Andvari: the enchanter trapped in a ring

Andvari was a dwarven enchanter and master of soul magic, a craftsman of Svartalfheim and an old friend of Brok, who created the dreaded Soul Eaters. When one of his own creations turned upon him, he sealed his soul within his ring to survive, and in that strange form he came to aid Kratos and Atreus before he was at last lost.

The enchanter of the mines#

Andvari was a skilled blacksmith, craftsman, and enchanter, and a deeply entrepreneurial dwarf who led a faction of dwarves and mortals to colonize several mines. Above all he was a practitioner of soul based magic, and he set himself to the task of weaponizing the great ancients as a workforce. After much research he discovered a way to remove the souls of the ancients, allowing dwarves to control them with ease.

The Soul Eaters#

In time, one of these soulless ancients in the Landsuther mines turned against its dwarven masters and devoured their souls in an attempt to undo its own emptiness. After this, Andvari renamed his modified ancients Soul Eaters and recognized them as an abomination to all the Nine Realms. Even so, some still sought them from him. Among his buyers was the fire giant Surtr, a fact that frightened Andvari, for he feared the reasons such dangerous creatures were wanted. Another was the dwarven king Motsognir, whose purposes Andvari did not care to learn. Yet for the dwarves laboring in the Volunder mines he held genuine concern, fearing his creation might one day turn on them as well.

Soul within the ring#

That concern proved his undoing. During an expedition to check on the dwarves of the Volunder mines, Andvari was attacked by the very Soul Eater he had worried over. Before he could be torn apart and his soul absorbed, he cast a spell that locked his soul inside his ring, saving it even as his body was destroyed.

His old debt to Brok became his salvation. When Brok had not heard from his friend in some time, he sent Kratos and Atreus to the Volunder mines, where they found only his green ring and believed him slain. Brok, knowing Andvari's skill with soul magic, came to suspect the truth, and when Atreus spoke to the ring it answered him, proving Andvari lived within. Guided by the enchanter, the pair traveled into the Landsuther mines to recover his magical hammer, which Brok desired. Andvari pleaded with them to turn back, partly out of the dangers within and partly out of shame, for he did not wish them to discover that he had created the Soul Eaters. When at last they found his laboratory he confessed all, and was grateful when Kratos destroyed it so that no more Soul Eaters could ever be made.

Returning to Brok with the hammer, the dwarf offered to melt Andvari down and forge his soul into a reward. A disgusted Atreus refused and convinced his father to keep the ring intact, arguing that Andvari might yet be of use. The ring became an enchantment that strengthened Kratos, and Andvari fell silent, seeming to make the best of his fate. Long after, Mimir wondered what had become of him, and Atreus revealed that he had given the ring to Sindri, who had since lost it, leaving Andvari's fate unknown.