- Pronouns
- He/Him
Slimy_Froggy
Patron
The Story of the fall and rise of the Dwarves, or, How Krummi became King.
Our story starts with Krummi at the age of 40, he lived in the lower town of the Dwarven capital called Thraall in this time. The lower city was inhabited by humans and the lowest degree of Dwarves in the social system. During one of Krummi’s trips to make trade in Port Silver, he met a Dwarf that was also from Thraall. Yet this Dwarf lived in the shaft, while Krummi still lived in the lower city. The dwarf was just waiting for the airship that would take him back to Thraall to arrive and Krummi went with him. The dwarf introduced himself as Kzaka Giantpick I. Krummi had a lot to ask Kzaka about life in the shaft. Krummi only went their occasionally, because most of the buildings in this giant cavern were owned by royalty, he had no business there. Kzaka was charmed by Krummi’s polite ways and interest and they spoke to each other without end during their flight in the airship. When they arrived in the dockingtower of Thraall, Krummi said goodbye and went to walk to the lower district. But he was halted by Kzaka. Kzaka had a certain interest in this relatively young dwarf. By their new born friendship, Krummi got the chance to climb higher up the social ladder; Kzaka took him to the shaft. There he led Krummi in front of the Dwarven king Hrothgar. Hrothgar Sharppick was a very charismatic figure, yet bizarrely kind. Krummi did not expect such kindness from the King towards someone from the lower districts and Krummi felt honored to meet him. Hrothgar spoke in a low commanding voice, yet Krummi felt like he was listening to his father, as the voice of Hrothgar was kind too. After asking some questions, Krummi was allowed to live in Thraall’s shaft, close to where Kzaka lived.
Krummi dug himself a room from the bare rock. A bed to sleep in and other necessities were placed and soon he started practicing his profession. Krummi was a Dwarf that was eager to learn as much he could about as many subjects possible. He built a small laboratory made up from different rooms to investigate different subjects. From the ways the world worked till ways to make plants grow faster, Krummi was intrigued. He wrote his first book: “The Dwarves” after two years of living in the shaft. This book was full of facts on Dwarves, their history, their myths, their lands and their habits. Many Dwarves bought the book and knew Krummi for writing it. They came to visit his odd looking laboratory and spoke with him about his findings. Soon, because of his success and by the will of the royal family, Krummi was made part of House Yearnen, which was a thriving Dwarven house with many a famous Dwarf in it.
Krummi expanded his laboratory and added an observatory to it, from where he could oversee the lower town. Many times did he think back of the friends he had there. Sometimes he would go down to the town, but all of his friends would sent him back as soon as he came walking towards them. Not because they did not like him anymore, but because they wished Krummi the best in life and saw he had a chance to live with the nobles of Yearnen. They did not want to spoil his chance by wasting his time in the lower town.
As his construction work on the laboratory continued, so did his knowledge. He wrote everything he discovered down in his journal and kept on expanding till he had a room for everything he needed to do. He was fully settled in the shaft of Thraall after 10 years, now being a part of a noble family and selling a new book every year.
The times were kind to the Dwarves and with Roman as the great architect they soon began to fill the freshly mined shaft. Krummi got the task to build the library, with which Roman helped of course. Building the library took him 10 years, but it was for a very good cause. When the library was done, Krummi added all his books to it and his fame extended to beyond the realms of the Dwarves. People as far as Port Silver knew his writings. Now that Krummi reached the age of 60, he began to ease his pace. During the construction of the library, Krummi had gone on some adventures. Now was the time to record these and write them down in books, so that they may never be forgotten and shared with the other Dwarves. He wrote about the encounter with the SoulGriefer, he wrote about the story of Elberith the Elf. He wrote about the events that happened at the royal court. Yet, he did not think his own stories were enough and he thought Thraall should become a more important center of knowledge. So he left to find more books from other cities and gather knowledge about all there was to know about the world of Altera, which was: a hell of a job.
