Near the village of Hallyn there's a witch's cabin. Every year the few children of Hallyn will sneak into the woods to try to touch it. Several of the younger peddlers and guards will approach the cabin in hopes of glimpsing Thrin, the witch, and possibly learning whom back home loves them. Hallr claims that all of the mushrooms of the forest belong to her, which is why few can tell the poisonous from the safe. Milkovich says that she uses the mushrooms to cook brews so poisonous they can kill a horse just by smelling them. Despite his obvious respect for Thrin, Hallr has never stopped Milkovich from saying so. Whatever their beliefs, everyone is afraid of Thrin and her strange cabin.
At first glance, Thrin's cabin isn't that strange at all. It's a trapper's cabin in the woods near the Hallyn Inn. Hallyn is barely claimed from the forest, with a large central inn and then several cabins, and the trading square around a large tree stump, so a trapper's cabin in the deeper woods is very common. However, Thrin's cabin begins to become stranger as one approaches. There's a stone bench out front, which looks far less comfortable than a wooden one would be, and finding and shaping such a large stone would take immense effort for no gain. At least for a human. Strange smells waft from the cabin, and the door is covered in stains of purple and red, many claim to be blood. Finally, the roof of the cabin is cut open, and a great stone chimney sits in the center of it, which seems impossible in such a small cabin.
Entering into the cabin the walls are carved with strange runes. There's no proper bed, just a pile of old furs in the corner, and a large central stone stove takes up about half of the expected floor space. On the cook fire sits two pots, one always smells delicious as it bubbles with a strange forever soup. The other always seems very strange, often a brilliant colour not found in nature, with a strange scent which sometimes overpowers the soup. Most strangers miss the large circle surrounding the fire, though anyone with a little magical knowledge recognizes a large prison circle, though no one knows what it contains.
Thrin herself is an emaciated woman of unknown years. All of the people of Hallyn know her as having been old in their grandparent's time. She stands only a little over a meter tall, not quite a meter and a half, with a bulky frame that no one is sure if it's mostly her many blankets and robes wrapping her. The village children tell tales that she would blow away if she bundled up any less heavily. Of course, what they don't know is that she's actually not very bundled up, simply in a single layer, and she's a dwarf, just a very thin and elderly dwarf, being older than the village itself.
Thrin is an rune caster, a very elder rune caster. When she was a little girl, about 500 years ago, she began to hear the call of the spirits of the earth. She would sneak into the deepest of the mines and sing to the spirits of the earth. As she aged this let her learn where ore deposits and gems lay in the belly of the earth, and her gift was encouraged, even praised. Then the spirits called her to consult the runes, and the dwarves began to grumble and complain about her. When she was confronted by her Longbeard about her dabbling in fate. She said words she could never take back and was cast out of the tunnels and into the woods above. There she built a small cabin, and was taken care of by her spirit friends.
The spirits of the mountains believe that the fate of all is their duty, and that Thrin shares that duty. As such, Thrin is constantly casting the runes, and therefore binding herself to the fates of others. Thrin has so many fates the she's bound to after her four hundred year exile that she doesn't remember which fate is hers. She has attempted to map all of the fates. First on slate tablets, then scrolls, then books, and finally on the walls and floor of her hut. However, she's lost so many of these books of fate she no longer remembers where she began, but her rune castings and Oaths have forced her to continue to write down these fates, so the map begins to spiral. When the young caravan guards come and ask if the girl back home loves them, she feels great pains as she weaves them into the net of doom she's cast around herself.
She once apologized to Hallr for the acts of the forest. Unfortunately she did it when he was but a boy trying to touch her cabin on a dare, and not after he was turned into a Loup Garou.
Accustomed to the Light: Thrin has lost the Accustomed to the Dark trait after many years above ground.
Beardless: Thrin has learned to shave after many years, she often pretends to be human.
Spirit Friend: Thrin is not a normal spirit binder. She doesn't call out to the Nameless Spirits and make demands, she is called by them and has relationships with them. Whenever she is in a domain she has a binding in, she can reduce its enmity without taking retribution. She can make offerings and gifts to the domain or do its will. Thrin may take on a new instinct based on the will of a domain, and whenever she would receive a fate point from that instinct she can instead reduce retribution from that domain by 1.
A Burning Wheel Monster Every Week