Torgluk Headsplitter

Character Profile
Name	Torgluk Headsplitter
Gender	Male
Race	Dwarf
Class	Shaman
Age	23
Religion	None
Played By	Mike, 2007-Present

Before AAG

Born in a small Dwarven silver-mining community near the edge of the Middle Kingdoms, Torgluk was expected simply to be yet another miner years down the line. Every year, his village would inaugurate young children at the age of 6 by giving them their first tour of the mine. All initially enthusiastic, Torgluk's group were just a third of the way into the tour when disaster struck and supports collapsed, bringing down the section of the mine they were visiting. It took rescuers 6 hours to dig through to the group, where they found that of the 7 children and the guide, only 3 of the children were still alive, the guide clearly having attempted to shield as many as possible from falling debris. One of the surviving children died of her injuries before she could be healed. Torgluk and the remaining survivor were quickly pulled out and their broken limbs repaired by the village priest, the other surviving child still developed amnesia, and so had no memory of the incident. Torgluk, unsurprisingly, became severely claustrophobic as a result of the collapse, and for the rest of his childhood would refuse to even go near the mine.
Nobody was held directly responsible, and the community mourned the great tragedy. But as its only source of income, the mine was open and operating again within a week. It has never experienced another cave-in before or since that incident.
The community was understanding and accepted Torgluk's phobia, and he took to roaming nearby woodlands and open plains, never noticing the experienced human tracker the village had hired to keep him safe from anything that might consider a 9-year old dwarf to be a hearty meal.

Years passed without major incident, and by the age of 15, Torgluk no longer needed the tracker and was perfectly at home in the woods himself. Over time, his dwarven heritage came through, and he grew to overcome his claustrophobia. At 16, his parents took him to visit another mining community a short distance away, and he was able to enter and tour their mine without incident, something he regarded as a great personal accomplishment. Despite this, he was never able to enter his own village’s mine again, being stricken by fear and flashbacks on the few attempts he made. Soon after, Torgluk professed to his family that although he no longer feared closed spaces, he was now well and truly an outdoors man, and wanted to learn shaman magic. Again, the community came together, and called in a favour to find a human shaman willing to teach him. At the age of 17, Torgluk left his hometown to travel with the shaman, who first insisted on enhancing Torgluk’s knowledge of the wild before moving on to teaching basic shaman spells. After two years, Torgluk returned home to work with the community as a healer and woodsman. However, his previous travels had sown the seeds of wanderlust, and so at the age of 21, Torgluk once more left home in order to tour several other countries, still visiting home every few months.
His first port of call was Albion, and he spent a year wandering the country and visiting its major settlements. This culminated in a month in Londinium working as a barkeeper, during which time Torgluk concluded that Albion was, above all else, rather dull. It was time to move on, and the next place to visit was Aberddu, where apparently they had something similar to the Albion Gentlemen’s Guild, but were somewhat less biased against dwarves.

After AAG

Upon arrival, Torgluk joined the Aberddu Adventurer’s Guild, where he was accepted as a competent healer, and relatively sane by shaman standards, the only other primarily-shaman active in the guild at the time being Miranda, who Torgluk soon learned to look up to as rather more experienced and powerful as himself. He soon found out about the Cult of the Wyld resident within the city, apparently as some sort of temple for shamans, but was reluctant to join due to the whole “Cult” part of the name. However, after a Frysian Inquisitor struck the guild with a fireball and healing supplies were running low, he and Kiara were rushed to the CoW by Bly, who were happy to provide healing. The three of them subsequently joined the CoW, and as the only sane and literate member of the trio, Torgluk was appointed as the CoW’s librarian (a position that many have had to be corrected does not simply mean Torgluk “guards the books”). He also later received a blessing from the CoW allowing him to heal people using his own life force rather than shamanic magic, significantly increasing his potency as a healer in the guild.

Some time later, Torgluk undertook a guild mission to infiltrate a Frysian compound to gain information. The mission went awry and the group was captured. Bly and he were taken off separately from the rest as “of scientific interest” to the Frysians, due to their CoW blessings resulting in noticeable green veins that the Frysians had not seen before. They spent several days being used as “experiments”, and became pit-tainted, resulting in Torgluk’s blessing changing such that he could use his own life force to harm instead of heal, and turning the previously green veins a reddish-brown. They were soon rescued by a party including Miranda, ErrG!, Jonah, Drae and Fenn. Upon return, Torgluk was rushed to the Cult of the Wyld, who performed some great ritual to cleanse his soul of the taint, by using the essence of the Wyld itself to protect his spirit. Torgluk continued to go on occasional guild contracts, including the large guild excursion to Ctuma, and vastly improved his knowledge of the wild and shaman magic. He had originally intended to stay in Aberddu only for a year before moving onto the Dwarven Kingdoms, but the year ended well into Frysia’s attacks on the rest of the world, meaning not only were the Dwarven Kingdoms under Frysian occupation, but there was an awful lot to be done in Aberddu with the guild.

Since then, Torgluk has helped blow up a Pit Gate, taking a significant portion of Frysia with it; lost all memory of the childhood cave-in to a demon; had a picnic in the Pit; and tried to sacrifice Miranda when she asked him to, but didn't.
As of late, Torgluk has been seen to be drifting towards a somewhat less ethical path. Despite still being generally on the side of good, he seems to be rather more self-centered and less caring than he used to be. He's also somewhat beginning to question the aims of the Cult of the Wyld, as there seems to be more and more evidence for trying to personify the Wyld. A plan with which he rather strongly disagrees, as he doesn't fancy the idea of having the "ask" the Wyld for power like a Cleric, as he currently considers it as just an elemental force that Shamans command, not dissimilar to Evokers.

With Miranda having recently been fixed of her demonic taint, Torgluk is now a little lost for a cause, which will probably soon be directed towards the ongoing problem that is Frysia.