Sten Slatehelm

Short even by mountain dwarf standards, Sten Slatehelm fights with throwing daggers and a shield he swings like a door off its hinges. His beard is proper dwarven pride, but his eyebrows are legendary: two oversized white caterpillars that twitch when he grins and billow in the wind.

On the march, those brows hang low enough to miss hand signals. In skirmishes, they obscure his vision, and more likely than not his daggers clip comrades while his shield careens off friendly bodies before reaching their target.

He calls it style. The others call it a reason to keep clear when he winds up.

Sten follows Fithe Bladestone because they bled together in the Deep when the mycelic tide boiled from old shafts, and again during the Siege of Solace against the Chaos Empire's legions. When Fithe called for volunteers to stand against the Conclave Arcana, Sten answered immediately.

In the scorched valleys of the Great Lowlands, Sten hurls iron and drives forward behind his battered shield while Oridum Graybrow's firestorms roll across ridgelines. The dwarves are thin, the air is ash, and the ground breaks under their boots. Sten plants, shoves, and makes space one body-length at a time.

"Clear," he says, flicking a dagger that clangs off a friend's helm before dropping a charging mercenary. He nods, brows waggling like pennants. "Right between the eyes."

Grimbardun's dwarves are outnumbered. The line won't hold much longer. But like Fithe, Sten believes the mage wagons will find them. Until then, he throws, bashes, and keeps moving.

Tomorrow, his allies can complain about nicked ears and bruised shoulders. At least they'll be alive to do it.