Dyrik Mykrrún

by me with Hero Forge

-Aralur Greystone, Arum and chief archivist of the Sóleið, aka Dwarf Keepers

 

Atuk Strongmantle was of average height but above average muscle tone, crisscrossed by battle scars and sporting a kingly bearing. An aesthetically pleasing mix of earthy and fiery traits that was close to the Meckelorn ideal for handsomeness.   Dyrik Mykrrún was a grey skinned, red eyed ghoulish looking jormanger that picked up more than a few orcish physical features.

  It is unknown whether his physical mutation was rapid or gradual because Dyrik hid his true form with illusion magic for many decades. Eventually he replaced one of his arms with a necromantically augmented skeleton arm, but that was well after his fallen state was revealed to all.

by me with Hero Forge

-Aralur Greystone, Arum and chief archivist of the Sóleið, aka Dwarf Keepers

Some argue that Atuk Strongmantle was a great hero who had a tragic fall to become the villain known as Dyrik Mykrrún. Other say he was always a villain and was just able to pretend to be a hero for a long time. I will not speculate on this as I do not know. I will stick with known facts and avoid speculation as much as possible. Though with a being as mysterious s Dyrik Mykrrún, I am forced to use reasonable speculation to fill in the gaps.

  Atuk was born to the Strongmantle Clan in 1166, under the yearly Zodiac sign of Greymoria and the monthly Zodiac sign of Zarthus. Atuk was born almost exactly 150 years before the liberation of the Great Stone. Like the other dwarves of his generation, he was born into exile and grew up knowing nothing but intermittent guerilla warfare.   Atuk’s father died fighting orcs when Atuk was small and Atuk swore to avenge his father. Physically, he was neither the strongest nor the weakest dwarf lad of his age, but he was a gifted warrior due to his keen mind and iron willed tenacity known for fighting with very precise well controlled weapon strikes.   At a young age, he attracted the eye of a respected rune casting wizard who took him as an apprentice. His mentor later died from “goblin poison” but is widely speculated that Atuk killed him as it likely his late mentor was the first dwarf to find evidence of Atuk’s corruption.   Combining his runic magic with his skill at arms, Atuk gained the first of his many nickname: Atuk the Orc Slayer. He is said to have personally slain more orc warriors than any other dwarf of his generation. While Atuk was a great warrior skilled with spear, sword, bow, and hammer, but it was later revealed that he had a secret cadre of elite undead warriors at his command and he claimed the kills of these undead as his own.   Most celebrated the huge number of orc heads he brought back to camp, and didn't bother to probe deeper, but there were early warning signs of Atuk's moral failings.   While Meckelorn was in a state of total war and the orcs certainly did not hesitate to slay our children, Atuk especially relished exposing the orc’s rear camps and homesteads and slaughtering orc women and children. Some dwarves viewed this as justified and others did not.   It was later revealed that he feasted on the flesh of orc children to fuel his magic power and extend his prolong his life span and physical vitality.   Atuk was also a notorious womanizer. While it is true that marital taboos were lessened somewhat during Meckelorn’s great exile, it was still somewhat scandalous. While a mysterious brooding war hero will almost always attract lady admirers, dwarf maids are less likely to swoon over that archetype than human maids are. I do not doubt Atuk had some women truly attracted to him. He was reputedly handsome too, though this may or may have been augmented by Illusion or Transmutation magic.   It was later revealed that Atuk used maleficium School of Enchantment to befuddle the minds of many of his lovers.   After the Great Stone was liberated and Meckelorn was restored, there was still plenty of fighting to be done, but with a lessened state of war, Atuk’s eccentricities were harder to excuse and rumors of his more heinous crimes were whispered louder and louder.   While only a fraction of his true crimes were exposed, a trial was set for Atuk that would have resulted in his execution had he failed to prove his innocence.   Atuk refused to submit to trial. Before this, he had quietly built a cult of personality around himself for a period of time known only to the Nine.   Atuk publicly took on the name Dyrik Mykrrún for the first time, and fled Meckelorn with dozens of his followers but not before brutally murdering a great many of Atuk's loudest accusers and their families including an entire clan of over two hundred kalazotz. Some of his followers were groomed were his bastard children, others were groomed and brainwashed lovers, while others were his adopted children, apprentices of own malefic brand of rune casting.   Dyrik Mykrrún and his followers began a guerilla war against Meckelorn and the remaining orc tribes that dwelled in and near Meckelorn’s historical territory. Dyrik, for all his flaws, was charming and was good at reading people. He never had long-term alliances with anyone other than his own followers but he had temporarily working alliances with many dark powers. We can confirm he parleyed temporarily alliances with dragons, Children, Testers, morlocks and ogres. He is rumored to have trucked with Infernalists, spiders, kobolds, hobgoblins and wendigo among others.   After centuries of dark deeds, Dyrik Mykrrún was finally in slain in the 1573, the Zodiac year of our Lady of Light, Khemra. Even today, many do not believe Dyrik Mykrrún. His own followers called him “The Everliving.” It is noteworthy that Dyrik Mykrrún was fond of faking his own death and was reportedly slain many times before his “official” death. I am inclined to believe his death in 1573 was real. His body was chopped into small pieces. These pieces were ritually purified by theurgists of Khemra, Hallisan, Mera, and Korus to purge them of necromantic energies, then the pieces were dropped in a vat of acid which was then ritually purified again.   An oracle of Hallisan stated that “Dyrik Mykrrún is dead but his spirit lingers to plague Scarterra and Scarnoctis.”   Based on the Dwaven word for “spirit” this could a literal or figurative spirit in the Common tongue. Many adventurers, equipped with weapons capable of harming incorporeals have sought out Dyrik Mykrrún’s ghost to no avail.   While Dyrik Mykrrún has not been seen or heard since 1573, some of his former apprentices escaped and went on to take on apprentices of their own, creating their own perverse lineages of wisdom known as the Clan of Mykrrún. In my opinion this certainly qualifies as his spiriting lingering to plague Scarterra and Scarnoctis, but I will not completely rule out the possibility that his spectre his haunting some deep cavern somewhere.

by me with Hero Forge

-Aralur Greystone, Arum and chief archivist of the Sóleið, aka Dwarf Keepers

  Atuk was raised mostly by his mother as his father was slain by orcs when Atuk was young nurturing a deep hatred for orcs in his heart that was a driving factor in his young life pushing him to excel at magic and warfare.   At some point Atuk Strongmantle's hatred for orcs transmuted into Dyrik Mykrrún's hatred for all mortals apart from his own followers (though perhaps he secretly hated them too).

  I suppose I understand his loss, and know that many of history's villains have tragic backstories, but thousands of dwarves have lost a parent at a young age and most of them do not grow up to be malefic jormangers.