Delboe Sumpfoot trudged wearily down the alley, clad in rags and shivering against the cold. The weather these past few days had been incredibly harsh, especially on those with no warm place to sleep. He bent with a groan to rummage through a pile of trash to one side of the cobbled path, finding himself a few unidentified foodscraps, which he began to gnaw on without enthusiasm. Breakfast.
Yeah, life had been hard for Delboe since he lost his job at the mines. Real hard. But what else would the mining bosses do, when they had the opportunity to replace their current workforce with a bunch of dwarves fleeing war in the mountainhomes, who could live underground without consequences, required little in the way of mental stimulation, and accepted a few socks as pay? Comparitively, the tough, hardy human mining folk were a bunch of whining, pampered little sissies.
This had injured not only Delboe's financial status, but his pride. He had descended rapidly into alchoholism, alienated his family and friends, and ended up smashing up a bunch of tables and chairs as well as somebody's nose in a drunken tavern brawl. He had been swiftly apprehended by the constabulary, who were, incidentally, mostly comprised of dwarves these days, for similiar reasons to above.
He was one of the lucky ones, he was informed by his cellmate in the dungeons later, that there had been spare room in the lockup when he'd been arrested, since the vicious dwarves would have had no hesitation in hacking a few of his limbs off and leaving him to bleed out, had there been a prison overpopulation problem.
At that moment, he did not feel particularly lucky, and many times since he'd wished he had been chopped up by one of the stumpy bastards, if only to end his misery. "They took'r jawbs!" He would lament, trudging along the streets and alleys to anyone would listen, and took to tossing broken bottles and dead cats at any passing dwarves.
But now, as the burly, scarred ex-miner reached the end of the alley, he saw the poster. He wasn't the best at reading, but squinting his eyes he could make out the basics... The National Dungeon League was in town!
His eyes widened with first surprise, then excitement, and he smiled for what must have been the first time in years. He could join the League, it didn't cost anything! He'd show those damned dwarves! He squinted a bit closer, noting that there was 10sp of starting cash, and then ambled hurriedly off to find the NDL stalls and kit himself out with a sturdy pick (oh, how he'd missed the feel of a mining pick in his hands!) and a suit of good iron armour, as well as having a shave and general neatening-up.
Feeling like a new man in his armour, he shall head off to enter the pit with his pick over one shoulder. If he encounters any filthy damn dwarves on the way, he shall gladly beat the living shit out of them in a fit of rage!
Mining pick- 1sp
Iron armour- 9sp
Filthy skin, miner's muscles and surly demeanor- Free!