> [!infobox|wikipedia] > # Dhorik > [![[Codex/Assets/Characters/Dhorik_small.webp|cover hsmall]]](Codex/Assets/Characters/Dhorik.webp) > ###### Basic Information > Attribute | Details | > ---|---| > Type | Character | > ###### Character Information > Attribute | Details | > ---|---| > Creature Type | Humanoid | > Species | Dwarf | > Gender | Male | > Pronouns | He/Him | > Place | [[Lighthaven]] | > Connections | [[Valtorran Empire]]<br>[[Captain Lucius Draegor]] | > Profession | Blacksmith | > ###### Status > Attribute | Details | > ---|---| > Status | Alive | **Dhorik** is a dwarven blacksmith of [[Lighthaven]], proprietor of the Ironclad Forge. Haggard and grim-faced, with a greying beard and the blunt manner of a man who has long since stopped expecting anything good from the world, he is driven by a deep and corrosive bitterness — toward the [[Valtorran Empire|Empire]] that destroyed his people, and toward the Elves he blames for letting it happen. ## Biography Dhorik was born into a dwarven community already under the shadow of Imperial expansion. When the [[Valtorran Empire]] subjugated the dwarven peoples, his mother was forced into the mines of the Silver Mountains, where she died under Imperial labour. Dhorik completed his own mandatory term in those mines before abandoning the tunnels entirely, unwilling to be part of what the Empire had made of his ancestral home. He settled in [[Lighthaven]] and built a trade as a blacksmith — skilled, reliable, and thoroughly unsentimental. His resentment did not fade in the years that followed. He became quietly certain that the Elves, who vanished from the world a century ago, had simply abandoned their allies to the Empire's advance, leaving other peoples — the Dwarves most of all — to bear the consequences alone. That conviction hardened into something close to hatred. When [[Ryo]], an Elf, visited Lighthaven, Dhorik recognised an opportunity to act on those feelings. He reported Ryo's presence to the local Imperial commander, [[Captain Lucius Draegor]], leading directly to Ryo's capture and dispatch on a prison ship. He expressed no regret when confronted about it — only the same worn-down grievance: that his people had been left to suffer while others fled. ### [[The Bloody Nails|Campaign: The Bloody Nails]] #### [[Session 29 - Lighthaven Awaits]] The party visited Dhorik's forge, where he and Dondar exchanged a covert sign of the Rebellion. At the time, Ryo considered and dismissed Dhorik as a possible snitch — a conclusion that later proved false. #### [[Session 30 - The Darkwood Ambush]] Under torture, [[Captain Lucius Draegor]] revealed that Dhorik had been the one to betray Ryo to the Empire. #### [[Session 31 - The Emberlight Vigil]] The party purchased a heavy crossbow from Dhorik at the Ironclad Forge for use in the Winter Solstice ritual — Ryo declined to enter the shop given their history. The following morning the party returned to confront him; Ryo revealed his identity, and Dhorik made plain his contempt for the Elves without remorse. Kai's *Hold Person* froze both Ryo and Dhorik before violence could escalate, and Vaeleran knocked the paralysed smith unconscious. Before leaving, Ryo drove two swords into the floorboards in an X over the dwarf's neck — a warning, not an execution. The party then fled [[Lighthaven]]. #### [[Session 32 - The Road to Point Blackrock]] The party left the severed head of [[Captain Lucius Draegor]] in Dhorik's shop alongside the unconscious dwarf before departing town — a grim symbol of the Empire's failure to protect its collaborators.