Connects to: 33.00.
Overview
Carved into the rock of these tall peaks are statues of the dwarf lords of old. They are tall and fine limbed for the lords were not as common folk, but now they stare eyeless from their shattered faces down at Titan’s Skull (33.00), the fortress city of the dwarves that once knew another name. Before the goblin wars the Lords of the Mountains lived on mountain peaks which they flew to in the form of ravens. In their lonely dwellings they counted their coins, brooded over wealth that was not yet theirs and mumbled to themselves songs of power that the elves have never learned.
During the goblin wars (24.02), the Lords commanded that five great fortresses be built (26.01) and the common dwarves grumbled at the coin and the labor required but obeyed. Into the goblin woods the common dwarves went with fire and ax and there they died. As the war dragged on, the King of the Mountains gathered the bulk of the dwarf lords to Hoth Achaar (26.01) where they directed the war to its eventually-successful conclusion. This did little to hearten the many dwarves whose children had died and whose purses had been drained by the long struggle. When Hoth Achaar fell to orcs within and orcs without and the last King of the Mountains died at the hands of a great orc with a half-burned face, the burghers who lived beneath the Titan’s Skull seized the moment and the city. They killed what dwarf lords they could find, looted their treasures and drove their loyal servants down deep far from the light of the sun.
Meanwhile, within Hoth Achaar, the surviving members of the court of the last King of the Mountains were astonished to still be alive and that the orcs had shown them mercy. At first they plotted how to drive out the orcs but when they heard of the revolt of the burghers and how the greatest hold of dwarves had closed its doors to all loyal to the king and his lords many of them reluctantly decided to stay in Hoth Achaar and acquiesce, at least for the time, to orcish rule. In time, the descendants of these dwarves rebelled and were driven out into the wilds where they were hounded by the Titan’s Shadow. They say that all the dwarf lords now lie dead, but still the dwarves of these lands shudder whenever they hear the call of a raven for they have heard the old stories about how the dwarf lords remember everything and forgive nothing.
Hooks
-
Why did dwarf lords look different from other dwarves and have the ability to turn into ravens?
- What was the original name of the dwarven capital?
- Who was the orc who killed the last King of the Mountains?
- What is the current government of the dwarves of the Titan’s Skull?
- What were the ancient songs that the dwarf lords knew?
- Do any dwarf lords yet live? If they are all dead is there any of their treasure that has yet to be recovered?
- What (who?) is (are?) the Titan’s Shadow?
