Grayhammer Painsmith

Grudvar Grelt is enormous. Not in the way of a dwarf who eats well, but in the way of a dwarf who cannot stop. The other smiths of Duskforge's Grayhammer Clan found reasons to look at their feet, their hands, the cavern ceiling, at anything but the spikes driven into his flesh and the chains bolted to his sternum. It didn't help. Some things you can't unsee.

Twenty years at the forge taught him what metal can take. He applied the same study to flesh, and then applied it to himself. The device bolted to his belly is his own work: chains, spikes, a converter with a glowing core and pressure gauges wired directly into his skin. Pain in, power out.

But the pain was never enough to make him feel alive.

He overhead a trader's tale of ruin being wreaked on the land above. Grudvar liked the sound of that. He navigated the tunnels of the Daigendark and made his way to the surface, where he went looking for the Conclave Arcana. He found them.

Grudvar joined Portia Nyr's retinue as they moved across Praetoria in search of its secret. In battle, his corrosive bolts eat through armor. Firing at close range leaves his torso mottled with chemical burns. Oh, the pain. He grins, the converter on his massive belly glowing brighter. He heals what needs healing and, by the time the fighters close in, his crossbow is already trained on the soft parts.

He has found what he was looking for.