Durin Thungnisson, the Eldest, the Greatest, the Lost.
The firstborn son of Thungni would be claimed to be Radical and Conservative by both sides, then again he started Runesmithing well before any such sides had formed. Mighty were his deeds, and revolutionary were his works. Durin was obsessed with pushing the art of Runecraft forward, and after learning all he could from his Father and being deemed worthy of Mastery, he set about that goal with gusto. Developing many Runes that today are foundational to the art, though never as much as his father. Similarly, many of the traditions Masters follow that were not set by Thungni were set by his son. Durin travelled Northwards with his family as they forged the path northwards, settling Dwarf Holds as they went. The eldest of Thungni's children was prolific because of the number of students he personally taught, teaching promising young Kinsmen until shortly before his disappearance several hundred years ago. His was the mind that first found the Consternation that was named after him. His was one of the first hands to bend and forge Gromril, taught by his Uncle, Grandfather and Father after its discovery. During his long life, he founded two groups who are famed and remembered to this day, the Burudin, and later the Brotherhood of Dron. The first, as all know, to be a forum that fostered the development and innovation of new Runes and combinations of thereof, and the other to, unofficially, find a material that could bear more than three Runes of power. Of the many things that can be said of him, all could agree that Durin was a pioneer. A visionary who was not content to follow in his father's footsteps, but wanted to truly walk beside Him.
When the second moon joined the sky, and Daemons began to stalk the land, Durin was already old enough for his mighty white beard to reach around his waist seven times over. A Runelord, the first to achieve such a rank and one proudly bestowed to him by his father, who was equipped in some of the finest gear of his age. At a time when Runelore was not yet as advanced or complex, Durin accomplished feats modern Runesmiths could not with a far greater repertoire of tools. Alongside his siblings, but more often on his own, Durin broke the back of armies and slew numerous champions of Darkness. He was the slayer of two lieutenants of foul Ku'gath, it was he who smote the Elder Wyrm Fellfang and fashioned the Warhammer, Rhungrund, and the Runestaff, Dumokri, from its body. There are numerous tales that tell of him cracking the earth asunder, of sending the highest peaks tumbling to the ground with but a single tap of his staff, and of splitting the sky with cascading pillars of flame with these mighty, now lost, artifacts.
Of his fate, none can say. Only that centuries before the Pillars of Valaya were built within Karaz a Karak, Durin disappeared Northwards, farther than any Dwarf would go for hundreds of years yet still. The war against the daemonic hordes, it is said, drove him to search for a definitive answer with the use of Runecraft. The Dwarfs did not despair when one year passed and he did not return, nor when it became one decade, then two, then three and four, but half a century after his disappearance did the last embers of hope die when Thungni finally claimed His son was gone from this world. He was not the first of the Ancestor's children to lose their lives, but he was certainly the most keenly felt among the Guild he had been a part of since its inception.
