Once, Grun Baraksson was a loyal foreman in the Ironhead Guild’s deepest excavation shafts. Known for his grit and booming voice that could carry over the roar of rock drills, he kept his crews working through collapses, gas leaks, and the endless dangers of the underhive’s mineral veins.

That all changed when a plasma flare incinerated his lower jaw during a dispute with guild overseers over “safety quotas.” Left for dead in the rubble, Grun dragged himself out and replaced his ruined jaw with a slab of scavenged plasteel bolted directly into his skull. Since that day, his voice has been a metallic growl, and his patience with authority has been non-existent.

Grun rallied a band of disillusioned miners, outcasts, and disgraced prospectors into what became the Black Pick Syndicate—a gang that claims ore veins by violence rather than paperwork. To Grun, every vein of rust-ore and adamant shale in the underhive belongs to those strong enough to hold it, not to guild masters sipping recyc-liquor in their spire offices.

His “Ironjaw” has become both a symbol and a weapon: it’s said he once crushed a rival ganger’s hand between his metal teeth as a warning. Under his lead, the Syndicate doesn’t just mine ore—they extort, raid, and “tax” every shaft in their reach, ensuring no rock is struck without the Black Pick’s cut.

For Grun, the Syndicate isn’t just about profit—it’s about payback. Every collapsed tunnel, every maimed worker, every corpse left behind by the guilds fuels his vendetta. He plans to carve a shadow empire beneath the hives where the guilds’ laws can’t reach, and his Syndicate’s black pick emblem marks the boundary of his growing dominion.

A hulking brute with arms like auger drills, Bruk’s talent isn’t finesse—it’s endurance. Once sentenced to the guild grinders for life, Bruk escaped with half his face flayed raw by the machines. He fights with the same relentless rhythm of the grinders he once fed, hammering enemies into paste. Grun values him as the Syndicate’s unbreakable wall of muscle, though Bruk’s simple-minded loyalty is just as dangerous—he follows Grun absolutely, no questions asked.

Kargan was once prized by the guilds for his uncanny knack at spotting rich seams where others saw only stone. After losing an eye to a misfired blasting charge, he claims he can still “see” ore in the rock, whispering about its pull like a sixth sense. Grun relies on him to sniff out the most lucrative claims—but also keeps him close, wary of his strange mutterings. The Syndicate paints a black pick on every vein Kargan marks, knowing profit follows his gaze.

Vorri has been coughing up black ore dust since before Edda was born, his lungs corroded from decades in unventilated shafts. He’s slow and deliberate, but carries the weight of experience in every move. Where younger Syndicate members see easy marks, Vorri sees traps and ambushes. Grun treats him like a second conscience, even if Vorri’s rasping cough seems a death knell waiting to happen. The younger gangers joke he’ll outlive them all just to spite his lungs.

Barely more than a whelp, Edda idolizes Grun and fights like she has something to prove. Quick with jury-rigged tech and even quicker with her temper, she earned her nickname after nearly frying herself hotwiring a plasma cutter to double as a weapon. Grun sees in her the same fire he once had before the guilds burned it out of him—and though the rest of the crew call her reckless, he keeps her around as the Syndicate’s spark of future flame.