OOC Information: Name: Tai
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otteratplayIC Information: Name: Preincarnation name: Dwalin, son of Fundin, son of Farin. Reincarnation: Hjalti T. Thorsson, written as
Hjalti Þráinsson ÞórssonCanon and medium: Middle Earth/Tolkien compendium, mostly the movies seeing as how Dwalin has an actual personality and distinguishing characteristics there, but the books as well when they make more sense. Which, given Middle Earth was a constantly changing thing as Tolkien created and edited until he died, they don't always.
Age: Died at 340 in Middle Earth, about the oldest a dwarf has ever lived to. (For Echo purposes, going with the timeframe of
The Hobbit, where he's 169.) In Locke City, he'll be 43.
Preincarnation Species: Dwarf
Preincarnation Appearance: This nicely scary dude right here. Would you believe he's only five feet tall?
Any differences: The biggest difference is in the fact that he's not a dwarf any longer, which means that he's significantly taller. Dwalin was the tallest of the Company and one of the tallest dwarves in Middle Earth, with Thorin only a slight margin behind him, and that has translated into being well over six feet tall - specifically 6'3". He has to watch his head around doorways, basically. He's also no longer cultivating the exquisite beard art that dwarves loved to practice, instead just keeping a small, neat one that's gone almost entirely to gray. He's also completely bald instead of just on top, but that's mostly because he's been shaving his head for years. He's less excessively muscular in this life though he's still very strong and in very good shape, and while he has a couple of tattoos under his clothes they specifically aren't the dwarven ones that Dwalin possessed. Basically
this is him.
Preincarnated History: Dwalin was born in TA 2772, the second child of his parents after his brother Balin. Close cousins of the royal family, their fates would always be intertwined with the Line of Durin and they would be two of the most important dwarves of their age.
After Erebor was taken by Smaug, the dwarves that survived his invasion wandered for a long time, and it was during this time that Dwalin was born. Once he was old enough to know how, he looked up to his brother and his cousin Thorin
and hero-worshiped Thorin in particular. The family stayed close throughout their wanderings, everyone - including the prince himself - taking jobs wherever they could to earn money. In 2799 the long war that had begun when Thror, Thorin's grandfather, had tried to walk into Moria and been slaughtered culminated in the battle of Azanulbizar. Dwalin was, by dwarven standards, not of age and so should not have been in combat, but the orc forces that were occupying the mountain were so many and so fierce and the war had dragged on for so long already with such a high attrition rate that the Longbeards had been sending in anyone that could conceivably hold a weapon for the past couple of years, and he was there for the finale. By that time Dwalin had learned that he was a very skilled fighter and put it to good use during the battle, and he was part of the rallying charge led by Thorin against the remains of the orcs. The dwarves won, but there were so many dead that it was a Pyrrhic victory at best, and while his brother survived their father and cousin Frerin did not. It was that moment, seeing Thorin take charge and rally his people, that Dwalin seriously pledged himself to follow this King, and he spent a good portion of the rest of his life doing so.
After Azanulbizar, during which Thror was killed and Thrain had disappeared, Thorin led the Longbeards farther west, finally settling in the Blue Mountains after a period of wandering the Dunland. They found and fixed up a crumbling city (near where the old city of Belegost had stood) and more and more Longbeards as well as a few other dwarves of different clans slowly gathered there as word spread about a new, though hopefully temporary, home. The city gradually assumed the name of Thorin's Halls after its leader, and in that city Dwalin continued to learn the crafts of dwarves in general and the skills of a soldier in particular, sticking close to Thorin along with his brother and gradually becoming his most trusted advisors.
