Anthros’s Endless Tome
The Halls of Kar Dromm, A Fifty-Year View
976–1026
Penned by Anthros, Wanderer of Eryndor, Keeper of Histories
The dwarves of Kar Dromm measure time differently than many peoples of Eryndor. Fifty years to some nations marks sweeping transformation. To the dwarves, it is enough time for old grudges to cool, new grievances to form, and stone laid by one generation to be judged by the next. Their realm has known war, profit, disorder, and prosperity in the last half century, though seldom in dramatic fashion. Dwarven change is often deliberate until it suddenly is not.
976–978: The Closing Years of War
During the final years of the great conflict, Kar Dromm supplied soldiers, weapons, armor, and engineers to several fronts. No dwarf city was conquered, and no enemy marched the Stone Road. This preserved the realm from devastation seen elsewhere and left many clans wealthier at war’s end than when it began.
The return of veterans created its own pressures. Some entered guild life smoothly. Others found inheritance blocked, workshops full, or wages lower than memory preferred. Mercenary companies with dwarven cores became common throughout the next decade.
978: The Death of High King Borin
High King Borin Stonemantle died shortly after the war. His passing was followed by six months of negotiation within the Stone Council before Durak Stonemantle was chosen. The dispute never became violent, but it was neither graceful nor brief. Durak emerged as a ruler acceptable to most and beloved by few, which often serves better than the reverse.
981–986: The Coin Shame of Duraz-Mor
Duraz-Mor, long associated with precious metals and minting, was found to have reduced the gold content of coinage while preserving official marks and stated values. When merchants proved the debasement publicly, unrest spread quickly. Crowds attacked counting houses and mint facilities. Several royal mints in Duraz-Mor were burned before order was restored.
High King Durak moved decisively, transferring Kar Dromm national coin production to Thumdar under direct crown oversight. For one of the first times in Kar Dromm’s history, the crown controlled an institution every clan depended upon. Duraz-Mor retained wealth, but lost influence. The crown gained both.
987–995: Deepmarket and the Wider Opening
Thumdar expanded Deepmarket and welcomed broader trade with foreign merchants. Exotic goods, timber, wines, books, alchemical supplies, livestock, and surface luxuries entered the halls in greater volume than ever before. Alongside them came smugglers, brokers of questionable honesty, spies, and organized theft.
King Durak pressed another central reform: national law requiring all legally traded fragments entering or moving within Kar Dromm to be declared, weighed, registered, and taxed through Thumdar. The capital became the indispensable clearing house for the realm’s most strategic resource. Smuggling increased immediately.
990: The Plague Mold Years
A black tunnel mold spread through grain caverns, ale storage chambers, and feed vaults across several cities. Losses were serious, though not catastrophic. Kar Dromm increased outside imports of grain, livestock, timber, and preserved food from across Eryndor. Huarthal in particular expanded what had once been a modest river port into a growing trade harbor — allowing cargo to bypass the tariff gates of other clans, to their considerable irritation.
993–998: The Valley War
Conflict between Bal Kregger and Dunthral began over mountainous surface valleys lying between their spheres of influence. The war drew notice because it was fought above ground and away from the Stone Road — unusual for dwarven disputes. Bal Kregger fielded heavier infantry and veteran shield companies. Dunthral relied more heavily on engineers, firearms, and field engines. Both sides also suffered heavily from hill giants, stone giant bands, and wyrms nesting in abandoned redoubts.
The war ended not in victory parade but exhaustion. Bal Kregger retained most disputed valleys. Dunthral received trade concessions. Formal peace was never celebrated, but open campaigning ceased.
998–1008: The Giant Marches of Bal Kregger
Winning the Valley War gave Bal Kregger control of the disputed highlands, but possession on parchment proved easier than rule in practice. Hill giant warbands descended repeatedly upon herds, storehouses, and road crews. Stone giant circles shattered watchtowers. Mining camps vanished overnight.
Lord Garrum Ironvein, architect of much of the campaign, met his end during the Ninth Marching Season. While leading a relief force to the fort of Stonewatch, he engaged the hill giant chieftain Morgath Skullmaul after his vanguard was trapped in a narrow pass. All agree Garrum fell to the giant before being crushed beneath falling stone. His body was recovered three days later beneath the wreckage. Bal Kregger celebrates him as a war-lord who died weapon in hand.
1006–1014: The Ward-Gate Reforms
The Stone Road is the spine of Kar Dromm and must be defended constantly. Burrowing monsters — bulette packs, ankhegs, carrion crawlers, and the rare purple worm — remain continual threats. In this period the realm undertook major gate and ward improvements. Checkpoints were strengthened, kill-chambers rebuilt, side tunnels sealed, and alarm runes standardized.
1013–1017: Blood in Kavzar
Years of expanding fragment extraction had created long shifts, dangerous shafts, child labor in sorting tunnels, debt-bound company housing, and frequent deaths explained away as necessary losses. When a collapse killed scores of workers in the Lower Veins, public anger became organized resistance.
Brenna Coalbraid, widow of a dead foreman, became a powerful speaker for miners’ families. Torrik Nine-Fingers, a veteran hauler who had lost his hand to machinery, organized stoppages across multiple lifts. For nearly four years, stoppages, marches, sabotage, arrests, and pitched street fighting flared across worker districts. Hundreds died.
The final settlement granted regulated shift lengths, death compensation funds, limited inspection rights, and recognized worker guild councils under heavy supervision. Mine owners remained rich. Workers became harder to ignore.
1017–1018: The Winter of Huarthal
Avalanches buried the mountain roads to Huarthal for much of a winter. When thaw came, Thane Brokk Stonesky was dead. The official account named sudden illness. Assassination was claimed by Clan Stonesky. Several heirs were absent or unwilling to force a claim, and no single successor emerged.
Suspicion fell upon merchant families and political houses long hostile to Huarthal’s growing trade independence. None were charged. All denied involvement with practiced offense. From Karvok-Dur, House Marnvek called the accusations slanderous — then hosted a spring banquet featuring imported river fish and ice-carved swans. From Duraz-Mor, the banking family Veldrun declared sympathy while calling in Huarthal debts with unusual speed. No proof has ever linked any family to the thane’s death. No shortage of motive has ever been lacking.
1021: The Funeral of Brund Flamebrow
Bardthane Brund Flamebrow of Morndrin Thorr died peacefully after a long and respected rule. His funeral drew one of the largest gatherings seen in Kar Dromm in decades. Seven days of ceremony, remembrance, feasting, and song followed. His seat remains vacant.
1026: The Present Stone
Kar Dromm remains strong. Its roads function. Its armies are respected. Its trade is broad. Its forges remain among the finest in the world.
Yet power has shifted quietly. Thumdar now controls coin production once centered in Duraz-Mor. By fragment law, the capital also oversees the realm’s most valuable resource. Huarthal’s port has changed internal trade. Kavzar’s workers now bargain where once they only endured. Bal Kregger holds land it still struggles to tame. Three clan seats remain vacant: Huarthal, Bal Kregger, and Morndrin Thorr.
A cultural matter of growing importance concerns ownership itself. Many dwarves hold that the maker’s bond to an object surpasses that of the buyer or inheritor. Foreign nobles proudly keep dwarven-made blades for generations. To outsiders these acts are tribute and respect. To many dwarves they are the permanent withholding of another smith’s legacy. Resentment over this matter has grown steadily in recent years.