A broad, powerfully built mountain dwarf with long crimson hair and a matching heavy beard, both carefully braided with plain iron rings. His thick crimson eyebrows nearly meet over a blunt, weathered face. He keeps his beard meticulously combed despite the dents and soot on his armor. In any room, his eyes immediately seek exits, weapons, and whoever looks most frightened. He wears heavy spiked armor, reinforced with overlapping iron plates and blunt defensive studs, and carries two enormous warhammers at his hips.

Ruzam is blunt, warm-hearted, and intensely practical. He speaks to strangers as though they are recruits who have not yet learned the value of standing together. He has little patience for ceremony, but surprising patience for frightened people, injured animals, and anyone trying honestly to improve. Beneath his ferocious appearance is a man who notices every empty chair at a campfire and remembers exactly who should be sitting in it.

Ruzam Barazai was born beneath the red-lit caverns of a mountain fortress in the northern reaches of Faerûn. His clan forged weapons for border garrisons, but Ruzam preferred testing them in the field. He served as a shock trooper, breaking shield walls with two warhammers while wearing a brutal suit of spiked armor modeled after the old battlerager traditions. His poor judgment and reckless charges repeatedly saved comrades, while also causing enough trouble to earn him a permanent place on every quartermaster's list of concerns. When a mercenary captain abandoned a mountain village during a goblin assault, Ruzam disobeyed orders and led a handful of soldiers back through the pass. They saved most of the villagers, but the fortress command blamed him for the loss of military supplies and stripped him of formal rank. Ruzam now travels as a wandering soldier, seeking honest causes, worthy enemies, and proof that strength is meant to protect people rather than merely preserve the powerful. He believes every fight should leave someone safer than before.