The Naming of Garrshammer Coalbrow the Forty Seventh

Cute and Quiet. Makes a lot of hand gestures, a bit like Yoda, but less green.

Topic/Postby Gergel » 11 Jul 2010, 13:41

The Naming of Garrshammer Coalbrow the Forty Seventh

(I think I mentioned needing to write this thing a looooong time ago. Finally
remembered it and got around to actually doing this. /flex)

("Who's this Coalbrow?" ask a bunch of people who have not met him or cannot
remember him. A priest alt of mine, hasn't (yet) been kicked from RnP due to
inactivity. Likes to speak with Troll accent ["'ey dere, how ya dooin', mon?"
and the like] and most of the time appears a teeny tiny bit crazy. Which, I
think, really fits right in to RnP.)

~~~

Gargur was born as the first and only son of the Coalbrow family and brought
up in a proper ages-old Dark Iron fashion. He was named after his father who
had been named after his father, who had been named after his father. And so
on. Considering the longevity of Dwarves, getting the attention of the right
one was somewhat problematic in the Coalbrow family. One would yell "Gargur!"
and get four, sometimes five replies "Yes?", "What?", "Huh?", "Broooogh!" from
various generations. It's no wonder that nicknames quickly replaced real
names.

First it was "Junior", to the utter delight of our Gargur's father (Forty
Sixth), who had been straddled with that one for a while, as the youngest.

"Trollmouth" came soon afterwards.

To the chagrin of his traditionalist great-grandfather (Forty-Fourth), Gargur
did not show particular inclination for following the proper traditional Dark
Iron fashion: wearing Dark Iron armor made of dark iron, waving really really
huge axes around, speaking with a thick Dark Iron accent and so on.

(Except, of course, the most important part. Gargur was very much a drinker.
Dark Iron Ale, Sulfuron Slammers and so on were an integral part of his well-
balanced diet. So the old dwarf did not bother him too much about his lack of
following proper old ways.)

After seeing visiting Twilight cultists for the first time in his life, the
young Dwarf was always thereafter seen sneaking after them as they walked in
the city under Blackrock Mountain. He seemed especially fond of the Trolls and
their exotic speech. Shortly after discovering his first Troll, their words
and articulations started to seep into his own way of talking. First there was
the occasional "mon" thrown into a sentence here and there, mon. Den de hard
"th" slurred down to de soft "d" ("NEVER SAY THAURISSAN'S NAME OUT LOUD LIKE
THAT!" raged Forty-Fourth). An' pretty soon 'e got ta de point w'ere 'e be
talkin' mo' like a Troll dan a real Troll, mon. This of course upset his folks
a bit but they got used to it. And of course Gargur got rid of the "Junior"
title.

So the boy grew up wearing only clothes instead of armor (except the requisite
Coalbrow family hard hat with pieces of actual coal inserted into the metal
edge just above the wearer's brows -- no getting around that), speaking in a
foreign fashion and caring little about metal- and stonework, preferring to
meddle with "girly stuff" (according to Forty-Five, his grandfather) like
flowers and potions instead. (Forty-Five was shortly thereafter placated by a
fancy [and extremely potent] new brew that Trollmouth invented.)

One fine day he and his buddies were wandering aimlessly around lower
Blackrock, looking for something to do. No adventuring parties (that they
could throw rocks at) from up-world had been seen for a while. Nothing
interesting was happening in any of the bars, pubs, taverns and drinkeries
either. So, being young and reckless, the young 'uns decided to take a peek
beyond Dark Irons' domain.

Deeper, deeper, into the hot red caverns of Molten Core they sneaked. Having
an uneasy truce with fiery denizens of the fiery Core (such as fiery giants,
fiery elementals, fiery dogs, fiery imps, fiery lava and fiery fire) they did
not really have to worry about getting attacked. A giant fiery hound would
maybe growl a bit or let out a bone-shaking "woof!" if they got too close but
otherwise it was fine. (One said "yip, yip, yip!" with a deep voice and was
promptly shunned and avoided by its companions, who looked mighty
embarrassed.)

("Do not go to the Molten Core!" their parents and grandparents and great-and-
so-on-grandparents would keep repeating. "There's things down there can eat
you for lunch if they mistake you for an upworlder. Or even if they don't and
just are hungry." They did not heed these words of course. And the parents
knew they would not, for they had not heeded, nor their parents. "They're
young and reckless, of course they won't listen, but at least we can go to bed
(or more probably, tavern) with the satisfied knowledge that we at least
warned them.")

Not too far from the entrance to the Core the gang of young Dark Irons heard
battle noises. The clanging of swords, the swoosh and jingle of various
spells, someone shouting "stabby stabby!" at the top of their voice. Throwing
caution into the lava (no wind around) the youngsters sneaked closer.

A large band of upworld adventurers were doing battle with Garr, the rocky
lieutenant of Firelord Ragnaros. The adventurers were not faring too well: a
number of them were already lying dead under Garr's feet (or, rather, chunks
of rock that were where at the bottom approximately where a person's feet
