Tol Sigurn

Tol Sigurn is a well-known local hero and the tavern keeper at The Wood's End, an inn located in Brightstone. He’s a human in his early sixties with blond hair silvered from age, blue eyes and a scar around his neck. When he travels, he wears a brown leather jerkin over his chain-mail, with suede pants and leather boots as well as a cloak cunningly crafted to resemble leaves. Two well-made bastard swords with wolf head pommels are his weapons of choice, and he carries them strapped to his hips when they don’t hang from a place of honor above the bar.

Tol was born to a woodsman and his wife that lived in the forest near Minas, a hamlet in the eastern reaches of the Dawning Woods that was burned to the ground many years ago. Minas came under attack by a roving war band of orcs, and although they fought bravely, the village folk were slaughtered. The orcs then made their retreat into the forest where they encountered the homestead of young Tol and his family. The monsters tortured the family for sport, eventually killing the parents and hanging them all from the nearest tree. Tol was the only one alive when they did so, and they left him hanging as they left. The young man was able to free himself by swinging his body towards the tree trunk and grabbing hold, but not before the rope burned a wound around his neck. Surviving on the woodland skills his father taught him, he roamed the area killing off orcs and other goblinkin whenever he could.

Eventually he began to range far and wide, hunting for goblinkin before coming across a group of adventurers in Stark. Curious as to what the party was up to, he trailed them from the port city into the mountain passes near Duvik where he helped them in an ambush and subsequently aided them to defeat an orc cleric of Gruumsh that had been plaguing the town. Tol and his companions went on to have many adventures, which notably included recapturing Brightstone Keep from the orcs that had claimed it. Tol was later taken prisoner by (and subsequently rescued from) the dragon-mage Sionaas, who was in pursuit of one of the keys to Lolth's prison that Tol and his companions had found. The group was also instrumental in preventing the drow from escaping their prison in Doth'Mordun by securing various artifacts and even traveling into Doth'Mordun itself.

Eventually he settled down with Rosie, a barmaid from Silverstone, whom he visited whenever he was in the area. When a town began to spring up around Brightstone Keep, they opened a tavern there together. Tol is known to make excursions into the woodland when he desires solace from civilization, and when he does Rosie waits for him, knowing he never stays away long.