than a few specialized skill, but this really fits the character well.

Now, for starting Endurance our character has 28 + basic Heart, which is 2 for a total of 30 and Hope is 6 + basic Heart for a total of 8. This dwarf is not a very hopeful sort but he is very resilient though on the low end for dwarves. Which brings us to gear, as a note, we are going to reduce our total Encumbrance by our Favored Heart roll before figuring out his starting Fatigue, so we are a bit able to carry more than we might think.

So, we're definitely going to take up the mattock and also carry a dagger. That's an encumbrance of 3. Now on to protective matters, a shield is not going to be very useful because the mattock is two-handed so unless we choose to carry a short sword as well, that's off the table. We're going to look at the mail armor since we have a high endurance and the Redoubtable reducing our fatigue. The options are Mail Shirt, Coat of Mail, and Mail Hauberk and I think we're going to go with the middle option of Coat of Mail. Then I think we'll take a Helm which adds a bonus to Protection rolls, it also allows you to throw the helm off in combat to reduce your fatigue level slightly. That's a total Encumbrance of 25, due to Redoubtable we reduce that by 4 to 21 to determine the fatigue level.

Lófar son of Burin

Life in the Blue Mountains was not particularly easy, even for the dwarves that were able to find some level of success. Lófar is too young to have lived in the Lonely Mountain and does not remember the fury of the dragon, but he does remember skirmishes with orcs and goblins and surviving mining accidents. The Dwarves of the Lonely Mountains were guests with their kin in Blue Mountains and their hosts had made sure to grab as much of the profit of their labors as possible. Thrain and several other families proved much more successful, enough to fund the Quest for Erebor and recover their home. So he remembers suffering the greed of his kin as well.

Despite this, he does not let weigh him down. He is wary but he is driven in a way seems to fuel his actions. He is eager to learn more and uncover lost secrets of the old kingdom of Erebor, when they had greater craft and spells and few could even think of challenging the dwarves. Such lore, he thinks would make sure to shield Erebor against the depredations of other dragons and darkness.

Culture: Dwarf of the Lonely Mountain

Cultural Blessing: Redoubtable

Calling: Scholar

Shadow Weakness: Lure of Secrets
Standard of Living: Rich
Age: 67

Endurance: 30

Hope: 8

Shadow: 0

Valor: 1

Wisdom: 2
Standing: 0

Encumbrance: 25

Fatigue: 21

Parry: 6

Specialties: Smoking, Stone Craft, Rhymes of Lore

Distinctive Features: Energetic, Wary

Body: 6 (7)

Heart: 2 (4)
Wits: 6 (9)

Personality: Awe 0, Inspire 2, Persuade 0

Movement: Athletics 0, Travel 3, Stealth 0

Perception: Awareness 0, Insight 0, Search 3

Survival: Explore 2, Healing 0, Hunting 0

Custom: Song 1, Courtesy 0, Riddle 2

Vocation: Craft 3, Battle 1, Lore 4

Mattock 2, Short Sword 1, Dagger 1

Rewards: None

Virtues: Broken Spells (Spells of Prohibition and Exclusion)

War Gear

• Weapons
• Mattock - Damage 8, Edge 10, Injury 18, Encumbrance 3
• Dagger - Damage 3, Edge G, Injury 12, Encumbrance 0
• Armor 
• Coat of Mail - Protection 4d, Encumbrance 16
• Helm - Protection +4, Encumbrance 6