would be). On the other hand, so were Garr's elemental guards. What made Garr
especially peeved was the sad fact that his favourite smashy-stone had just
broken against the surprisingly hard walking pile of metal that probably had a
person inside it somewhere, which was trying to break Garr's armor and saying
bad things about his ancestry. A few chunks of stone here and there were poor
replacements for the smashy-stone.

At this point he noticed the Dark Irons watching the battle eagerly from
sidelines. Ignoring the walking-pile-of-metal's taunts for a moment, Garr
surged through the band of adventurers, promptly trampled a cloth-wearing
healer type to death (cries of "aargh!" and "aggro!" and "gurgle!" from the
adventurers) and picked up two hapless Dark Irons.

In the right hand, Konrah Gravelbeard whose sturdy body was fully metal-clad
and whose helmet was adorned by a rather large axe-head.

In the left hand, Gargur Coalbrow. A rather more soft fistful of squirming
Dwarf, except for the head.

"Eeeaaaaaarggghhhhh!" shouted Konrah whose helmet made for a great axe. In a
few swings he was covered in blood and various bits of flesh from various
species of adventurer. None of it was Dark Iron, fortunately. His helmet's
sharp crest made short work of leather and cloth wearers, but quickly dulled
and bent when being pounded against plate-clad foes. Especially the one huge
clanking thing that was still desperately attempting to aspersions on Garr's
ancestry.

And then Garr lifted his other hand -- containing Gargur -- and brought it
down on the metal shell with great force.

The Coalbrow family has very thick skulls. And their metalworking skills are
excellent -- the family helmet took the brunt of the blow and protected the
skull inside it even against the power of the lieutenant of the Firelord. With
a single mighty blow like a steam-powered forge hammer, Gargur went head-first
through the metal armor of Garr's foe and clipped the squishy person inside,
which was at this point sufficient to send him to his ancestors (the spirit
world of the land of the dead, not Stormwind Old-Folks Home).

This was more than enough to knock Gargur out cold. His companions later told
him how they carried him and Konrah Gravelbeard out of the Core to the care of
Dark Iron medics. Garr did not seem overly bothered by the events or
particularly grateful to Gargur and Konrah. To him a Dark Iron stood only a
notch above an upworlder. Nothing really to care about. No thanks, no flowers
to hospital, no get-well card with Ragnaros' visage on it.

Fortunately for Coalbrow, his helmet took the brunt of the blow and was rather
banged up. His skull, not so much. Nonetheless a Twilight cultist who happened
to know a healing spell or two was called in to take a look at him.

As he was recuperating, Gargur's dreams seemed to have come true. The Troll
cultist spent quite a lot of time with the young Dwarf, both talking to each
other in fancy Troll accents. Discovering that Coalbrow had an affinity to
that sort of thing the cultist taught him the few healing chants he knew so
Gargur could ease his rapidly-diminishing ailments himself, and a bit of his
huge arsenal of shadow magic. Of course, always making sure to do his best to
try to turn Gargur to worshipping the Old Gods, especially his favourite,
C'Thun. That part of his teachings utterly failed to stick, however.

Once he was healthy enough to walk and could go home, he found that his
"Trollmouth" nickname had faded into obscurity among his neighbours,
companions and family. To commemorate his smashing success as Garr's weapon,
everyone had started to call him "Garrshammer". Konrah of course was proud to
be called "Garrsaxe". He had had to get a new helmet, for his old one was
banged up beyond repair. As Coalbrow family helmetwork was now rather famous,
his next one was forged by Gargur Coalbrow the Forty-Sixth and featured an
even sharper and more durable axe-head on top.

That about covers the more interesting part of Garrshammer Coalbrow the
Forty-Seventh's early life. He did not back to Molten Core, until much later,
when he had already become an "upworlder".

At one point he was exiled from Blackrock Mountain due to a show of cowardice:
instead of attacking a rather powerful but very quiet Gnome mage who had
decided to take a trip through Blackrock Depths, he immediately surrendered
after witnessing his fellow Dark Irons being turned into ice statues without
the mage even battering an eyelid.

His exile did a world of good for him. He sought out the mage and used her
influence to get to the good graces of Ironforge Dwarves. He took to
officially using the name "Garrshammer Coalbrow" (often shortened to "Garr" by
friends) and travelled around Azeroth and the remains of Draenor, practicing
priestly arts and eventually even encountering and laying the smack down on
C'Thun himself, no doubt to the great sorrow of his old teacher the Twilight
cultist.
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Gergel
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Topic/Postby Finna » 26 Aug 2010, 23:29

This be great, mon!
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[Liandrix] says: On a scale from one to ten... what is your favourite colour from the alphabet?

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Finna
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