This is a sketch of Brightforge's history, and Tristians at the bottom.
I've gotten the impression that trolls produce a remarkably high proportion
of adepts, so that's pretty implicit, though not fully necessary to Brightforge's history.

The brigtforge mountains are probably somewhere to the north, when it's gold most of the year due to elevation if not lattitude.  It's not a place I expect to encounter, and Trisitan has gone far enough afield that he's unlikely to encounter fellow clan members.  If you want, I can give you the appropriate greeting rituals, should he encounter his bretherin, later.

I've got this set up so the Tristian could begin with a Q stat under the smith passion, if you think that would put me on a more even footing with the party/would be appropriate.


---***---Begin Historyical Summary---***---

The Brightforge Clan takes it's name from the Brightforge mountain range,
which in turn takes it's title from the twin volcanos nestled in it's peak.  In the language of the troll, these two volcanos are called Strength and Artifice--Strength burns brighter, but more erratically, while Artifice provides a steady heat to the elaborate forgeworks deep in the bowels of the mountains.

Smithcraft has been the at the heart of the Brightforge clan since its very conception.  Legends say the the Passion of Smiths walked the Brightforge mountains in the form of a troll and came upon a trollish smith and his family working to repair a skyship.  So impressed was he with the skill and dedication of the smith and the intelligence and power evident in his line that he took the smith's daughter for his bride.  Their daughter was Elofi, the greatest smith of history (or so the legend goes), able to beat together the elements themselves, forging in lava itself, and gathering to her all troll smiths worth their coal for a hundred miles.  It is said that the great Gates that protect the mountain fortress of the brightforge clan, and according to some legends, the cavern themselves were her work, or a gift from her father.  She is said to have overseen the building of the Great Forge itself, but this is doubtful, as most accounts have her great-great-grandson as the chief architect, and this would place her age well over a hundred.

The clan initially found a role in trollish society providing weapons and doing repairs on artifacts and airships for the raider clans.  Elementalists also run in the Brightforge clan (Elofi's daughter took an elementalist for her husband, so the stories say), and Clan Brightforge also found lucrative trade in elements, trading true fire and earth from the volcanos and mountain tunnels for true earth and water gathered by raiding parties or from the occasional dwarvish or t'skrang peddler, and gathering what true air they could from the high mountaintops.  Life was not always peaceful--clan conflicts and wars with other races were infrequent but fierce, and great tales are still told of the Zephyr's War, when windlings clogged and choked the surface tunnels and even the might troll were forced to retreat further underground.

When the scourge came, the Brightforge clan was caught unprepaired.  Only the reactivated Gates, left inactive since the time of legends, gave the trolls inside enough time to prepair themselves.  And prepair they did--great cannons, deadly traps, flame-guns, mystic blades, thunderouse hammers, and even mechanical golems (created, it is said, with the aid of the clan elementalists and nethermancers) all played their parts, and horrors were beaten back time and again.  The heroes of this time--Olaf the Tricky, Tristian the Fierce, Norrin of teh Left Hand--were plentiful, and their blood mingled with those of the slain monsters at their feet, or with the sweat and the oil that fuelled the machines of destruction.  The death tolls were terrible, but the horrors were held off while more and more elaborate traps and elemental barricades were erected.

Now that the most powerful horrors have been defeated or have left for their own tristed world again, the depleted clan has devoted itself to rebuilding.  They still work their trade of artifice, and the traps that kept the monsters at bay work as well against creatures of true flesh and blood, should such things be necessary.  The system put into place during the scourge to train elementalists, smiths, artilerymen, and other vital adepts has been modified to help encourage growth--after completeing their journeyman piece (literally in the case of smiths, other adepts may pass great test or reenact powerful rituals told of in the histories), all adepts must go forth into the outside world for a period of no less than three years.  In this time, they are to make a name for themselves, and are encourage to return with a spouse worthy of the clan, so that the numbers swell.  Upon returning, the adept must present an artistic work representing their great deed in the world outsi!
de!
!
 to the clan elders, and be judged either fit to enter their home again or told to roam for another year.  An adepts may return year after year to be tried in the foothills of their native mountains until they pass or are deemed tainted and forbidden to set foot in the mountains again, under pain of death.




Tristian is a new adept.  He was precocious as a child, and began his training young.  His journeyman piece is a reflection of the way he wishes to be--self-contained, versitle, with different facets useful in different situations.  His father, a Warrior, named him after Tristian the Fierce in hopes that he would follow in that path, but the forge called to him instead.  He has his strength from his father, for though still young his back is broad and his arms powerful.  It waits to see what he will be when fully grown...he hopes be be back from his travels before most trolls his age have even begun theirs.

Tristian began his Thesis Journey by traveling far, unable to bear proximity to his beloved mountains when unable to enter.  He has supported himself as a traveling smith would, forging and repairing tools for the villages he has gone through, and using his skill with architectire and engineering to help build improvements in places that need them.  He has yet to fight any great battles (other than the pitched contests between the schools with the Brightforge Clan, but those aren't @i{true} battles, and healing potions are always kept nearby in case of accidents), though he has clocked a few brigands (trying to rob a troll with a massive metal quarterstall is not a good idea).  He is familiar with the conept of the undead--there are stores of unclean corpses powered by twisted magics in the chants of Brightforge, as well as the occasional story of heroes too powerful to be held down by death, who rose and fought again when the clan needed them.  Most take these with a grain of salt, although Tristian's aunt, a Nethermancer, has passed on stores that would curl even trollish toes.

Tristian travels with his journeyman piece (a troll-sized metal quarterstaff that can be broken into pieces and rejoined, and have different attachments added to the ends.  He typically keeps it with two hammers, but he also keeps a crook and a picaxe attachment handly, and the internal workings can be used for storage if necessary), a small portable forge and equipment, clothes and a winter cloak, some few alchemical reagents, a pendant that was a gift from his mother, and the very start of a beadwork belt that is his Thesis.