Holga Kilgore

Holga Kilgore was a Uthgardt human barbarian and thief of the Elk tribe from the Evermoors in the Savage Frontier who settled in Longsaddle and later Targos in Icewind Dale in the late 15 century DR. She was a fellow adventurer of Edgin Darvis, Simon Aumar, Doric, and Xenk Yendar. "What're you gonna do, big boy?!"

- Holga challenging Themberchaud

Description
She had long black hair and tattoos that marked her as a member of the Elk tribe. On her right upper arm, she bore scars depicting runes in the Giant language, reading ferd ("journey") and krig ("war"). Holga felt that her tattoos were a connection she retained to her tribe and her family. Even though she did not like talking about her past, the Elk tribe tattoos held a strong sentimental value.

She wore a mismatched set of fur-lined leather chest guard, bracers, and tassets, over a cloth tunic, patchwork leather breeches, and wrapped boots, with a rope belt and spiked knuckleduster-like gauntlets. She was usually seen with a scowl on her face.

Personality
Despite her ferociousness in battle and bad temper, Holga surprisingly had a softer side as well with a warm heart and generosity. She was forever loyal to her companions and quick to protect them. Since being exiled from her tribe, she craved a new connection with her adopted family. However, she was quite laconic, saying little and preferring to let her actions and fighting speak for her, and preferring to get right to the point without a lot of obfuscation and verbal flourishes. She was also not one for hugging. She wasn't very optimistic; on one occasion, she said she'd tried being positive once, but it wasn't for her. She tended to think most problems could be solved with someone else's magic; while this tended to annoy these magic-users, they usually found a magical solution regardless.

She loved hot potatoes, eating them regularly when idle. She was willing to fight for them, or else to use them for a fight.

Abilities
She had great strength and could be reckless in battle, but was resilient enough to shrug off blows. She could also throw her weight around, wrestling and shoving foes with ease.

A versatile and improvisational combatant, Holga could wield almost anything as a weapon, from paving stones to potatoes.

Holga was a terrific dancer, however she would refuse to dance with anyone but her ex-husband because it simple was not the same. The only exception was her begrudging dance with Edgin during a heist – the only way to avoid a deadly wizard's trap.

Possessions
She wielded a darksteel greataxe, a single-handed axe with a telescoping haft, which was worn on her back. Its powers made her resistant to electricity. She stole this axe from the corrupt Neverwintan guard Blackwood.

Relationships
Holga had a brother, whom she claimed "would eat [Edgin] for lunch". Whether she meant metaphorically or literally can only be speculated.

She was a long-time companion of Edgin Darvis. While people might mistake them for a married couple, they were amused and offended by the idea—Edgin amused and Holga offended. In fact, they said they were more like brother and sister, and seemed to have developed the same care for one another and the same sibling rivalry with good-natured teasing. She did not appreciate his music. Holga was like a mother to Edgin's daughter Kira, ever since she was born. She nicknamed her "bug" and taught her combat moves.

Her ex-husband was Marlamin, a halfling who lived in a small house in Longsaddle. She respected him greatly; even after they separated and divorced, Holga maintained he was "one of the finest men in Faerûn." The couple never had children. Holga wanted to, but Marlamin left her before they could start a family. This loss of a possible future weighed heavily on the barbarian; she had never thought of a family before meeting her ex-husband. After he left, the woman questioned her self-worth as late as a decade later. Holga wondered if Marlamin had left because she was not enough. Holga revealed these feelings to Edgin in privacy, only nine years after meeting him, one evening after Forge shared his own aspirations with the thieves and asked Holga if she had any children, to which she'd remained silent. Generally, Holga had a particular attraction to halfling men.

Exile
Holga was kicked out of her Elk tribe and shunned for falling in love with an outsider, Marlamin, a halfling. They married regardless. Once, while in the Greypeak Mountains, Holga stole what she thought was a mere walking stick from a wizard she'd encountered and gifted it to Marlamin.

However, their marriage later fell apart. Holga could not let go of the pain of her banishment, for all of Marlamin's efforts to make her a new home, and he was sick of fearing for her safety and whereabouts, so he finally separated from her. Rootless in the world, she wandered for a while as she sought new bonds. Later, she received a letter from Marlamin stating he was no longer her husband and formally their ending their marriage.

