Tough Luck McDonald

“If something’s going to go wrong, it might as well hit me first.”

A broad-shouldered dwarf farmer with more grit than glory, Tough Luck McDonald walks into danger because someone has to — and because he believes he deserves it.

Who He Is

Tough Luck McDonald is a farmer’s son who never meant to leave home.

He speaks plainly, thinks slowly, and carries more weight than most men twice his size. He wasn’t the smartest in his family, nor the quickest with words, but he was steady. Reliable. The sort who could work a field from dawn to dusk without complaint.

Now he wanders from settlement to settlement asking the same question:

“You seen a dwarf girl? About this tall.”

He never explains much more than that.

He says she was taken.
He says the trail led toward Drakkenheim.
He says he’ll find her.

When pressed, he grows quiet.

There’s something in his eyes when the subject turns to children—something harder than anger and heavier than grief. Whatever happened, it happened close. Close enough that he still feels it.

And he means to make it right.

Why He Came to Drakkenheim

Mac believes his sister was taken into the ruined city.

He has asked nearly everyone he meets if they have seen her.

He does not hide this. He does not cloak it in pride or strategy.

He is here for her.

Everything else is secondary.

Personality

• Dry, self-deprecating humor
• Protective to a fault
• Assumes the worst — prepares for it anyway
• Willing to stand between danger and anyone smaller than him

He expects things to go wrong. He simply refuses to let them go wrong for someone else.

Reputation (So Far)

• Physically imposing
• Reliable in a fight
• First to step forward when someone is threatened
• Surprisingly gentle with children

While others debate tactics or politics, Mac tends to ask a simpler question:

“Who needs help?”

Present Status

Operating out of Emberwood Village with the party, Tough Luck prepares to enter the ruins not as a conqueror, but as a brother.

Drakkenheim took something from him.

He intends to take it back.