Backstory: Mara’s earliest memories are of the Hammer & Anvil Inn, a business owned by several generations of the adventuresome Stoutfoot halfling clan. While it offered amenities sized to varied folk, it was originally built for mountain dwarf travelers, usually traders bringing their clans’ quality metal goods and jewelry to market along the Far March Trade Route. The Hammer & Anvil was renowned among many races for the quality and variety of its brews, the making of which were passed down through the Stoutfoot line.
When the Stoutfoots fell onto hard times, Mara’s great-grandfather, Alegrim Twohammer made an “arrangement” with them. He’d been forced to retire from his fighting career due to loss of a leg in battle and had taken over as the local blacksmith. He loved the Inn, so he opened his coffers to pay off creditors and upgrade, in exchange for room, board, and–when that time came–a percent of eventual profits.
After Mara came along, her parents and grandparents often sent her to Alegrim so that they could make their trips, and the young dwarfmaid enjoyed this life greatly for decades. When Mara was old enough, Alegrim taught her what he could of fighting with his trademark hammers, persuading other fighters passing through to take a hand. The Stoutfoots also taught Mara some of their arts, and she showed a knack for brewing.
Then Mara had decided to see a bit of the world–maybe find a good dwarf male–and joined her parents’ caravan as a guard, with Alegrim’s twin battlehammers at her back. Shortly after, a neighboring country–a dark and vile place where even the mountain dwarf champions refused to tread–invaded, seeking the riches of this land. On their way to the dwarves’ mountain forges and storehouses, they overran the little village where Alegrim and the Stoutfoots lived.
Clan Twohammers was horrified–none more than Mara–when they returned to the Inn, to find nothing of it but the vast dwarf-built fireplace. The surviving Stoutfoots told Mara how the crippled Alegrim had tried to protect them and the Inn, and showed her to the rock cairn they and the other villagers built with loving but inept hands. Mara, sobbing, swore an oath on that cairn, that she would hunt down those who had killed her great-grandsir and his defenseless friends, destroyed their beloved Hammer & Anvil. And she wouldn’t stop there–she’d take down those who had aided the raiders, those who gave them their orders. Mara Twohammers will use her battlehammers to forge this vengeance.
Design Notes: Not much here. I decided to build a Dwarf Fighter and tried my luck at rolling Ability Scores–roll 4D6 and drop the lowest 6 times, assign to Abilities in any order. I did get lucky–an array of 9, 14, 15, 16, 17, and a second 17! I did a bit of Min/Max (placing the scores so as to give adjusted STR and CON of 19 and 18) and Playing Against Type by not putting the 9 in CHA. I liked Mara and wanted to use her as a PC in a game but the DM wasn’t allowing rolled stats, so I used a very similar version with the standard array. Have fun with Mara.
Linda Whitson
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