They also developed a good friendship with their cousin Dís, Thorin's younger sister, that would last through decades. Their life was generally quiet, not rich but still a life most people would be happy to have, but most of the Longbeards still looked east and longed for the Lonely Mountain, including Thorin. In the 2840s Balin and Dwalin joined an expedition to
search for the lost king, Thrain, that ended unsuccessfully and returned to the Blue Mountains with nothing to show for it. Not long after, Dís gave birth to two sons
whom Balin and Dwalin helped raise and instruct in many different subjects including politics and combat. Things continued fairly quietly after that, but Dwalin could tell that Thorin's mind was always focused on Erebor, and so he was not surprised at all when Thorin finally told him he'd decided to form a quest to retake it.
Dwalin was his first volunteer, not that Thorin needed to ask if he was going or not.The quest itself proved more strenuous - and much more costly - than they had anticipated. With the help of the wizard Gandalf the Grey, they recruited a hobbit named Bilbo Baggins as a burglar to sneak into Erebor and retrieve the Arkenstone, the physical symbol of the right of the Line of Durin to rule over all dwarves everywhere. Without it, Thorin could never hope to command the kind of army it would take to kill the dragon and retake the mountain, so the plan of attack was actually two-fold: sneak into the mountain and retrieve the Arkenstone, retreat, gather a few armies, and then attack in force. It turned out absolutely nothing like that almost from the moment they set out from Bilbo's door. First it was trolls, then it was orcs, then elves, then more orcs with some wargs, a skinchanger, more elves, a
river, a bargeman, a hidden door, and finally a dragon. It was frankly a miracle that all of them lived to see the Lonely Mountain in the first place, and with Bard's assistance they killed the dragon Smaug significantly sooner than they expected to. Unfortunately, a whole mess of orcs and wargs had been awakened and were coming to fight the free peoples of Middle Earth, and Thorin made a hasty alliance between himself, Thranduil, and Bard to help them all survive the upcoming fighting. Banding their strength together, the Battle of the Five Armies happened in the shadow of the mountain, and at the end of it not only Thorin but also his nephews Fíli and Kíli were either dead or so injured they could not be saved. Thorin's cousin Dain, who'd brought his own army to the battle, became the King Under the Mountain as Dwalin and Balin buried their best friend.
Dwalin stayed in Erebor after they reclaimed it, becoming one of Dain's lieutenants and helping to both train more fighters and eradicate any orcs or other works of evil lurking in the vicinity. Not too long after the battle, his cousin Dís journeyed to Erebor to set up a household with Balin and Dwalin since they were the closest family she had left, and they took care of her as best as they were able. He helped vaguely with rebuilding Dale, mostly providing military guards, and wished his brother well when Balin decided to attempt retaking Moria once again, taking Oin and Ori with him. Balin's entire group died in the Mines of Moria;
when they never heard word from any of them again, they were presumed dead and Dwalin mourned his brother and friends. Dwalin was still more than spry enough when Sauron's forces began rising again a few decades later to take an active part in Erebor's defenses, leading troops against the nasty things emerging from Dol Guldur and other nearby places during the War of the Ring. He managed to survive every fight he threw himself into and died in a way that most dwarves never dreamed of and ironically for an old soldier, peacefully in his bed at Erebor, in FO 91 at the age of 340.Reincarnated History: Once upon a time there was a husband and a wife and as most husbands and wives end up doing they had kids. All of their kids were giants
no not really. But the last of these kids was a son, and the deeply culturally proud family named him Hjalti, and he learned pretty quickly how to tell people how to properly pronounce his name.
The Thorssons were always a close family, but Hjalti proved to be the one "problem child" - he loved his family and never did anything to hurt
them, but he was also the only one to run around doing stupid things like smashing mailboxes and spray painting stop signs. During his teens he was hauled in by the cops twice, once for minor vandalism and once for public brawling. His parents forgave the first one as a mistake and told him to never do anything like that again, but when the second incident happened they put their feet down
very firmly and told him that he'd better shape up "or else" - and they didn't need to define the "or else." He didn't really like the feeling of public humiliation that getting arrested brought on, much less his parents' understandable anger, so he took the sledgehammer of a hint and cut contact with the friends who'd dragged him into that sort of thing in the first place and started trying to shape himself up. His biggest help was his oldest brother, Thorir, whom he'd always been the closest to despite the age gap. With Thorir's help, he managed to graduate high school with at least semi-decent grades even though he'd never been bookish, and enrolled and went to the local technical college while working part-time in the store. It was always his plan to stay with the business; he liked the physical work and the ability to create things, but he never expected to take over the business both because his father was still very "traditional" and he wanted his eldest son to have it and he had no head for the accounting books himself. He was fine with working there, maybe having a small engine repair business on the side, eventually meeting a girl and getting married and having kids of his own.
