Dannak the White was whelped in The Year of Knowledge Unearthed (1451) by a docile, fecund, and greatly prized human brood-slave of the Blood Knuckles, a small band of Orcs that afflicts the Klauthen Vale, north of Luskan. Dannak’s pale skin was seen as a powerful omen by Blood Knuckle Chief Dannak the Elder, who took the baby Half-Orc as his favoured son. The brood-mother was ritually slaughtered to ensure no new heirs: her soul was consumed by Gruumsh, and her flesh and blood was consumed by father and son.
In The Year of Elven Swords Returned (1465), at age fourteen, Dannak the White killed Dannak the Elder and took control of the Blood Knuckles. Under fresh leadership, these fearsome Orcs of the Klauthen Vale went from harrying isolated traders along the Northern Means and Blackford Road, to demanding regular tribute from terrorized victims in Ten Towns and beyond. Despite prospering under their new Chief Dannak, mutinous whispers began to circle among the full-blooded Orcs about their Half-Orc leader. Finally in The Year of the Second Circle (1470), Dannak the White was forced into exile.
Dannak left the Blood Knuckles with a handful of faithful Orcs, including his trusted lieutenants Hartusk and Vansi, and headed east. They marauded, and were themselves likewise hunted, along the Valley of Kherdrun. Eventually, they found sanctuary in the Orcish Kingdom of Many-Arrows; however, this respite was brief for Dannak. An unexpected betrayal by Hartusk once again forced Dannak into exile, barely escaping with his life. In The Year of the Third Circle (1472), Dannak turned his back on Orcish society and fled south, through the Fell Pass, then west through The Lurkwood, until arriving in Mirabar.
Despite being almost universally despised and feared by the men and dwarves of Mirabar, Dannak’s fearlessness and expendability earned him a job doing dangerous demolitions work for the Rockseeker Mining Company. He earned extra coin, and a good measure of respect, by challenging his fellow miners to unarmed contests of fighting skill. Soon, Dannak had made enough gold to quit the mines, and moved to Luskan in the Year of the Final Stand (1475). There, he bought a dive tavern, and in the cellar, held his first official Unarmed Fighting Contest. In The Year of the Dark Circle (1478), Dannak sold his little Luskan tavern and moved his successful UFC business, and other interests, to the spacious, purpose-built establishment in the River District of Neverwinter, where he still resides today.
