Runa is a small, wiry forest gnome with skin the color of pine bark and eyes like frozen sea water. She wears dark, fur-lined leather armor adorned with small raven feathers and bones. Her face is marked with intricate blue runic tattoos that signify her membership in the Valhalla Vengeance clan. Her hair is kept in tight, dark braids reinforced with steel wire.

Quiet, observant, and intensely loyal to the concept of blood-debt. She speaks in low, rhythmic tones that sound like waves against a hull. She has no patience for boasting, believing that an axe should only be seen when it is already buried in a target.

Runa was born to the fringe dwellers of the Frozen Reaches, where gnomes survived by blending into the crystalline shadows of the pine forests. Her life changed when the Valhalla Vengeance, a Viking clan of raiders, sought a scout who could navigate the narrow, icy passages that larger folk could not traverse. They found Runa, and in her, they saw the soul of a predator that the snow itself could not catch. She was inducted not as a mascot, but as their most efficient silence. When a rival Jarl betrayed her ship kin and left them to freeze in a locked harbor, Runa did not just survive, she evolved. She realized that vengeance is a cold meal served in the dark of a longhouse. She methodically tracked every conspirator, using her diminutive size to crawl through ventilation slats and storage bins to reach their throats. Now, Runa wanders the coastal towns as a rogue agent of her shattered clan. She seeks the last of the traitors, but her heart has grown fond of the thrill of the hunt itself. To Runa, every locked chest is a puzzle of her enemies' secrets, and every shadow is a sanctuary where her kin's spirits whisper guidance.