And for awhile, it worked great. He graduated from college and continued at the business for a couple of years, but in his early twenties he caught a case of wanderlust and started talking about traveling. His family was in support of the idea he eventually developed of backpacking across Europe, and they gave him a leave of absence of six months to a year and recommended he start in Iceland with the family remaining there. He did exactly that, spending a month with the aunts, uncles, and cousins that hadn't moved to America, then took a boat to Ireland to begin his "real" trip. That was where all the trouble began.
In his second week in the country, he met a girl named Catherine Ryan. She was tiny and lively and pretty and to his complete surprise he was instantly smitten with her, and unless he was completely terrible at reading signals she seemed pretty interested in him as well. He wasn't far gone enough to declare he loved her five minutes after meeting her, but he started putting off his departure from Dublin later and later, and he started visiting the park where they'd met every day so they could talk together more. His Europass sat unused in his backpack and he more or less moved into the youth hostel he was staying at so he could keep meeting her, and he completely missed the fact that his family was starting to grow concerned when he spoke to them over the phone once a week. After four weeks straight in the same city and half of his comments being about Catherine, his mother asked him if he was falling in love with this girl. He honestly hadn't considered that before and her question hit him like a pile of bricks, and his immediate response to his mother was a no, she was just a friend, someone he could talk to. But after he hung up the phone (still missing the concern in her voice), he had a lot of thinking to do. The next day he met up with Catherine again and reported the conversation - and her blushing and hesitating to speak in reaction told him that not only was he falling for her, she was falling for him as well, and they had their first kiss.
After that, for him, there was no question of leaving the best thing he'd ever felt in his life, even if it was new. He had to find out if it was
real or not, so he cancelled the rest of his trip and moved in with a couple of post-college guys he'd met around town and started picking up odd jobs (mostly repair jobs) to earn some money. They were the most mismatched pair ever since he was 6'3" and she was 4'9" but almost everyone who saw them together could see how happy they made each other and how they just seemed to... fit. Almost - because her family wasn't happy with it at all once they found out about six months later. Deeply, deeply religious and Catholic to boot, they weren't pleased with Hjalti's more
relaxed take on religion and especially weren't happy that he was mostly transient (at the time), foreign, and
Protestant to boot (at the time he was still somewhat practicing). He'd told Catherine some of his troubles he'd gotten into as a teen and she'd told her family in all innocence but they used it as more fuel against him, no matter how he'd stopped doing anything that stupid eight years before. Hjalti stood against them, and so did Catherine, but it was more wearing on her because she was having to deal with her family face to face. They couldn't
quite say that he was gold digging, as his family was pretty comfortable itself, but they sure implied it. His own family wasn't any happier when he finally came clean with them around the same time, but it was harder for them to make problems because they were on the other side of the Atlantic and it was 1994 and the internet wasn't really a thing at that point. They were determined to go through with this, and nine months after their mutual confession he asked her to marry him with a ring he'd saved up to buy and a promise that he'd get her a better one later as it was only a cheap cubic zirconia and she only deserved the best. She pretended to punch him in the chest and told him it was all she ever needed.
