**Inspiration: **Boatmurdered . Connects to: 08.03, 16.01, 33.00, 46.01 and 50.03.
The Hoard has set up several trading posts in the World Beyond.
One of these settlements is called Barca Enmordet. It compromises a mass of settlements clumped aboveground on a large, sandy hill that juts from the jungle like a boil. Rather than strike the earth and sink their own shafts into the earth, the dwarves discovered a network of tunnels already burrowed. In silent cells, the hollowed out exoskeletons of beetlefolk – very like the homonculi of the Delasars (08.03) – remained, frozen in the motions of feeding, burrowing and breeding.
The central shaft has taken the dwarves hundreds of feet into the earth. The shaft then suddenly opens out into a chamber that extends farther than torchlight. The floor of the chamber is a stone the dwarves are unfamiliar with: shiny and black, it flakes like chitin.
Upon being told of the discovery, the Hoard longbeards overseeing the settlement ordered all dwarves aboveground. Over the last six months, the dwarves have tried to make the best of life under the Sun, but clearing the jungle is difficult and some sneak into the tunnels for a taste of the Gigantic Dark. Others have let the Dreaming Dark into their minds, driving them to create masterpieces or die trying.
Deep in the jungles, a herd of hoarlephants have voided their bowels in a great midden and eye the exposed dwarven settlement hungrily.
Hooks
- Why is the Hoard exploring beyond the Edge?
- What forgotten beast have the dwarves discovered?
- What masterpieces have the dwarves created? Is there a connection between the beetle folk and the homonculi?