Ill tidings
It took him 15 years to do so and he came back to Thraall afterwards. What he found there, was a shock... Travelling the far corners of Altera in search for knowledge favorable to the Dwarves, he never heard much about other Dwarves or Thraall. Krummi walked through the gates of Thraall and loved to see the high statues once again. He walked over to Gromms house, but it was abandoned with just a note on the door saying: “Gromm’s been banned from Thraall for dating a Wood Elf!” He walked on and found Ginnslars home abandoned too. If there was any trace of Kzaka, it was buried in the snow outside, for his house was completely empty too. This was the moment he realized he hadn't seen a soul in the shaft of Thraall since his arrival. He went to his laboratory which was all the way across, yet he didn't encounter anyone. When he entered his laboratory he heard the old familiar tune to the song ‘misty mountains’. A device a pal from the lower town, a tinker, had once installed. As soon as one would enter the door, the tune would ring to notify Krummi of a visitor. It was until Krummi ran into Roman that he gained knowledge about where everyone had gone, and more importantly: Why…
King Hrothgar had left the Dwarves, he never said why, just that Korog commanded him to. With his absence, the house of Yearnen fell apart in quarrel and deceit. The royal members of the house of yearnen had started to steal from each other and left to live with outlaws and assassins in other towns, or worse, with elves... Fights started to destroy the very essence of Thraall and the house of Yearnen fell with the sound of crumbling rocks and shouting dwarves. The dwarves were scattered and some went back to live in clans. The old clan-wars threatened to start once more. Yet.. some dwarves remained loyal to the house of Yearnen. Though the inhabitants of the shaft of Thraall had diminished to a few, the city was still standing. Guarded by the folks from the lower town.
Krummi was shocked to hear of these events and started to feel hopeless and foolish for ever leaving Thraall. It seemed as Korog had abandoned Thraall. Though the work of the dwarves that had built Thraall and the shaft will always be visible, their honor had gone with the winds. Krummi was alone, he thought, left in Thraall. He started to realize that Yearnen was vulnerable and Thraalls' defences weak without the manpower to defend the gates. He had to think of something or soon it would be swarming with tramps, Elves, muggers, Earthspawn, Greylings, bandits and thieves.
Krummi sat back as the candle-light lit the paper that lay before him. He had been thinking of a way to solve this mess. He had to come up with some way to rejoin the Dwarves that had now scattered and fallen to each other’s deceit. But not all was as easy as it initially seemed to be. He had to regain the trust of the people from the lower town that he had left behind. Of course, his old friends stood by his side, but the other folk weren’t as eager to help him. They felt no need to help the nobles of the shaft that had never came to help them either. Still, he was determined to return the shaft of Thraall to its former glory.
It was in this situation that an old friend showed up. Gromm Wake II had heard that Krummi was back in town and although Gromm had been banned, he decided to seek Krummi and talk to him. After all, the forces that exiled him from the town were no longer in action. The laws that once banned Gromm were no more. Gromm agreed to help bring the dwarves back to their former glory and decided to help Krummi. He funded the cause with a certain amount of Radiants and gave Krummi enough materials to start to rebuild the broken library.
A week passed and Krummi had only met Gromm every now and then to discuss matters considering House Yearnen and the shaft. His days of making jokes and drinking too much ale were over. Krummi became more serious and felt the goal to rejoin the Dwarves that had fallen so far from their traditional ways was his responsibility. This goal was not achieved easily and it needed someone to spearhead it properly. Krummi went to Port Silver in the hope to find some of his kin there. Even a drunken dwarf in the local tavern would suffice for now. He had only just stepped off the airship, when he ran into an old friend of his, Krimil Thorinsson. They greeted each other with much merit and agreed upon having a ‘skara bitter’ in the local pub. There Krummi told him what he told all the Dwarves that he would meet; all that had happened and his own view on it. Krimil, a bitter Dwarf from the many wars in which he fought, was perhaps even more traditional than Krummi. He hit Krummi on the shoulder and told him this was a noble quest. Krimil would go with Krummi to Thraall, Krummi could almost touch this new hope during his way back...
