The Dragonforged

Overview
Name: The Dragonforged

Role: To pass on sacred knowledge of the Dragon to the Arisen

Personality: Solitary, wise, and regretful. The Dragonforged awaits a worthy arisen to train and prepare for the inevitable battle ahead. He is well over 1000 years old (though surprisingly youthful and strong) and shows multiple scars and burns across his flesh.

Relationship: Arisen(Past), Mentor

Speculation
There are very few who know of the existence of this man and none knows the truth of his identity. There is only one thing that they know for sure about this puzzling individual: he knows more than anyone else living about dragons.

His name and his ties are unknown. Equally mysterious is how he came to possess his considerable familiarity with dragons. However he came about it, the breadth of his knowledge is undeniable. He knows things that no person on the earth should know.

No one else can say if the things which he says are true. Some consider him to be nothing but a fabricator of myths and lies. Still he does seem to know something about dragons and so—since his connection with the terrible beasts was the only fact that anyone alive knew about him—he came to be known only as the Dragonforged.

He is the only man who knows how to read Dragonspeak, and a few quests rely on this knowledge.

It is implied by the dragon, towards the end of the game, that the Dragonforged was a great leader (possibly ruler) of the kingdom the player sees later in the game, which fell to destruction in the aftermath of a "deal" that he struck. It is further implied that this is how the Dragonforged was able to gain his deep knowledge regarding the dragons.

Another theory, depending on the players interpretation of Grigori's words, is that the Dragonforged was indeed the ruler or maybe merely a citizen of the Kingdom seen during The Final Battle, chose to fight the dragon and failed but did not die, however this may have happened. It is said that when an Arisen fails to kill the Dragon, Grigori (The Dragon's Soul) leaves the body of the dragon as an enraged husk (The Ur Dragon), which any man may kill if able but spares no mercy and hence destroyed the kingdom.

It could be that he has tried to face the Dragon twice, since it has been revealed that the Dragon will grant a wish (not just make you a ruler) in exchange for your loved one, and because an Arisen can resume going after a Dragon if it is brought back into being by another Arisen. This would assume that he made a wish for all the knowledge of the cycle in exchange for what he held dear, and over time regretted his decision. When the Dragon reappeared, he went back out to face it and his failure resulted in the destruction of the kingdom.

Location

 * Hillfigure Knoll ( North of Gran Soren )

Quests

 * The Cypher
 * The Dragon's Tongue
 * The Final Battle
 * Notice Board Quest

Trivia

 * After Deny Salvation, if you speak with your pawns, they will imply that The Dragonforged faced The Dragon long ago.
 * Speaking with him, he will talk about "the choice" you will have to make atop the The Tainted Mountain