Ungrim Ironfist
The tale of the Ironfist family is long and woeful. Many years ago, Ungrim’s five times great grandsire, King Baragor, suffered a great and terrible loss which drove him to take the oath of the Slayers. What caused him to make such a sudden and drastic decision is not recorded in the Book of Grudges of Karak Kadrin, nor in the Records of the Kings, nor even the stronghold’s Book of Days. It is commonly assumed that the cause was the death of his daughter at the claws of the great Dragon Skaladrak. The King's daughter was on her way to marry the son of the High King at Karaz-a-Karak. In any case, Baragor became the first Slayer King of Karak Kadrin.
Torn between his two conflicting vows, the oath of a Slayer to seek out death and the oath of a king to watch over and protect his people, Baragor was unable to fulfill either properly. In the end, good Dwarf sense prevailed, and he found a way to honor both his vows after a fashion. He founded the Shrine of Grimnir, the Shrine of Slayers in Karak Kadrin, and with generous donations to the cult he established a haven for Slayers from all over the Dwarf realms. Soon Karak Kadrin was acknowledged as the home of the Slayer Cult, hitherto a scattered group of individuals wandering among the mountains.
Although Baragor could not fulfill his own vows while his people needed him, he could help others to do so, and as such he upheld his honor and was considered a wise and reasonable Dwarf by all concerned. Baragor died in a tunnel cave-in deep below Karak Kadrin, his Slayer’s vow still unfulfilled. His son, Dargo, inherited not only the kingdom, but his father’s vow as well, and became the second of a line of Slayer Kings. His living descendant is King Ungrim Ironfist, the current Slayer King of Karak Kadrin.
