Name: Bram Rimehook
Race: Dwarf
Role/Class: Rock-Pool Forager
Appearance: Bram Rimehook is a squat, broad-backed dwarf with forearms like driftwood and a beard that looks perpetually damp no matter how much he swears it’s “fine.” His hair is iron-gray and kept cropped close to the scalp, while his beard is braided into two thick cords bound with shell rings. His nose has been broken at least once, flattened slightly, and his cheeks are wind-burned raw from living where cold spray hits like thrown gravel.
He wears layered shore leathers under a salt-stiff hooded coat lined with seal-wax cloth. A basket harness rides on his back, packed with kelp bundles, shellfish sacks, and a small waterproof tube of rolled maps. His belt is crowded with practical tools: a short spear, a hooked gaff, a chisel, and a pry knife with a wide blade made for stubborn shells and stubborn problems.
Backstory
Bram didn’t come to Whitecap for glory. He came because it was honest. No guild titles, no forge politics—just tide, stone, and whether you had the sense to leave before the sea returned.
He started as a simple shellfish collector, working the rock pools and reef shelves that only expose themselves for a short window each day. He learned quickly that the biggest danger isn’t a monster—it’s arrogance. The tide doesn’t care if you found a perfect cluster of mussels. It will still rise.
Bram began keeping records: tide timing, storm swell changes, moon phases, and which rock shelves become death traps when wind shifts the surf angle. At first, it was personal. Then it became communal. People started asking him, “Is it safe today?” Travelers started paying him to mark routes through coastal cuts before fog rolled in. Even Cliffwatch sent runners to borrow his notes when supply caravans needed to skirt sea-facing ledges at the wrong time.
His maps are not pretty. They’re functional. They’re survival.
Bram’s secret is that his tide charts have started disagreeing with the sea. Not often. Just enough to be wrong at the worst moments. He suspects someone is placing false markers along the pools—little shell piles and chalk scratches meant to lure people into “safe” windows that will close too soon.
Bram isn’t sure if it’s malice, or something learning.
