Ungrim Ironfist

Long ago a king of Karak Kadrin took the Slayer Oath, and found himself caught between two vows, for a Slayer must seek his death while a king must serve his hold. The priests of Grimnir ruled that the royal oath outweighed the doom, and so was born the line of Slayer Kings: monarchs who bear both burdens, passing the unfulfilled death-oath down the generations like a debt of the blood. Ungrim Ironfist is the latest to carry it, and none has carried it harder.

Ungrim rules well, which is his tragedy. Karak Kadrin thrives under his stewardship (its walls strong, its shrine rich, its gates open to every doomed pilgrim of Grimnir), and every year of good kingship is another year his own doom goes unmet. He compromises as only a dwarf can: the crown riveted above a Slayer's crest, kingly duty by day, and on the battlefield the great Axe of Dargo and a fury that sends far larger monsters looking for somewhere safer to be.

The Slayer cult reveres him and the other holds rely on him, for Karak Kadrin guards Peak Pass, one of the great gates of the dwarf realm, and its Slayer-heavy throng is the hardest-hitting force in the mountains. Ungrim leads it from the front in every war, half in hope. His doom has not yet obliged him. His hold, quietly, prays it never does.