Things took a sideways turn four months after that when an extended and violent stomach illness showed them that she was two months pregnant, and her family had another explosion about the fact that she hadn't waited until marriage before she'd had sex. They somewhat reluctantly gave her their support because she was still theirs, but they hated him more than ever and viewed him even more so as a corrupting, terrible influence and began to focus even more on getting their daughter away from Hjalti. Both of their parents and about half of their siblings continued to try and drag them apart, and matters were only worsened by the fact that most of the Ryan money disappeared due to fraudsters and bad investments less than two weeks after news of the pregnancy broke. Both of their families had already refused to fund the wedding and the Ryans
couldn't help with it after that, being left with enough money to live on but not much more than that, and Hjalti wouldn't simply get a marriage license because he was determined to give Catherine the fairy tale wedding of her dreams in order to make the day extra special for her. His own family jumped on that bandwagon as well - their reaction to the pregnancy was much the same, and they took steps to end it themselves, sending Thorir out to Ireland to try to convince Hjalti to return home.
At this point Hjalti and his parents had been fighting for almost a year, neither side willing to see that the opposition to their stance only made the other more determined to go through with it since the entire family was
incredibly stubborn. Thorir was his parents' last hope, as the one Hjalti would actually talk with the most reasonably. Unknown to them Thorir wasn't entirely against this pairing; he'd never seen his brother fight so hard for something in his life, which lead him to believe that there was something to it, and he decided to wait and judge the situation on its own merits though he was severely disapproving of the amount of arguing going on. Catherine was still living with her family when he came to town, but he did get to see them together during his week-long visit, and he had to admit they seemed well-suited. Hjalti seemed happier than he could remember in her presence and her eyes shone whenever she looked at him, and at the end of it he said that he personally couldn't disapprove of their marriage, but Hjalti still needed to bury the hatchet with their parents and grandparents and show some humility to get them to accept it as well. But that was one thing he just couldn't do, especially not after how they'd spoken about her for months on end, and he sent Thorir back with the news that he would only apologize if they did. With trepidation, he took the message, and Hjalti was summarily excommunicated from the family because of both sides' stubborn pride.
The situation may have still been salvageable, but more meddling from the Ryans ended up breaking it all to pieces. Hjalti was looking into getting Irish citizenship, but he needed a job and he simply couldn't find one without a work visa and the red tape was ridiculous. Catherine's pregnancy was also not an easy one and he'd be home with her half the day as she vomited her guts out. What with everything happening concerning their families and his ability to make ends meet, he was under a lot of strain, not sleeping well or really eating enough (and drinking more), and the stress probably affected his judgement. One of the guys he lived with had a friend who was starting a mechanical repair business in Limerick, and his roommate set the two of them up with an informal interview - and he got the "job," though it would be under-the-table work until he could cut through all the red tape to get either citizenship or the work visa, more preferably both. But it was work he was good at, it was more money coming in - but he'd have to leave Dublin and Catherine to take it. They talked about it and agreed he should go, but in the end decided she would remain behind. The baby was taking a toll on her physically and they didn't know when that would end, if it ever would, and she needed someone to be at least nearby at all times in case anything went wrong. Her parents also flatly refused to let her go, and while she was old enough to simply leave if she wanted to, she still loved them a lot and didn't want to break things with them as Hjalti had broken with his family. She would stay with them and they would care for her and the baby, and he would live in a spare room in his new employer's house for cheap rent. What he didn't tell her was that he was planning to work as much as possible, get enough money as possible, so that they could afford their wedding and a little home of their own (even if it was rented) by the time the baby was born.
He left when she was at sixteen weeks, and at first he called every day to talk to her before he went to sleep, but as time passed and he took on more and more work he called less and less because by the time he was free she was in bed and asleep. Catherine was already under a lot of stress because of the baby, his brother coming to town, and her family waging war on her fiance (which probably contributed to the difficulty of the pregnancy), and so the decrease in phone calls started her worrying a little. Her parents jumped on it, reinforcing those worries and magnifying them. He wanted to get away from all the fighting. He'd found another girl. He regretted chasing off his family. He was unreliable. After an already tumultuous year and without his presence there to bolster her resolve, she was worn down enough to start listening to them. Her family had decided to move to America to try and begin their lives again and they were trying to convince her to come with them - and after a week in which he didn't call once (that she was aware of), she finally agreed. At twenty-three weeks she boarded a plane with the rest of the Ryans and made the transatlantic flight. Her parents had agreed to contact him after they had settled down in the States - but they never kept that promise.
