"He ripped the unbreakable door off its hinges, and has borne it ever since." The shield of the Heart of the Freljord is a vault door, and Riot's biography is honest that this is one of many stories told about him, most with a kernel of truth and all of them growing. Braum laughed when he first heard it. He also, the text says, keeps the door, and the Frostguard have been interested in it ever since. In a region of Runeterra built on feuds, he is the one hero who holds no allegiance and is welcome anyway.
Who they are
Even as a child he was much bigger than the other Freljordian children, and his mother, from a proud line of herders, taught him never to use his size to bully. When ice giants devastated a neighbouring tribe that had long preyed on his people's herds, she went across the tundra with furs, food and healing supplies anyway. Braum did not understand why until her help saved lives and made the two tribes lifelong allies; she had told him all the Freljord's people were a family, and from that day he pledged to bring the family together.
As he grew it was clear he was one of the Iceborn, and even among them his strength and endurance were legendary. He became a local hero, pulling children out of ravines, finding travellers in blizzards, holding off wildclaws, and then set out to be needed beyond his own valleys. The stories multiplied and got bigger: a forest felled in a night with bare hands, a farmstead carried to higher ground during an eruption, and the shield. In that tale, an enchanted vault door forged in ancient times was set into a mountain, cries came from behind it, Braum could not break it, so he punched through the bare rock instead, rescued the troll boy trapped inside and took the door with him. He does not refute the stories. Why, the biography asks on his behalf, let the truth get in the way of inspiring generosity?
Soon after finding the shield he went to the sacred site of Rakelstake, where tribes had gathered to hear the Avarosan warmother Ashe, said to be Avarosa reincarnated. He watched the barbarian Tryndamere, desperate to prove himself, beat every challenger and grow more unhinged until it seemed certain he would kill a man he had already beaten. Braum planted himself in front of the downed fighter, shield up, and took every blow until the rage passed; then they drank to each other's health, and some say Braum introduced Tryndamere to Ashe, whom he later married as her only bloodsworn. Braum holds no tribal allegiance, but he sees in Ashe someone who could end centuries of feuding, and the Avarosans have informally adopted him. His dream, as he tells children, is a Freljord united as one family, after which he will retire to herd poros. His only recurring trouble is the Frostguard, who have had run-ins with him since he picked up the door, for reasons he does not understand.
Where they belong
Riot places Braum in the Freljord, and the biography is a circuit of it: the herding valleys of his childhood, the tundra, the mountain with the door, and Rakelstake.
Riot lists four related champions:
- Ashe: the warmother he heard at Rakelstake and now follows without a formal oath; her Avarosans have adopted him.
- Tryndamere: the barbarian whose rage he absorbed on his shield, and who became his friend over a drink.
- Lissandra: not named in Braum's biography. The Frostguard are, as the one group with a grudge against him, and the text says he does not know why.
- Ornn: not named.
In the Riot MMO, as a guess
This is speculation. Braum is the most natural quest-giving character in this batch: a travelling hero who rescues people, wants nothing for himself, and has a village's worth of grateful stories already attached. He is also the obvious companion for a first stretch of the north, the friendly face a new player meets in the cold. He is not a boss; the biography says he counts no one as an enemy, and the one time he fought a champion he did it by standing still. The thread a designer would pull is the shield, because the text plants a mystery in it, an ancient enchanted door that the Frostguard want, and does not resolve it. Whether any champion is playable is the question in will champions be playable.
What we do not know
Whether the game's era, the open question in when is the Riot MMO set?, finds him alive and still walking the north. The biography leaves him informally Avarosan, with the door on his back.
What the door is, and why the Frostguard want it. The text says he does not understand either, and it does not tell us.