Snorri Headbiter's Giant Slayers

"The tale tells that one night while Snorri Skytoucher, famed scout of the Muster of the Upper Hall lay snoring in a drunken stupor, a sudden storm broke upon the slopes of the Thunder Mount.  Skytoucher's wife, Gudrinn, unable to wake her husband, wrapped herself in a bearskin and went out into the squall in an attempt to gather the family's sheep ere they were all scattered before the storm and lost.  In the gloom of darkening evening and onrushing storm, the Dwarf-wife thought she could see the sheep gathered together, a patch of white far down the slopes in the gathering gloom.  She made her way toward the white patch, straining her eyes through the dark, and thought she could see it move, but the closer she drew to it, the further it seemed to move away, until she was quite far down the Mountain's side and very much alone in the dark.  Still, she pressed on, deeper into the storm, until suddenly she found herself amidst a troop of Goblins who had come up the mountain to raid but had themselves been caught by the abrupt onset of the wind and snow......a few gentler versions of the tale say that Gudrinn's end was swift, but most agree that it was painful and lingering.'"

"...When Snorri awoke and found his Gudrinn missing, he went out in great haste to find her.  The storm had quieted when he left the Upper Hall and emerged on the mountainside, and it did not take him long to find the sad remains of his beloved wife in a small copse a little less than a mile down the slopes of the great mountain...."

"...the pain of his loss was unbearable, but it was his guilt that twisted his sorrow and anger into something wild and wrathful beyond the ken of ordinary Dwarves or Men.  Snorri vanished into the woods and mountains of the Black River country, living on roots and berries and what meat he could catch with his hands and teeth alone.  Tortured and driven by his pain and shame, he shunned the company of his own kind, keeping to the wildest and loneliest country he could find..."

"...In the years that followed a legend grew up around Snorri's name.  Young Dwarves spoke his name in awe.  Goblins spoke his name with direst dread.  Tales told of a ghost-dwarf that crept into the Goblins' very camps and throttled them in their sleep.  A ghost that drank Goblin Blood and ate Goblin livers and their tounges...."

"...In time, the legend of Snorri Skytoucher would drive a small band of Dwarf heroes, each driven by his own demons, to seek out the company of the Ghost-Dwarf, and to join him in his unending hunt for all the enemies of the Thunder Mountain folk.  The legend of Snorri was swollen with wild tales of death seeking and defying deeds.  Around roaring fires in the high-vaulted halls of the Thunder Mount, Dwarves would spend all winter telling the story of how Snorri took the magic hammer of the Orc Lord Ungolt Iron Teeth, having crushed the windpipe of that infamous personage under his bare heel, or of how mighty Snorri  opened the skull of the Goblin Chief Wuggo Grub-Gut with his very teeth, thus earning the sobriquet "Head-Biter."

"...The decades roll by.  The sides of the Thunder Mount are dressed now in winter snows, now in summer grass, and still the legend of Snorri Headbiter lives on, as he and his grim band patrol the lands west of the great river, seeking the final extermination of their peoples' enemies...or the long peace of death..."

-Orlorrin, The Black River Chronicles

"Arrr!  Let's get ta killin'!"