Thief
Then, Holga had a chance meeting with a widowed ex-Harper named Edgin, becoming fast friends, even like surrogate siblings, though she later alleged she just needed someplace to sleep out of the cold and had felt sorry for his daughter, Kira. The meeting took place at the Trip and Shuffle tavern in Targos, where Holga noticed the weary father dozing off and kept an eye on the newborn, keeping her safe. When he woke up, Holga was there, holding Kira. Still groggy and confused from passing out, Edgin lashed out at the stranger who was taking his child, but Holga stopped the attack with one hand before it could begin. Edgin quickly realized that the barbarian woman and his newborn were enamored with each other. After dinner, Holga walked the young father home and hesitated to leave. Edgin realized that she had nowhere to go and offered Holga a room to stay for a few days. Holga never left and Kira never cried again. Without coin, skills, or other prospects, the pair turned to crime, at first just to provide for Kira. When both tried to rob the same pawn shop in Targos—the shop's owner was an agent of the Zhentarim, and the goods ill-gotten—this led Holga and Edgin into a life of adventuring and theft. Four years later, they made a smash-and-grab robbery of a jewelry store, simply breaking the window with a rock and making off with the jewels. Holga gifted one piece, a jeweled pendant, to Kira, who promptly disappeared! Fortunately, she soon reappeared with what they realized what was a pendant of invisibility.

Eventually, when she was old enough to understand what they did, Kira insisted on joining them. After that, they took the girl with them on their robberies, having Kira sneak about unseen inside manor houses to steal valuables and pass them out to Edgin while Holga took the heavier stuff. In one incident, Edgin and Holga robbed the house of the unscrupulous Lord and Lady Bantakent, while the invisible Kira played up a fake ghost haunting to distract the owners, even waving their dog Miffles through the air.

Later, in the 1490s DR, Holga and Edgin formed a team with the sorcerer Simon Aumar and the confidence trickster Forge Fitzwilliam, who urged them to set their sights on higher targets and greater riches. Nevertheless, Edgin saw to it that they never hurt anyone and only stole from those who wouldn't suffer for the loss. In their time, they battled gnoll raiders and the green hag named Drueena and more. During the confrontation with the hag, the group rescued the sorcerer Simon, who joined the group and offered them intel for one of their more notable heists, the infiltration of the estate of the wealthy and eccentric Torlinn Shrake during a party with intent to rob the place. They were also caught in a town threatened by the Bandit King on one Feast of the Moon.

Finally, one night whilst they were celebrating a score at the Trip and Shuffle tavern in Targos, a mysterious hooded figure calling herself "Lady Sofina" met the team. She wanted to hire them to help her steal the treasures of Korinn's Keep, a Harper storehouse that only a Harper could enter—Edgin. Holga, Simon, and Forge were willing but Edgin refused, still having some standards. But Forge promised they would find there a Tablet of Reawakening, a magical relic capable of resurrecting one deceased soul. Against his better judgement but with hopes of restoring his late wife Zia to life, Edgin relented and acquiesced to Sofina's scheme. However, this time he reasoned it was too dangerous to bring Kira and so he and Holga left her with a friend in Targos, promising it would be their last robbery.

Donning his old Harper uniform, Edgin led the team to Korinn's Keep and gained admittance by using his Harper pin. While the thieves helped themselves to the treasures of the vault, and Sofina claimed a strange red horn, Edgin went for the Tablet of Reawakening. But the poor thief triggered an alarm, summoning Harper guards, whom Sofina struck with chain lightning. She then cast time stop, trapping Holga and the guards, and finally Edgin while she, Forge, and Simon made their escape. Edgin's last act was to throw the Tablet to Forge and beg him to take care of Kira. He promised he would. Afterward, once the spell expired, Holga and Edgin were left at the scene of the crime and were captured by the Harpers.

Convict
Convicted of crimes of skullduggery and grand larceny by the justice of the Lords' Alliance, Holga and Edgin were incarcerated in the Revel's End prison in the Frozenfar, atop a cliff beside the Sea of Moving Ice. They spent their days doing hard labor, such as cutting ice from a frozen river in a chain-gang. For Holga, eating a hot potato became the highpoint of her day. Holga protected Edgin from other prisoners.

In the late 1490s DR, they received a new cellmate, the murderous hobgoblin Gorg. While Edgin played at being polite, Gorg only sleazed onto Holga, who ignored him until she was done with her potato, then she beat him up, breaking both his legs, slamming his head into the bed slab, and throwing him so he hit head on the frozen waste bucket, knocking him out cold. Later that day whilst out cutting ice, Edgin discussed his plans for the Council, but Holga advised him not to get his hopes up. Then a prisoner fell through the ice, threatening to pull the whole chain-gang into the river after him. The guard Tobias broke the chain with his longsword, sacrificing the prisoner to save the others, but ordered them all back to work.

