Gendin’s Journal – Thorin of the Clan Gilderlo

a page from the journal of Gendin, son of Arissa and Temone of the dwarven Clan Gilderlo

Thorin of the Clan Gilderlo

August, 1443 AWR

Explaining who my great great and then some grandfather is — this is extremely difficult. Some say I am complicated and difficult to understand. If that is so, Thorin, husband of Meselda, founder of the Clan Gilderlo, founding member of the Council of Rendelshod, is so much more. His childhood and young adult life explain much, although most cannot comprehend, any more than most can understand my upbringing.

Thorin was born in the city of Agodendron on the world Trent Armon. He and his younger brother were abandoned on the streets by their parents, who were petty criminals. The parents had  run afoul of a local ganglord and left their children on the street as a distraction while they fled. Assassins who watched the children play assumed the parents were inside the boarding house. As evening approached, the children looked for their parents and could not find them, as they had fled the city.

Obviously the parents were not clan dwarves, as it is absolutely impossible for a clan dwarf to give up their children.

Thorin and Baerden, aged 10 and 6, survived on the charity of neighbors for a number of weeks. For humans reading this, understand that the equivalent human ages are 5 and 3. These were babes.

Baerden was taken in by the temple of Dionysus, and grew up to become a cleric. Yes, it’s odd for a dwarf to become cleric to a human god, but the situation was unusual.

Thorin was taken in by Gimlock, the Assassin of Agodendron. Independent of any of the crime lords, none invoked that butchering dwarf’s ire, as those who did died shortly thereafter. I, called the Assassin of Sathea, can say with full sincerity that Gimlock was almost certainly the worst possible adult model for any child. I’ve not been told a reason why Gimlock took in a small child.

Regardless, Thorin grew up as Gimlock’s understudy. As a tween he was trained in the arts of direct combat and assassination, and as a young adult he eclipsed Gimlock as terms of skill and ferocity. The pairing made them even more feared.

Note: dwarves are considered adult at age forty-three. Their twenties and thirties are referred to as tweens. For humans reading this, remember that until adulthood, dwarves (like elves) age at roughly half the rate of humans.

As he approached adulthood, Thorin reunited with his brother Baerden, now a junior cleric of Dionysus.

A series of high profile assassinations made Agodendron too risky for even Thorin, so he and Baerden joined an adventuring band to get out of the city for a year or three. During this time they had numerous adventures, performing many amazing deeds. One item of note was that Thorin drank from an enchanted pool that caused him to sprout wings. His black wings fold tightly to his back and enable him to fly — not swift like a hawk, but with agility and stamina. To my knowledge he is the only known winged dwarf.

At the end of this period his adventuring group destroyed a slaver band and freed the slaves. One slave was Meselda, whose race is an off-shoot of the dwarves. Her people strongly resemble dwarves but unlike their cousins, have the ability to wield magic and become wizards. Thorin was very taken with her; his feelings were reciprocated and they married shortly later and had a son, Baldor.

Needing to support his family, he continued to adventure as it paid well. But it was risky — during a raid on a wizard’s stronghold they encountered a time gateway that flung them twenty years into the future. Thorin returned home to find his son half grown, taken care of by a mother who believed herself widowed, and by his doting brother. Following a joyful reunion, Thorin resolved to not leave his wife again.

Note: Baerden never married, but that is normal. Humans may not know that only one quarter of all births are female, so only one-third of male dwarves marry. The remainder build fulfilling careers and are often the doting uncle of many of their sisters’, brothers’, and close friends’ children. Humans find this strange, but the fact is that dwarves are very different from the other intelligent races.

Meselda was apprenticed to a wizard, as she demonstrated an affinity for the arcane arts. She found success in learning wizardry, although after twenty years of training a number of fell things happened at once.

Meselda’s master attempted to have his way with her by force. However, a well placed knife cooled his ardor, and shortly after that his corpse cooled as well. The master was well connected in the local wizards council and several of his fellows felt the need to punish his killer. It didn’t matter to them that he was a letch who was long overdue for what he received. Oddly enough, in twenty years of association he had never approached Meselda before, and none know why he made that fatal mistake.

At the same time, Baerden ran afoul of the murky politics of his temple, and needed to flee the city. All temples have their politics, and those of chaotics like Dionysus are incomprehensible.

Gimlock took an ill-advised contract, and after he slew his target, the victim’s family sought retribution. Gimlock had enjoyed far too many years of immunity, had grown arrogant, and had failed to take necessary precautions. He fell to the blades of his victim’s family. The family was dissatisfied with just one death, and extended their retribution to all who regarded Gimlock as a friend. This plunged the underbelly of Agodendron into a hidden war.

Looking analytically at the entire situation, Thorin called in a favor with a friendly cleric, who opened a gate to Trivana. Thorin took his wife, son, and brother with the intention that none other than the cleric would know where they had gone.

The story of Thorin forming the Council of Rendelshod with his close friend Susafras (who later became the Archmage of Rendelshod), the famed bard Edine, and various others is a separate story — a long story. The story of Thorin forming the Clan Gilderlo from outcast and clanless dwarves is another, as is the Council of Rendelshod’s quest for the fabled Rod of Seven Parts.

As I stated, Thorin is difficult to comprehend. At once he is a conscienceless killer, a master of the hand-and-a-half bastard sword along with virtually all hand and missile weapons known, and the deadliest soldier I know. He is also a dedicated leader of his clan, a stateman capable to negotiating critical treaties, and a man of untouchable honor. And he is a family man, a dedicated father to his children, his wife, and his extended family.