Jonor Smith's page

Short even for a dwarf, Jonor is solidly built, and loaded with gear. Unless 'at home' or sleeping he will generally wear his (self crafted) armour. This consists of steel capped boots (the extra thick leather soles also helping boost his height), greaves, leather leggings, armoured skirt, leather apron, breastplate, open faced helmet, oversized pauldrons, metal bracers and thick gauntlets. While the armour is idiosyncratic, it represents nearly twenty years of experimentation. The armour has been fitted and refitted to the dwarf, and conversely Jonor has learned how best to move in it.

Jonor has dwarven manners, manners which arrogant humans consider rude and abrasive. He doesn't understand personal space, dislikes meeting people's gazes, is blunt, and often ignores people. justification for low cha, and basically 'big city manners' as seen by provincial countryfolk.
On top of that Jonor has a near pathological need to prove himself, born out of his low birth status, youth, and short stature. This extends to explaining how superior the dwarven people are.
He has an insatiable desire to learn, and a tendency to keep his skills secret. In a culture where knowledge is power, teaching is something one only does for the worthy. His youth, and his obsession with study, have left him a little naive and clueless - and he's not sure how to ask for help.
That said, he is honest and loyal. He doesn't shirk his duty or his chores. Once you have become his friend, he will die for you.

Jonor was the 3rd child born to a merchant family. His low status parents insisted all their children drill endlessly in the hopes that their offspring might become warriors, and that their grandchildren might become craftsmen.

When he was thirty, Jonor was with his father visiting miners in the deep delves when he heard the Singing in the Stone. He led the miners to a vein of mithril nearly as thick as his thumb. His gift was tested and to his parent's delight he was acknowledged a stonesinger and apprenticed to a Smith.

Jonor studied hard, and there was no question he was enormously gifted, but most of his apprentices were the children of Smiths, who had grown up at the Forge. While accusations of nepotism were duelling words, somehow Jonor was kicked from apprenticeship to apprenticeship, never making Journeyman despite his talent. He was finally reduced to acting as an assistant to a Warsmith fighting the troglodytes that plagued the area around the city.

He helped fight the Troglodytes, mostly by repairing the armour and weapons of the fighters, though he did help with caving. It was while delving for a Troglodyte nest that the band he was with found a buried door. When the primitive Trogs collapsed a tunnel and buried the dwarves, he pushed the survivors to explore the door.

Behind that door was the ruins of an ancient Troglodyte temple, a temple built on top of an even older ruin. A ruin of a Troglodyte city - proof of a civilisation older than any known. Only Jonor could read the archaic Draconic of the inscriptions that had survived on battered, giant stone tablets.

The few survivors eventually managed to carve their way out and return home in an escape that caused them to lose the location of the ruins completely. Jonor kept quiet about what exactly he'd seen, but he bartered the secrets into an apprenticeship - and eventual Journeyman status - with a Highsmith.

Now a Journeyman Highsmith he hungered for more. The tablets had mentioned other ruins. Other races, old even before the Troglodytes had mastered fire. What secrets might they have that an enterprising dwarf might tame and teach to others. Perhaps the future of Dwarf could be found in the ruins of the dead races.