It wouldn't have mattered if they had, actually, because when he called and found a disconnected number, Hjalti panicked and returned to Dublin only to find the family gone, and his worry and anger twisted up within him. A couple of the Ryans' old neighbors found him trying to find any clues to their whereabouts he could, but they knew the family's opinion of him and refused to tell him anything. The situation escalated into a full-on street brawl, and the
gardai had to be called in to break everything up and he ended up arrested for the third time in his life. He got off fairly lightly with a four month sentence in a minimum security facility for assault and battery, and by the time he got out there was no way in hell he could trace them. Unknown to him, not long after Killian was born Catherine had gotten enough money together for a international call to Ireland and phoned his old number. His ex-boss/landlord had told her in a very annoyed voice that Hjalti had just disappeared one day and he didn't know where he was, leaving the business in a bind that it was still recovering from. With that, Catherine decided her fears had been true and her parents had been right, and she never tried to find him again.
With his life completely in shreds around him, he didn't know what to do. Going home was out of the question after the fight with his family, finding Catherine and their baby was impossible, so he started drifting with no real goals, only a hope that one day he would stumble on them again. He got into the habit of moving about once a year, first across Europe, then across America. That trip he'd planned when he was twenty-three unintentionally became a reality as he spent time in England, then Spain, then France, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Belarus, and finally Greece. When he'd seen all of Europe that he wanted to see, he decided to return to America and be on at least somewhat familiar ground again, and he started on the West Coast with Seattle. In America he acquired a motorcycle and finally started buying furniture (but never more than he could fit in a small U-Haul) and continued moving around, earning money by working as a mechanic for whatever shop would hire him. He also developed a bad habit of chain smoking and a slight dependence on alcohol, although it never evolved into full-blown alcoholism and he never drove while intoxicated. He also abandoned religion entirely after losing Catherine and avoided churches like the devil.
At some point in the previous year (spent in Washington, DC) he'd decided that nineteen years of being alone were enough for him and that the pride that had driven a wedge between him and his family had damaged him too much. He'd made friends in each of the places he'd stayed, even had a couple flings, but they were always short and his heart still belonged to Catherine and he'd never found word of her, and his friends couldn't make up for his family. Communication also rarely continued after he moved, which didn't make things easier. Once he'd decided that maybe the time was right to return home, the internet made it very easy for him to find out that Thorir had indeed taken over the business thirteen years before, and that was the final key to his decision: in many ways, Thorir was now the "patriarch" of the family, and if anyone would accept him back it was him. He arranged to rent an apartment a decent, but not impossible, distance from the main store and family home, packed up his rental truck and put his bike on the towing trailer, and started driving back to Locke City - with no idea that the situation was miles more complicated than he could have guessed.
First Echo: When he
returned home after a long time away wandering, his brother pushed him over the threshold of their childhood home. This gave him the Echo of the dwarves and Bilbo
opening the secret door to Erebor and entering the mountain, their ancestral home they'd been longing for for almost two centuries. He didn't get any of the specifics about the scene other than "a group of people there," has no idea what the name of the place is or what significance it has other than
home, but he recognized that one of them felt to him like "the leader."
Preincarnation Personality: Dwalin, son of Fundin, is about the most straightforward dwarf you will ever know. Dwarves aren't a race given to subterfuge at all, but while almost none of them hide anything about who they are, Dwalin shoves it in your face and pretty much terrorizes you into accepting it, as poor Bilbo finds out to his dismay.
