Character 80 - Brangnar Steelgut

This week’s random rolls yet again limited our class choice with such low stats in all the mental ones and dexterity. What I was left with however, made for some interesting ideas. I needed to bend RAW a bit to get it done – giving an android a dwarf only archetype – but in this case the story required it. So I present you the android that thinks he’s a dwarf, Brangnar.

Brangnar Steelgut

Druma is well known as the land of traders. The people of the young kingdom see wealth as divinity. Because of these things it is said that anything can be found in Druma. If a commodity will go for any amount of gold it can be found in the land of the Prophecies of Kalistrade.

Although the government and most of the population Druma is human, there is also a sizeable minority of dwarves. Not only is Druma bordering on, and occupying some land formerly belonging to, the Five Kings Mountains, it was also instrumental in uniting the dwarves of the five kingdoms with the Kerse Accords. There are still many towns with dwarven populations, Peddlegate being one of the largest populations.

The Steelgut clan is a minor family of dwarves made up mostly of low ranking career soldiers. KravmarSteelguts is the current patriarch of the family, and both he and his wife Baltklin were grunts in the Peddlegate militia. Kravmar has always wanted to break away from family tradition and become a famous inventor but fate kept the Steelguts in a life of service. Even so Kravmar would constantly tinker in his few free moments.

With Drumish merchants a constant presence in Peddlegate, Kravmar was always on the lookout for interesting bits to play with. One such peddler game through town lugging what looked like dead man. The trader claimed that it was some kind of metal man, like a golem but broken beyond repair. The Steelgut family head spent almost a year’s salary to purchase the thing – much to the chagrin of his wife – and he took it home to play with.

Illustration by Luis Perez

Kravmar would work on it while his young son watched and as the years went by their new daughter also took up a fascination for the pale blue man with the weird lines on his face. Baltklin was pregnant with her third child when the unbelievable happened. The thing rose, like a man from the grave.

The thing began gibbering and as the family began speaking to it, it began to process dwarven. It began to speak back like a child but its vocabulary grew quickly. Little did the family know that a number of its processors were damaged and this left the creature not only with gaps in memory but also an inability to process large amounts of data. The creature they named Brangnar actually believed it was a dwarf.

There was little Kravmar and Baltklin could do to dissuade Brangnar from his beliefs. Eventually they stopped trying and accepted him as a member of the family, a second son. The android began to affect the mannerisms of a dwarf. Sadly Brangnar barely understood stoicism and even that seemed forced, although he did manage to master the dwarven accent.

Like his ‘father’ Brangnar took up military endeavors. He trained with his older ‘brother’ to join the Peddlegate militia. The guard captain – a lot more inquisitive than most dwarves – took a keen interest in Brangnar. He even took the young ‘dwarf’ under his wing. Although not technically a dwarf, Brangnar was the first member of the Steelguys family to really move up the ranks.

The captain not only taught Brangnar the traditional dwarven way of fighting with a warhammer, but he also brought him on many important actions. When the guard had finally gotten enough evidence to take down the Blackbeard organization, a long time thorn in the side of the people of Peddlegate, Brangnar was present. The android was even able to make one of the arrests himself.

Brangnar did his duty with strength and honor just as the teachings of the family patron Kols asked. But that didn’t mean life wasn’t without problems. Between his hampered processors and his lack of ability to understand or affect emotion, Brangnar was what some would call naïve. When sent to deal with business for his father, poor Brangnar was taken advantage of by the Drumish merchant. Although everything was perfectly legal, the middle Steelgut still failed his family. The bigger problem was that even though he knew he had done poorly his lack of emotion didn’t allow him to feel any regret.

Brangnar would always be on the cusp of greatness but never quite. His own inability to see himself succeed was always a hampering factor. To some it could be called self-doubt although the android didn’t quite comprehend the thought of self. He was a dwarf, a member of the guard, and a Steelgut. When his older brother sought something more Brangnar went with him, because maybe, just maybe, he was something more.

So what became of your android? What class did your he choose? Why did he come to follow a dwarven god? What thing did he see fall from grace? How did he have a family?

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The character illustration was created by the fine artist Luis Perez. You can find him on Twitter, Tumblr, and on Instagram at luisperezart.