The following day, after two years of imprisonment, Holga and Edgin were brought before the Absolution Council to be considered for a pardon. Edgin hoped for Chancellor Jarnathan to be there, apparently believing the aarakocra would be more inclined to free them, but he was delayed by a snowstorm. Compelled to give his statement anyway, Edgin told his life story since joining the Harpers, but delaying and stalling often to wait for Jarnathan, while Holga made certain clarifications that undermined him. When it was her turn to make a statement, she waived with a simple "I'm good." Finally, the Council made their decision just as Jarnathan arrived—and Edgin enacted his 'plan', with him and Holga fighting off the guards, grabbing the poor aarakocra, and jumping through the window, forcing him to fly them to the ice below, never knowing they'd already been pardoned.

Still a Thief
They fled on foot across the ice to Targos, stole two horses, and returned to their old cottage. They found it boarded-up and abandoned. Wondering where Kira and Forge were, they went to the Trip and Shuffle tavern, where they made travel plans and learned from a flyer that Forge was somehow now Lord of Neverwinter and had revived the High Sun Games. They decided to go there and ask him where Kira was. Holga hoped also to visit Marlamin, for closure. After leaving the tavern, however, three local barbarian louts—Fennor, Gurt, and Rond—recognized Holga and harassed her for being an exile of her tribe (even if they guessed the wrong tribe ) and even threw mud at her. Holga, surprisingly, ignored them, quietly stating "They're not wrong."

At Castle Never, though, they had a less-than-warm reception. Lord Forge kept them waiting and Kira was now eleven years old and estranged from her father—in fact, she ran to hug Holga first. Moreover, Forge was still working with the wizard Sofina. With years of dear 'Uncle Forge' lying and turning her against Edgin, Kira thought he'd just abandoned her to seek more riches and didn't believe him when he gave his real reason, to resurrect her mother. Finally, Forge revealed a wanted poster with a bounty for Edgin and Holga, causing Kira to run away in tears. Forge refused to return Kira and threatened to sell the Tablet of Reawakening in Skullport, and when Holga and Edgin got angry and went to grab him, Sofina cast a spell to trap them in the floor. Forge ordered his guard Blackwood to take them back to Revel's End, but Sofina whispered in Blackwood's ear that he should discreetly kill them instead, and he led them into a shadowy back alley to execute them. Fortunately, Holga had a plan. She recognized Blackwood's darksteel axe as the work of Ghelryn Foehammer of Triboar and keenly asked about its make, use, and maintenance, and even criticized his laxness. All this bought time for Holga to pry loose a paving stone and use it as a weapon as she escaped and defeated the guards. Then she caught and kept the axe. She planned to get some more boiled linseed oil for the axe before leaving the city.

Afterward, whilst leaving Neverwinter and discussing plans for rescuing Kira, Holga proposed shooting an arrow through her window, even if it risked hitting the girl, but this plan was shot down. Instead, Edgin resolved that they had to infiltrate Castle Never and rescue Kira, and that for this they would need to assemble a team. And to pay them, they would need to rob the castle vaults, and they could retrieve the Tablet of Reawakening while they were at it.

Their first stop was Triboar, to find the sorcerer and petty thief Simon. They found him in the Triboar playhouse, magically pickpocketing patrons, though their appearance surprised him and ruined both his show and his thefts. As he escaped the angry mob that had been his audience when he was caught out, Holga caught him and the trio fled town.

Afterward, Simon suggested they recruit the druid Doric for her wild shape ability to help infiltrate the castle. Simon led them into Neverwinter Wood, where they found soldiers of the Neverwinter Guard about to execute a wood elf. As Lord of Neverwinter, Forge had painted the wood elves of Neverwinter Wood as enemies and traitors and dispatched loggers who cut ever deeper into the woods, though Doric, a druid of the Emerald Enclave was leading the fightback. After witnessing her wild shape into an owlbear and rescue the elf from execution by Forge's men, Edgin, Holga, and Simon followed her to their village and Edgin recruited her to their cause. Since Doric said she wasn't doing it for the money, Holga graciously asked if they would keep her share. Later, Doric's spying within Castle Never revealed Sofina was a Red Wizard of Thay and that the vault was protected with a powerful Mordenkainen's arcane seal. To break in, Edgin proposed that they find the long-lost Helmet of Disjunction that could break all magic. Fortunately, Holga knew something of its whereabouts: her people, the Elk tribe, had once battled the Cult of the Dragon and the black dragon Rakor for control of the helmet at the Battle of the Evermoors a century before.

