A peculiar deepling, Grunka is adorned in simple, but functional garb that reveals his stout physique. Grunka is large for his race, and a powerhouse to boot, but despite his relatively simple appearance, penchant for smashing skulls, and eating, there is more to him than most would initially realize. Many tend to overlook him and his more complex nature, dismissing him as an odd-looking Goblin, and the prejudice that most goblins face does little to mitigate this.

Biography So Far

An adventurous young Deepling, Grunka grew up with his mother, Snaggletooth, in the Glimmerlands on the rural outskirts of Deeptop.
 
Grunka's had a good mother, she took good care of him and taught him how to survive, which mushrooms and moss were poisonous and which weren't, how to smash rats without ruining the meat, and where to find freshwater. She was also a healer, tending to the injured and sickly. Grunka admired her for this and grew fond of learning her techniques.
 
Snaggletooth was also an influential member of clan Firespeaker, a secretive clan of flame-worshippers, a fact that she kept hidden from young Grunka. She ventured out each night and tended to burial rituals. Most importantly, she upheld the sacred memories of Gex, the first Flamesoul. It was her duty to guard a sacred artifact called the Heartfire Crystal, an object that each Flamesoul had possessed since the times of Gex.
 
Grunka never truly knew his father, Migmox, the most recent Flamesoul. He was admired by many deeplings, particularly his dearest friend, an elderly deepling warrior called Runt-Rine, who worked with Snaggletooth to safeguarded Migmox's secret. Migmox was absent for most of Grunka's life, as he was hunted by Krazzax, a Hobgoblin warlord tasked by Gangar, the Goblin King, to hunt down and capture the Heartfire Crystal for himself. Before being slain by Krazzax, Migmox passed the crystal to his son, Grunka, which he has held on to ever since.
 
Grunka had a good life among the Deeptop community and made many friends. His closest childhood friend, Flizz, had begun her Tunnel Scout training, and she was a fierce fighter and survivalist. Grunka and Flizz would often playfight and spar with each other.

Tragedy and Awakening

Grunka's life turned upside down the day Snaggletooth died. While Grunka was out tending to the mushroom fields, Krazzax discovered their farmstead and broke in, confronting Snaggletooth on the whereabouts of the Heartfire Crystal. She refused his demands and paid with her life. Krazzax unleashed a hailstorm of arrow fire upon the Firespeaker from his ramshackle chaingun and fled to search elsewhere. By the time Grunka returned, he discovered her body. She was dead, and Grunka
 
A spark of rage burned, and something terrible was awakened within Grunka. The embers of a Flamesoul burned brightly within his soul, and the Heartfire Crystal shone like a beacon. Snaggletooth's spirit was absorbed by the crystal. The hut burned around him like an inferno, and it would have been consumed completely had Runt-Rine not knocked him unconscious. When Grunka woke up he was told by Runt-Rine to gain control over his rage lest he be a danger to himself and others.
 
Runt-Rine trained Grunka in the basics of 'smashing things', how to use his rage in a controlled manner. In truth, Runt-Rine saw the potential within Grunka to become the next Flamesoul. After Runt-Rine taught Grunka all he knew, he ventured to other places to expand his knowledge and possibly find other trainers.

Fizzi

Grunka hated Goblin civilization. It was loud, crowded, smelly, and everyone was mean to him. He only managed to become an apprentice because he knew the basics and the teachers he found were complacent enough to do the minimal work necessary. He kept to himself when not sparring. Few were willing to look past his deepling exterior. Some were outright hostile.
 
All that was thrown out the window as soon as the opposite sex showed up to watch, then it became a merciless competition of strength, perhaps to score some tail. Grunka never cared for the company of goblin women, as he was more focused on training, and they cared very little for deeplings. That was until Fizzi saw him. Unbeknownst to Grunka, Fizzi was the daughter of Krazzax. She had also been tasked with finding the Heartfire Crystal, but when her eyes met Grunka's, her heart fluttered with obsession. She came to watch his sparring session every day. One day she arrived with an entourage, one of which announced that Grunka had been selected by Fizzi to become her mate. Grunka refused the offer, which enraged the spoiled goblin, and she chased him out of the depths of the goblin town with a barrage of Magical fire. The scar on his shoulder is a memory of that event. He barely escaped with his life, hiding within a cart transporting rocks to the town's outskirts.