His most obvious trait is pride - pride in who he is, what he can do, and the lineage he comes from. He's a
man dwarf who
knows what he can do and how well he can do it, but also recognizes his limitations, accepts them, and just does not worry about them. He does what he's good at (physical things, battle strategies) and lets others worry about their own specialties. He knows he's a good fighter, one of the best around in fact, and he knows that Thorin can depend on him without question and that's the way he prefers it and he will be
damned if anyone tries to take either of those things away from him. He also lives up to a lot of the dwarven ideals, being strong, confident, very masculine, and a great fighter, and he tops that off by believing in the line of Durin and upholding its traditions near fanatically. Being a dwarf is so intrinsic to him that he firmly believes dwarves to be superior to all other races, who he at best regards as "amusing but no real threat" (hobbits) and at worst regards as "stick-up-their-jack traitors and scum" (elves). He's fairly neutral but still deeply distrustful of men, being the most suspicious of Bard in the entire Company and wanting to pitch him over the side of his boat for no reason other than he doesn't trust him. He also threatens to rip Bain's arms off if he even thinks about trying to tease or humiliate the dwarves, and really seems to mean it. It can lead him into a lot of conflicts as he doesn't even try to form good connections outside his race, though within it he's certainly regarded as one of the best to have on your side.
His loyalty to Thorin Oakenshield must be seen to be believed. Constantly throughout their lives the two have fought side by side and they've come to depend on each other (and Dwalin's brother Balin) as more than just compatriots. Thorin is not only his king, but his brother and his best friend, giving him a degree of devotion that's almost ridiculous even among dwarves. Whenever Thorin is in trouble, Dwalin is there to help him, or at the very least tries to - he's the one that grabs Thorin when the king falls off the tracks during the storm in the mountain, he smashes a warg that's about to attack him with his hammer, and even when the tree he's desperately holding on to so he doesn't
fall over a cliff is on
fire his first concern is still for Thorin and only the branch he's holding onto breaking stops him from charging after him. Thorin has made Dwalin his confidante, his lieutenant, and while Fíli is his heir it's Dwalin and Balin who are second in command on this quest, in different capacities. They have survived so much together and Dwalin followed Thorin to Erebor without a second thought, damning the consequences along the way because it was something Thorin needed to do, and he would gladly lay his life down for this king and defend him to his last breath. He also seems more touchy than Thorin at times of Thorin's dignity; he's the most vocal in his dislike of Bard when they meet the bargeman and the most outright hostile while Thorin is simply mistrustful, and glares mightily at anyone who might not be showing him proper respect. Whatever Thorin wants, Dwalin will make sure it's done, whether he has to break a few skulls to get it done or not.
This loyalty is most obvious with Thorin, but it extends to the rest of the Company as well, and all dwarfkind into the bargain. He doesn't mollycoddle anyone, as that does absolutely no favors (especially in dwarven society), but he will do his damnedest to protect anyone he sees as under his "charge." He's always the first in line to take a blow for the Company and is more willing to risk his own neck than anyone else's in a bad situation. He expects people to know what they can do and do it to the best of their ability, but if it's beyond their capability and they've admitted it he won't hold it against them. He pulls the younger members of the company into the center of their protective ring when the riders of Rivendell charge at them, and he constantly takes weapons from the orcs chasing them down the river so he can kill them before they kill his compatriots. He has little tolerance for people who waste time with things he considers unimportant (the headshake and eyeroll he gives while three of the company are burying the chest in the troll cave is very telling), but as long as someone isn't shirking when it's time to get down to business, he'll keep them under his protection. He sees it more or less as his job to defend those around him so they can get on with the business of restoring the dwarven kingdom and culture, and given the lives they lead it's a necessary job and one he's more than willing to do.
