Inspired by Grond saying "hey, mist elfs and weaponsmiths have some pretty cool synergy".

Well, there goes Maia, female mist elf smith, born in month of candle. Pretty typical start, left anvil and ingots on upstairs in beginner dungeon, go to goblin camp, then small cave. Candle is super helpful because smiths doesnt start with healing. Fist lucky thing: 2 shops in UD. One with potions and one with wands. Both really useful, as I got even steadier supply of holly water and booze.
Second lucky thing: I started with toughness potential of 15, which allowed me to rush immune to pain. Started portal quest at level 11 or so and got elemental gauntlets early. So I did not fear for iconic series of event:

Code:
lightning vortex shrugs off your bolt of fire
lightning vortex explodes
You are shocked for 75 damage
You die...
Third lucky thing: forge at 2 level of unremarkable dungeon. You could not ask for better location. I've managed to get [+9, +10] elven chain mail at level 13. When in normal tactic, with medium crystal shield and mithril spear I got over 60 DV.

Fourth lucky thing: Dig through graves after portal quest. Most of them got pretty crappy loot. But I've got one amazing item from it:
Code:
Ordinary ring
And at last, fifth lucky thing: got altar in Putrid cave and got crowned with bracers of war.

All in all, amazing series of event. With regeneration, half melee damage, amazingly smithed armour my thin and nimble mist elf smith was probably beefiest tank that I've played. Once ran chin first into doppelganger, pushed right couple of times "why? why it is not dead yet". Just to realize it is ultimate, and I cant melee it. I got over 100 dv in late game in normal tactic. I was pretty much always on berserk, beside fighting absurd amount of great fire wyrms in vault.

Probably I could do ultra, but I did not remember my first kill and was champion of balance already. I felt absurdly powerful. Only thing that did not went well was casting. I basically used two spells from Khely and that's it. This run made me realize "hey, smithing is actually pretty good!".