A New Life

Grunka wandered the surface world seeking answers. There was nothing left for him back home. He sailed across the ocean to escape the obsessed Fizzi.
 
Eventually, some time after finding his way to Port Morkney, he found friendship with Arngrim Brakenbrik, Sao-Yuun Greymind, Velum Harbridge, Siren, Balthazar Al'Ruine, and Xerth Al'Lucia, some of which deepened as he travelled across Meyland. He soon joined the Black Hand mercenary company under Balthazar and Siren's leadership.
 
During a period of time spent within Duunhollow, he also joined the Hunter's Keep, where he met Liska Aul'Luma and aided in the slaying of an adult White Dragon named Crothis.

Battle for the Cinder Den

Soon after an attack on the capital city of Duunhollow by deep-dwarves, during which Balthazar tragically lost his life attempting to save Grunka, he, Velum, Sao-Yuun, Liska, and a Karthan inquisitor named Ager, ventured into the Deep-dark to investigate the circumstances that caused the siege and possibly eliminate the threat. Together, they stumbled upon a grand plot to overthrow not just the Silver kingdom, but all of Meyland itself, culminating in the Battle for the Cinder Den.
 
There, he learned that under the guidance of their King, Tharidal Ashbight, the deep-dwarves were working with a goblin mercenary group under the leadership of Krazzax, and the deep-dwarven Flamekeeper clan at the time was learning new techniques overseen by Fizzi, who had become a powerful pyromancer. Within the Cinder Den, deeplings had been stolen away from Deeptop and put to work in a quarry as mind-slaves. Within the Flamekeeper's temple, Fizzi taught the Flamekeepers to use them as hosts with which to bind elemental spirits of fire, creating powerful, single entities for Tharidal Ashbight's army.
 
Grunka and his companions did battle with Mor'tath, and exiled mind flayer, and Krazzax within the quarry. Krazzax saw the Heartfire Crystal upon Grunka, and Grunka discovered similarities between Krazzax's arrows and those found upon his mother's body. Grunka realized he was confronting Snaggletooth's killer. Grunka entered a fury as the power of the crystal awakened within him, but Krazzax escaped to the temple. Grunka broke the deeplings' chains, armed them, and he and his companions initiated a siege upon the temple, where they did battle with both Fizzi and Krazzax, who fled a second time.
 
Grunka and his companions finally cornered the pair within the Heartfire Sanctum. Within was a crystalline formation of ley-lines infused with the essence of elemental fire; the source from which Fizzi and the Flamekeepers drew their power. There, Krazzax met his end in a pit of lava by the boot of Velum Harbridge, saving Grunka from the same grizzly fate at the hobgoblin warlord's hands. With hate and obsession in her eyes, Fizzi triggered a Contingency spell and vanished before she could perish at the hands of Inquisitor Ager.

Grunka, the Flamesoul

After the battle, the dormant spirit of Snaggletooth came to Grunka and revealed to him the nature of the Heartfire Sanctum as the birthplace of all Flamesouls, including his father, Migmox, his father before him—a direct lineage beginning with his ancestor, Gex. She revealed that Flamesouls deride their power from an ancient fire spirit called Incendrius, who called the sanctum home. Now free from the shackles of Fizzi and the Flamekeepers, Incendrius came to Grunka and offered a fraction of his power, as he had with all Flamesouls before him. Grunka accepted, and a turbulent vortex of fire engulfed both him and the spirit of his mother as she pleaded with him to control his rage.
 
The true power of the Heartfire Crystal awakened, and Grunka absorbed the essence of Incendrius into the artifact. That day, Grunka became the Flamesoul.

Heroes of Meyland and the Hammer's Strike

As thanks for putting a stop to the deep-dwarves, his and his companions were offered places on the Meyland Security Council. Soon after, old faces reemerged, and Arngrim Brakenbrik rekindled his friendship with Grunka. With the absence of Siren and Balthazar of the Black Hand, Grunka's companions, both old and new, rekindled a new group. Together, under the sponsorship of the business-savvy Varesh Rasmund, Arngrim, Sao-Yuun, Grunka, and Velum became the Hammer's Strike, an elite group of adventurers and tournament fighters.
 
Now, Grunka travels the lands of Meyland with the Hammer's Strike in Arngrim's new dwarven steam-tank, the Steamhammer, ever vigilant of the crazed Fizzi seeking to take both him and his Heartfire Crystal for herself.