He is absolutely
insane on the battleground, going somewhat berserk every time there's a fight in the air. Considering his
head is very much a weapon for him, it's safe to say that he won't hold anything back in a confrontation or even in daily life. It makes him a very fearsome opponent in either sphere, and the way he constantly throws himself into fights only to get out of them again is something of a miracle. He's the one that leads a lot of the charges in Goblintown to get everyone out of there alive (yelling all the way) and is in the thick of things whenever orcs, wargs, spiders, or any other enemy spring up. He most definitely has one of the highest, if not
the highest, body counts of the entire Company, and if he doesn't already he certainly will in the near future. He's willing to take risks that might hurt him, such as when he tried (unsuccessfully) to break down the door of the cell he was put in in Mirkwood, and any number of times during their chase with Smaug through Erebor. And while he sometimes loses his head and acts on impulse, he's also fully capable of making and executing plans on the fly that usually succeed. He's definitely one you want fighting for you and not against you in almost any capacity.
Like most dwarves, Dwalin has a sense of humor, though his can be a little more
heavy than even his kindred. Dwarves love fun, love singing and drinking and telling a good joke, and usually don't mind being the butt of one themselves, but he takes it a little further than most and his barbs are a little sharper. He pokes fun at Kíli in Rivendell for being attracted to elven women and mistaking one of the elven men
for a woman, and was one of the instigators in the food fight that broke out after Bofur sang his little song. He was also one of the worst at thumbing his nose at the elves giving them hospitality by having as much "dwarven fun" as possible during that stay, and seems to take a slightly sadistic delight in Bilbo's reactions to the succession of dwarves just showing up at his house. He's not outrightly cruel, but his brand of joking around can make others uncomfortable. He can also be
very sarcastic, as seen when a few hundred pound goblin corpse lands on the wreckage they're all lying under and his response is "You've
got to be joking."
Any differences: The biggest difference between Dwalin and Hjalti is that Dwalin had a purpose and a drive in his life - he was very singlemindedly devoted to following Thorin specifically and helping the Longbeards in general, so much so that while it's not at all unusual for dwarves to never marry, he never even considered the prospect in an idle way. He would follow Thorin through fire and snow and earthquakes if that was where his king was going, no matter what the cost. Hjalti's almost exactly the total opposite: he never really had concrete goals to begin with in his life, gained one with wanting to have a life with Catherine to the point of forsaking his family for her, but lost it all again when she disappeared. He never really "found" himself after that, and though he's mostly comfortable with who he turned out to be, he's been leading a drifter's life for almost two decades now and hasn't really found anything to be passionate about in that time.
The other really huge difference is that Hjalti is much more bitter than Dwalin. Dwalin has a lot of faults (like the racism), but overall he was fairly... well, optimistic isn't quite the right word, but he was never one to really acknowledge defeat and let it bring him down. Things
were going to turn out right, the quest
would succeed, and even after seeing every single person he was close to in his life die that confidence wasn't something that ever left him. Hjalti's experiences haven't pushed him to self-loathing (he still has that confidence although it's kind of skewed), but he has become very bitter about a lot of things, family and religion among them. He still firmly believes that he never did anything wrong, but obviously
something went wrong or he'd be living in Ireland with a wife he loved and probably eight or so kids by now and he is deeply resentful of that. It comes out in a lot of sarcasm and smartass-ness and his dependence on cigarettes and alcohol.
He's much more accepting of various groups than Dwalin was. The aforementioned racism and racial bias was likely strongest in him for all groups of people and not just elves, as part of his surety in Thorin and the line of Durin - he's the one who wanted to hijack Bard's boat and throw him overboard, after all. But in this day and age and after all the traveling he's done whatever minor traces of distrust or dislike of different groups he's had has been stripped away, except for a lingering dislike of Catholics because of obvious reasons. He also gets blatantly angry less, though explosions can still happen in extreme circumstances, but he seems to be set more on "constant low simmer" than anything else and can chill out pretty easily if nothing's going wrong around him.
And just for the fun of it Hjalti is a pescetarian; he hasn't eaten meat in over ten years, except for fish and shellfish. He just kind of woke up one day not wanting it anymore.
Abilities: Helpfully, Dwalin has no supernatural or canon-specific abilities, which makes for much less explanation. Fun! But let's go down what he does have.
