Gulgrim Bronlab

Young and already sure of his place, which is rare at his age.

A good-natured, sturdy dwarf in the last year of his Durnskild: he sees himself as a miner before, during, and after, and that suits him just fine. His balance rests on three things, the stone, his kin, the city, and anything outside them strikes him as a little slight. Where others still waver, he settled the question early. What remains to be seen is whether that's the peace of a dwarf who has found himself, or a wall he built before he ever saw what lay outside.

Describe him

You're young for a dwarf but already cut for the mine, broad in the shoulders with hard hands. You wear your helmet lamp and your rope the way others wear their Sunday best. You're easy to be around, quick to laugh, and the moment stone or tunnels come up your face lights up. But let the talk drift to something else and your interest quietly settles, polite but elsewhere. Whatever doesn't touch rock strikes you as a little slight, and it shows without your having to say it.

Play him

Play the simple good humor: laugh easily, clap a shoulder, tell mine stories the way others tell war stories. When someone talks stone, seams, tunnels, light up and become unstoppable. But the moment things drift away from rock, let your attention slide, polite and vaguely absent. Every now and then, size up a wall or a tool with a miner's glance and say something true that no one else had seen. And keep, underneath, that quiet certainty: you already have your place, and you're not sure you want these surface folk shaking it loose.

What he says

"Strike the stone honestly and it never lets you down. Go find me a surface man who does the same."
"Come by the house. At the Bronlabs, no one leaves with an empty belly."
(low) "Out there, everything moves all the time. I don't know how you stand it."