father’s memories, his father’s father’s memories, and memories completely imagined if the wine is flowing right, which it usually is. Wine is best aged in the cool, deep underground, and that happens to be where dwarves live. On any given night, after a long day of labor the wine and mead flows by the barrel and song echoes throughout the dwarven underdark and for several miles around.
But merrymaking aside, dwarves were brought into the world for a sole purpose, which is to build, and there wasn’t much that they couldn’t. From stunning architectural structures that filled their massive caverns, to devastatingly efficient weaponry, they were truly great inventors and craftsmen.
Many think the dwarves are nothing more than rugged underground people of the mountains, which is actually a pretty accurate description if only on a personal level. Add that they’re the world’s greatest craftsmen, as well as miners, and you make the analogy complete. They say iron forms iron, and the dwarves forged their mettle after millennia of battling the earth's elements with hand, hammer and pick.
" Show me a wall, and I'll show ye a door, " went another saying.
Today, gathered at a cliff at the foot of Mount Loyola, a group of dwarves were working in high gear. Four hundred dwarves had labored for three long months, fighting the rock with hammer and chisel in a race against the coming winter. At a distance, the future stronghold dubbed Fort Hammerheart looked like several scattered huts, sparsely spread around one great opening in the cliff base of the western face of Loyola. This rocky giant of a mountain commanded the horizon south of Somerlund, it's peak often disappearing high above the clouds. On a clear day observers in the city can see the snow that capped the peak year round.
Forging a city into the side of a mountain isn't easy work, especially one that is three quarters granite like Loyola, but even so within the clamor of construction was the drone of cheerful song. This stronghold was not only to be a fortress, but their new home, a vision that lifted the moods of the toiling dwarves.
At this time last year they lived in Ol’ Brook, the underground division of Somerlund better known among locals as dwarf-town. Back then, over two thousand dwarves claimed the subterranean section of the city as home. Ol’ Brook has been a part of Somerlund from the beginning, and it grew along with the city accordingly. It was a peaceful marriage, but among the dwarves there was always a whisper of disagreement over living beneath so dense a population of humans. Excuses for leaving entailed a wide range of reasoning. Some brought up unfair tariffs on goods, as city taxes treated their goods as imports. Others brought up the odor, an inescapable factor when living below the city that never stops growing in population and waste. Some argued that not only should they stay, but that they should rule the city themselves. After all, the dwarf race was much older and therefore the superior race. Eventually there was enough dissent to cause an exodus.
Under the leadership of Jevon Hammerheart, nearly a quarter of the Ol’ Brook dwarves marched to relocate at Loyola. The bulk of the movement to the mountain was made up of his Hammerheart kin, the second largest local lineage, although many close friends and acquaintances followed. Jevon was the youngest of eighteen uncles, or elders, of the Hammerheart clan, but by far the fiercest of the lot, and a natural leader.
His argument for the migration was simple, it was just time to leave. The fact that he'd discovered the best mining pocket seen in generations did not hurt his argument. He wasn't able to pull the entire dwarves population to his side as he would have liked, but he felt he had enough support for a good run at a new, free life.
The dwarf hierarchy that remained in Ol’ Brook let them leave without hostility, and even gave them their blessings along with many donkeys and
But merrymaking aside, dwarves were brought into the world for a sole purpose, which is to build, and there wasn’t much that they couldn’t. From stunning architectural structures that filled their massive caverns, to devastatingly efficient weaponry, they were truly great inventors and craftsmen.
Many think the dwarves are nothing more than rugged underground people of the mountains, which is actually a pretty accurate description if only on a personal level. Add that they’re the world’s greatest craftsmen, as well as miners, and you make the analogy complete. They say iron forms iron, and the dwarves forged their mettle after millennia of battling the earth's elements with hand, hammer and pick.
" Show me a wall, and I'll show ye a door, " went another saying.
Today, gathered at a cliff at the foot of Mount Loyola, a group of dwarves were working in high gear. Four hundred dwarves had labored for three long months, fighting the rock with hammer and chisel in a race against the coming winter. At a distance, the future stronghold dubbed Fort Hammerheart looked like several scattered huts, sparsely spread around one great opening in the cliff base of the western face of Loyola. This rocky giant of a mountain commanded the horizon south of Somerlund, it's peak often disappearing high above the clouds. On a clear day observers in the city can see the snow that capped the peak year round.
Forging a city into the side of a mountain isn't easy work, especially one that is three quarters granite like Loyola, but even so within the clamor of construction was the drone of cheerful song. This stronghold was not only to be a fortress, but their new home, a vision that lifted the moods of the toiling dwarves.
At this time last year they lived in Ol’ Brook, the underground division of Somerlund better known among locals as dwarf-town. Back then, over two thousand dwarves claimed the subterranean section of the city as home. Ol’ Brook has been a part of Somerlund from the beginning, and it grew along with the city accordingly. It was a peaceful marriage, but among the dwarves there was always a whisper of disagreement over living beneath so dense a population of humans. Excuses for leaving entailed a wide range of reasoning. Some brought up unfair tariffs on goods, as city taxes treated their goods as imports. Others brought up the odor, an inescapable factor when living below the city that never stops growing in population and waste. Some argued that not only should they stay, but that they should rule the city themselves. After all, the dwarf race was much older and therefore the superior race. Eventually there was enough dissent to cause an exodus.
Under the leadership of Jevon Hammerheart, nearly a quarter of the Ol’ Brook dwarves marched to relocate at Loyola. The bulk of the movement to the mountain was made up of his Hammerheart kin, the second largest local lineage, although many close friends and acquaintances followed. Jevon was the youngest of eighteen uncles, or elders, of the Hammerheart clan, but by far the fiercest of the lot, and a natural leader.
His argument for the migration was simple, it was just time to leave. The fact that he'd discovered the best mining pocket seen in generations did not hurt his argument. He wasn't able to pull the entire dwarves population to his side as he would have liked, but he felt he had enough support for a good run at a new, free life.
The dwarf hierarchy that remained in Ol’ Brook let them leave without hostility, and even gave them their blessings along with many donkeys and
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