Taren Stonecleave

Name (Etymology):

Taren — A traditional Minotaur name, passed through stonecarver lines.
Stonecleave — From Minotaur compound roots: stone (foundation) + cleave (to split or forge).

Meaning: He who breaks ground. Ideal for a visionary builder whose strength lies in reshaping the world beneath his feet.

Details:

• Age: Late 30s
• Gender: Male (He/Him)
• Race: Minotaur (Stonemason Lineage)
• Occupation: Builder, Mason-Architect
• Region: Seven Mile Bottom
• Affiliation: Quiet supporter of the Far-Seers, long-term collaborator with Enzo and Alaric

Appearance

Broad, towering, and rarely without his paint-flecked apron, Taren wears deep crimson and ochre hues that match the Wendmorian clay he prefers. His horns curl outward and upward like spired rooftops, weathered with faint markings.

One eye is slate-grey, the other pale amber — a relic of an old forge-blast incident. His beard is bound in a copper ring, and he speaks in slow, precise sentences, as though measuring their weight.

Home

Taren lives in a stone-rooted workshop built directly into a hillside. Vines creep up the corners of its plastered walls, while a carved lintel above the door bears the Minotaur phrase for “Do not fear weight — it is the measure of purpose.”
The upper floor houses his sleeping quarters, while the lower is filled with stone samples, pulleys, soot-slates, and diagrams of dreamlike construction.

Background

Taren was raised in a quarry-town that no longer exists — its bedrock was mined until collapse. From that day forward, he vowed never to build on eroding trust or shifting ground.
Though Minotaurs are often prized for brute strength, Taren defies expectations with the nuance of his work. His specialty lies in substructure: root-depth designs, aquifer-diverting cellars, and shelters meant to last generations.

He arrived in Seven Mile Bottom when it was just a hilltop outpost, offering to trade his labor for “peace and plans.” Decades later, most villagers walk atop his quiet handiwork without knowing.

Skills

• Structural design with no blueprint — prefers intuitive, lived architecture
• Clay-based masonry, lime paints, deep-rune carving
• Defensive engineering (retaining walls, fallout vaults, hidden pressure traps)
• Unmatched patience; builds slower than most, but nothing collapses

Notable Belongings

• A soot-slated tablet that he wipes and redraws nightly, storing no plans permanently
• His copper-beaded beard ring, a gift from his first apprentice
• A hollow-handled hammer etched with Far-Seer glyphs — a collaboration with Darian

Reputation

Locals call him “Stonecleave” with reverence — not for breaking rock, but for always knowing where to strike. Children whisper that he can hear the earth thinking.
He never attends festivals, but he is always the one who braces the tables beforehand. Elders trust him with foundation lore. Strangers overlook him, until the ground beneath them shifts.

Ongoing Project

The Underrun Vaults — Beneath Seven Mile Bottom, Taren is designing a series of interlinked storm channels, root-cellars, and echo-quiet chambers. What began as a way to redirect seasonal floods has grown into a subterranean archive for the village’s most delicate records, perishable roots, and private conversations. No blueprint exists — he keeps the plan in his head and revises it nightly on his soot-slate. Even the villagers do not know how deep it goes.

“If we build beneath what matters, it will hold.”

Quote

"My name is in every stone, even if no one carves it."