On the way, they made a stopover in Longsaddle so Holga could catch up with her ex-husband Marlamin at his picturesque cottage, though she claimed it was just to collect some of her possessions. They had a pleasant meeting and she found he was doing well, and had even found a new love—another barbarian human woman, Gwinn. Marlamin explained he preferred that Gwinn made an honest living, not thieving and making him fear his wife would be imprisoned or killed as Holga had done. They shared their reasons for their past struggles and separation. Accepting that Marlamin was happy with Gwinn, Holga departed, taking with her the old walking stick she'd once given him and thinking he looked even better than she recalled. She resolved to defeat Forge and prove her worth to both Marlamin and the Elk Tribe.

Afterward, they headed to the Evermoors cemetery to dig up the corpses of fallen Elk tribe warriors, the kind of place where Holga wished she could some day lie, so Simon could use his deathly token and speak with the dead. After several attempts, they finally learned from the body of Ven Salafin that a Thayan named Xenk Yendar had retrieved the Helmet of Disjunction. Holga recalled her cousin had fought at Xenk's side in the deserts of Anauroch and vouched for him as a good man. Though Edgin was unwilling to work with a Thayan, Holga reminded him of his goal and vowed to cut him in half if he proved to be evil.

Fortunately, they could find the heroic paladin Xenk just nearby, in Mornbryn's Shield and Holga opened introductions, though she was no diplomat. In a Harper sanctuary beneath Caldreth's Pickles, Nuts, and Foods, Xenk told them of the evil of the Red Wizards and Szass Tam's takeover of Thay and the turning of its populace to undeath. For his assistance in finding the Helmet of Disjunction, Xenk required that the thieves share any stolen riches with the Neverwintan people, which to Edgin very reluctantly agreed, swearing it on a Harper book.

Xenk led the party to the Kryptgarden Forest, where an entrance to the Underdark lay. After venturing down into the Underdark, the party passed intellect devourers and arrived at the ruins of Dolblunde, wherein Xenk had hidden the Helmet of Disjunction long ago. After negotiating the trapped collapsing bridges (by triggering and collapsing them), Holga asked if Simon or Doric get across with magic (they could not) and proposed throwing a rope attached to a sword and hoping it would somehow stick in the rock. That was when Simon noticed that Marlamin's walking stick was in fact a Hither-Thither Staff and created portals with which they easily reached and retrieved the helm. But that was when a band of undead Thayan assassins led by Dralas showed up, having been sent by Sofina to find and kill the thieves after Doric's spying. Xenk handily took down the whole squad of assassins and impressed even Holga, while his companions provided a little aid with Holga defeating one with her axe, but mostly they just watched. But the undead did not stay dead for long; their wounds regenerated and they gave chase. Then they were all interrupted by the surprise appearance of the red dragon Themberchaud, far from his home. He took care of the undead assassins, by simply eating them, but then turned his attention to the others, chasing them around the ruins and its bridges and breathing fire. At last, Themberchaud chased them into a narrow cave, but could not get his head through. The damage caused seawater to leak in. In the end, though, Edgin actually made a plan that worked, organizing his team, having Holga taunt and attack the dragon in the head, and getting Themberchaud to breathe gas and create an explosion that would open a water channel and free them.

Some time later, with the Helmet of Disjunction in their possession, they emerged in the Sea of Swords and swam to shore. There, Xenk said his farewells and departed; though they asked him to stay and assist them, he preferred to let Edgin, Holga, Doric, and Simon use what they had and rise to the occasion themselves rather than keep carrying them himself. Edgin declared them victorious and a fine team of thieves, and ready to go on and rob Castle Never.

Background
Holga Kilgore is played by actor Michelle Rodriguez. She was confirmed to be a barbarian via a promotional video played at the San Diego Comic-Con 2022's Tavern Experience. According to writer-director Jonathan Goldstein, Holga was kicked out of her tribe for falling in love with an outsider; "And then that relationship went south. And so she's got a lot of baggage she carries with her." She is a lifelong platonic friend of Edgin.

Appearances

 * Film & Television
 * Honor Among Thieves
 * Novels
 * The Road to Neverwinter • The Junior Novelization • The Quest Begins • Heroes Unite!
 * Comics
 * The Feast of the Moon