Thalric was once the lore-keeper of the Sky-Splitter clan, a position of honor that ended in a roar of white thunder. A massive avalanche buried his mountain hold in seconds, snuffing out three hundred lives. Thalric alone survived, trapped in a pocket of air beneath thirty feet of packed ice and stone, surrounded by the cooling bodies of his kin. He did not spend those three days in prayer for rescue; he spent them in frantic, whispered apologies to the souls departing the frost-bitten corpses around him. He realized then that the greatest tragedy of his people wasn't death, but the 'lost tally'—the deeds and names that vanish when the last witness dies.
He emerged from the snow with skin as grey as the granite and hair turned shock-white, clutching a forbidden primer on necromancy he had salvaged from the ruins. Since that day, Thalric has wandered the high passes, seeking those claimed by the cold. He does not raise the dead to serve as thralls; he raises them to finish their final business. He views his skeletons as weary travelers who need a warm coat and a kind word before they can finally cross the veil. To Thalric, every bone he knits together with gold wire is a bridge back to a dignity the mountains tried to steal.