Extended life: Dwarves live much longer lives than regular humans; at the time of Thorin's quest, Dwalin was already pushing 170.
Based on how long he lived, it can be estimated that dwarf lifetimes are almost exactly four times as long as a human lifetime, and while they reach their "adult" bodies faster than humans in relative terms their mental developments play out in much the same relative timeframe. This would make him roughly 42 in human years at the time of the Quest, but it doesn't give him any other special thing. It simply means that dwarves live longer than men or hobbits.
Hardiness: Another trait shared by his general race but enhanced in him as he's trained all his life to be a professional soldier. Dwarves are of "good stock," hearty and solid and strong, "little tanks" in many respects. They are tougher than the other races, having been purposefully designed to be able to withstand the heat of a volcano by Aule, and can take a blow better than almost anyone else. Of course they can still be killed, and many, many of them are as they are a race who have fighting almost bred into them, but it takes a lot to knock them down and they will get back up and keep going as long as they possibly can.
Fighting Ability: This is where Dwalin shines, as he's turned himself into a master of any non-distance weapon you can imagine,
and isn't a bad hand at throwing small axes and knives either.
Combat training seems to be compulsory to some extent for all dwarven males at least to the extent of "the pointy end goes in the other guy," but Dwalin is a professional soldier and has never had cause to turn away from it. He loves fighting with a passion, and is usually the first to seek one out. He carries a ridiculous number of weapons on himself (not quite as many as Fíli but correspondingly bigger): two axes named Grasper and Keeper, a large war-hammer that he's prone to using as an armrest, at least one hunting knife
and probably more that he likes to wave around threateningly, and a pair of mismatched knuckledusters
that he made himself and is quite proud of. And he can
use all of those weapons indiscriminately. Dori is the strongest of the company, Fíli and Kíli are the youngest and the swiftest, but Dwalin and Thorin are the most deadly and certainly the most used to a fight.
Crafting: Dwarves are a very artistic race,
and every dwarf learns some degree of crafting in many areas such as blacksmithing and leatherworking as well as others. Dwalin knows these things as well, but he's probably the worst of them with the skills because he was always more interested in practicing fighting. "Worst at them" is still good compared to humans and hobbits in general, though, so he can do things like make horseshoes and repair bridles and whatnot with no problem.
Language: He can speak Westron (the common tongue of Middle Earth) and Khuzdul, as he was raised bilingual. He can also use Iglishmêk, or dwarven sign language, and can obviously read and write in dwarven runes.
Music: EVERY SINGLE DWARF SINGS. Even if they can't sing
well. He's amazingly pretty good at it and has a nice, deep voice, and he also plays a dwarven fiddle with an amazingly deep tone for such a small instrument.
Roleplay Sample - Third Person: Have a really long-ass musebox-ish thread with a lot of introspection and stuff happening. We're going to keep this canon to the game if he's allowed in.
Roleplay Sample - Network: Well, this damn sure isn't what I expected when I decided to move back here.
[The new voice on the network is definitely an adult male, but the accent that comes with it is a little unusual - definitely mostly American, but with slightly rounder sounds and letters that are sometimes more and sometimes less distinct than is found in a typical American accent, of any region of the country. The speaker also sounds more resigned and slightly irritated than shocked or scared.]Locke's been showing up more and more on the national news over the past few months, but it's all been about things like bizarre animal attacks, people dumping toxins in the water, and all the shit that's been going on in the Dead District. Now people're adding conspiracies and talking animals and maybe mind control along with who knows what else to the mix and what're we supposed to do about it? How do you keep the people around you from getting involved in this crap and maybe getting hurt by it?
[There's a fairly long but low groan, mostly under his breath.]I think I need a drink.
Any Questions? Thorir and Killian have decked him in two different places on his body and Killian at least might do it again. The rest of the ME cast is gleefully popcorning at them from the peanut gallery, so I'm pretty sure they're all up for this.
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