Ilrath always had a special knack for brutality, even from an early age. Sole survivor of an attack on his family by bandits who stumbled upon New Kurn, Ilrath survived by flying into a rage fueled by the gigantic suffering, powerlessness, and loss caused by the slaughter of his mother and brother, killing the remaining bandits in horrifying fashion. He then walked into the city and collapsed. Gentler paths in life were denied him; lacking the grace and too visible to work effectively as a subtle pickpocket, he survived by a mix of goliaths’ natural resilience and liberal application of the violence which had saved his life. This did not go unnoticed by lawmen, who spent much of his adolescence hunting, capturing, imprisoning, and releasing the repeat offender thug. Eventually a city official grew weary of this cycle and exiled the problematic goliath, pointing him in the vague direction of Kurn. He walked the wastes for two days before coming to Kurn, where he was jailed for beating a man unconscious for bread. A city official, seeing his talent for violence, saw Ilrath released from jail and empowered as a guardian against the Templars, a role to which he took with great, capable, and above all vicious gusto. This outlet for his rage allowed him to function within society in an acceptable manner. It was in this employment that he styled himself Skulltaker, having no chief to grant a style name; for when the rage of battle overtook him a very common outcome was the non-consensual decerebration of his then-hated foes.
