A compact, barrel-chested dwarf with the dense, balanced build of a champion wrestler. Gutbuster makes him look like a walking breach ram: broad shoulder plates end in long, outward-curving razor blades, a single spike crowns his helmet, and every knuckle is capped with iron points. He moves with startling quickness, heels barely settling before he launches into a shoulder-first rush. The armor is scored and darkened from use, but one unexpected detail catches the eye: a little brass wind-up beetle is clipped to his belt, its polished shell carefully kept brighter than any part of his armor. He smells unmistakably of hot iron, tallow, and crushed juniper; he knows about the iron, but insists the juniper is “just the mountain air.”

Thibbledorf is boisterous and confrontational in a fight, but unexpectedly patient when teaching a frightened novice. He boasts about pain and laughs at danger, yet remembers every name among the dead and cannot tolerate jokes at their expense. In a crowd he is a loud, blunt presence; alone with the families he supports, he becomes awkward, attentive, and unsure what to say.

Thibbledorf was raised among hard-working dwarves who valued a dependable shield wall over a glorious charge. He became a fighter anyway, drawn to the moment a line broke and someone had to hold the gap. During the defense of a mining pass, a panicked retreat left his younger cousin trapped behind a fallen gate. Thibbledorf charged back through the press, was pinned beneath a collapsed support, and survived only because a strange, half-buried suit of armor locked itself around him and dragged him clear. The armor called itself Gutbuster and has remained at his side ever since. The rescue saved his cousin, but the retreat cost the lives of several miners, and Thibbledorf still carries the guilt of being unable to reach them in time. He now trains volunteers at the old pass, sends coin to the families of the dead, and argues bitterly with his cousin, who wants him to stop treating every danger as a debt he must repay. Their settlement's abandoned mine is beginning to tremble again, and Gutbuster claims something below is calling its name.