Koluhm Bonecutter

Koluhm Bonecutter was a Myrkulyte cleric member of the outlaw mercenary band from Cormyr called the Iron Collar Band, active in the early 14 century DR.

"Koluhm Bonecutter, a priest cut from the finest cloth. Led us to many graves, he has, and quite a bit of coin we took from bony hands."

- Kickshaw

Description
Koluhm was a human male with pale skin, silver hair, and light gray robes. He carried a simple war hammer.

Personality
The man was fully committed to serving the Lord of Bones. Although he followed his deity's guidance, Koluhm cared about coin and performed last rites and communed with the dead only when there was profit involved. He led his mercenary band, the Iron Collar Band, on grave-robbing excursions, believing that it was not desecration if the dead gave their permission. Despite his love for the coin, Koluhm served only his deity and did not change allegiance like a simple mercenary for the highest bidder.

Abilities
Koluhm possessed a divine gift that allowed him to hear the voices of those who passed from life into Myrkul's domain. They arrived in an inaudible whisper of wind to others and as words to Koluhm. The gift of hearing the dead was wearisome to the man as he was constantly exposed to their pleas, demands, calls, screams for attention, and death rattles, as they were stuck reliving their last moments of life.

The priest also knew how to use surgeon's tools.

History
In the, Koluhm Bonecutter and his fellow "adventurers" found themselves in the town of Targos as the city became besieged by a goblin army serving the Legion of the Chimera. Originally, the Iron Collar Band came from the southern nation of Cormyr, where they did mercenary work. They fled the Forest Kingdom due to some unrevealed event involving plundering tombs under Koluhm's direction, and being shackled by Cormyr's Purple Dragons. The group did not regret the flight. Pike and his mates were not willing to comply with Cormyr's many laws and fees that ruled over adventurers there.

Koluhm Bonecutter, accompanied by Black Geoffrey, Blanchard Pike, and Kickshaw, traveled as an "adventuring band" and eventually reached the unruly city of Luskan. There, they met a ragged wizard, secretly an agent of the Arcane Brotherhood, Phaen of the Rags, who joined the group and told them of "easy gold" to be made in Targos as the town put out a call for adventurers at the time. Like his companions, Koluhm Bonecutter traveled to Targos with guidance from his deity, who predicted that the strife and death that was bout to consume the Ten-Towns would eventually bring the settlement to worship the Lord of Bones.

The Iron Collar Band accepted the contract with Targos, the worst possible employment, as far as Blanchard Pike was concerned. Unlike his copanions, Koluhm didn't spend his days drinking at the The Salty Dog Tavern, but settled in the Weeping Widow Inn and communed with the dead, performing burial rights and ensuring the dead could not be raised and sent into the battlefield. Koluhm's sensitivity to the dead ended up driving him away from the Weeping Widow as he could not stop hearing the titular weeping widow's ghost all through the nights. The priest of Myrkul ended up fleeing the inn without paying his bill.

After the goblin attack commenced, Koluhm was ordered by Speaker Ulbrec Dinnesmore to interrogate the goblins that had been killed. The priest found a home in Targos into which a stray invader broke in. The Targosan commoner who lived there, a member of the Targos Guard, and the goblin killed each other, leaving Koluhm to perform the final rites on the three neatly arranged bodies, listening to their whispers from beyond death.

Appearances

 * Video Games
 * Icewind Dale II