Biorn is a broad-shouldered male dwarf with a thick copper beard braided around iron rings. His nose has been broken twice, his left eyebrow is split by an old axe scar, and his gray-blue eyes burn with restless anger. He wears battered scale mail beneath a fur-lined cloak, carries a scarred greataxe, and keeps a blackened stone from his destroyed clanhold tied around his neck.

Biorn is blunt, fiercely protective, and more comfortable standing watch than making conversation. He distrusts nobles, commanders, and anyone who smiles while discussing war. Beneath his anger is a powerful instinct to defend the vulnerable, especially refugees, miners, and young soldiers who remind him of the clanmates he could not save.

Biorn was raised beneath the mountain in a fortress famed for its disciplined shield companies and stubborn refusal to surrender. He became a soldier before he was old enough to grow a proper beard, learning to march through blizzards, hold a tunnel against superior numbers, and trust the warrior beside him more than any distant king. His strength and endurance made him a natural shock trooper, but his temper was always dangerous. In battle, Biorn fought like a collapsing gate, breaking through whatever stood between his company and survival. His company was betrayed during a border campaign when their commander sold the location of their underground refuge to raiders. The enemy came at night, poisoned the wells, and slaughtered Biorn's kin while the traitor escaped with stolen clan relics. Biorn survived beneath a pile of corpses, clutching the broken haft of his axe. Since then, he has abandoned formal service and hunts everyone connected to the betrayal, from the mercenaries who carried it out to the noble who paid for it. He knows revenge can consume him, but he refuses to let the dead become merely another forgotten casualty of war. Every battle is a step toward the traitor, and every rescued innocent is proof that Biorn can become something better than the men who destroyed his home.