Back in Thraall, in these chaotic days, Krummi ran into another old friend, Seth Jenkins. Seth was as unaware of the situation as Krummi was before. but he was skeptic. He thought it was not possible to achieve this goal by just spearheading it. It needed more, the Dwarves needed a leader, a King. Seth used to sit in the hall of nobles, where King Hrothgar used to discuss matters concerning the Dwarven Kingdom. Seth had a very hard claim on the seat that used to be Hrothgar’s, as only known heir to the throne. Krummi, seeing this as an opportunity to bring order in the chaos and put the social system back in working, followed Seth. Gromm was unbanished from the kingdom and together with Krimil and Krummi, they acknowledged Seth as their new king.
Krummi was chosen as right hand of Seth and got a seat in the famous Hall of Nobles. Krummi’s task was to find more Dwarves and to lay the fundament of what would become a Dwarven rise, and so insure Yearnen and the Dwarves of a future.
A fundament is only laid if there is a place to lay it. Krummi chose the region where the city Khuldas was going to be build. This region was still in the hands of Yearnen. He made there a new city and called it Tahkul Rimtar, which is freely translated: Book's Castle. The reason for calling it this way, was for its purpose. It was to be a defendable stronghold, a castle, filled with books to serve as a new start for the Dwarves; a center of Dwarven Knowledge. In Krummi’s view, safeguarding the knowledge would eventually lead to a quicker way of restoring the Dwarven pride.
A hard blow from the King
Seth had always been a proper dwarf, meaning that he loves his race and what they craft and despised any other race. There is nothing wrong with that, but Krummi was quite the opposite back in those days, since he came from the lower town where also humans lived. For this reason Krummi and Seth got into arguments very often. And worst of all; it happened more often every day. Seth in his new role as ruler of Yearnen and Thraall marked Krummi as 'undwarvish'. He grasped all the power for himself in an unexpected move and exiled Krummi 'The Bald', former Librarian of Thraall. The Dwarf that tried so hard to make the Dwarves rise again, was left with no tools to do so. Krummi was never to set foot in Thraall again without permission or political reasons, he was no longer to represent the Dwarves and if he would want to meet any dwarven friend, it would be somewhere outside Thraall.
So Krummi walked down to his house to pick up the last of his belongings, he then walked along one of the many bridges through The Shaft to The Temple of Korog, and prayed to Korog for a prosperous future for the Dwarves. He told Korog he had no tools nor titles anymore that would allow him to function as a leading figure, but the strength of his wish to restore the Dwarven Throne grew ever stronger. With Seth’s quick move to reign, Krummi could see the future with little hope for the shaft. He then took an airship back to Tahkul-Rimtar, never to set foot in Thraall again.
Krummi did not give up, the Dwarves still had hope. He met Ormild Wake, a sister of Gromm. She and Gromm did all their best to help Krummi getting the city up and running. The city began to grow rapidly. It gained all kinds of chambers: A Library, an inn, a meeting hall, a laboratory, living quarters, a temple of Korog. The Castle-city was getting too many chambers to count. In no-time the castle stood as a fortress that was hard to take without effort. One day, as Krummi dug through the rocks to make another fundament for yet another chamber of Tahkul-Rimtar, he found a strange cavern. This cavern was quite large and went straight down into the earth. Krummi did not understand yet, but the finding of this cavern would change the future of Tahkul-Rimtar… and himself…
Repossession
Krummi asked Ormild if she could contact her brother, who was doing work for Krummi in Port Silver, because Krummi had important matters to discuss with him. They met in the Central Hall of Tahkul-Rimtar. Krummi asked Gromm if he knew a way to get him in and out of Thraall unnoticed. Gromm frowned at Krummi and asked him why he wanted to do such a foolish thing. Krummi told him that Seth hasn’t given him the chance to take his books from the library of Thraall and wanted to repossess the books, for the betterment of Tahkul-Rimtar, which hold tons of useful information. Gromm started to grin with the idea of such a mission to help a friend and said he knew a secret passage which led to the shaft. The trickiest part was to reach the entrance of this passage, which was close to one of the walls of Thraall.
Krummi and Gromm took their own small airship and let Ormild fly it. They jumped out somewhere far beneath the Great Bridge that led to the Gates of Thraall and started the steep climb up the mountain, heading to just below the wall. Sentries were patrolling the wall so they had to be careful. Just before a sentry turned to look down, they slipped into the entrance. The walls were mossy and the air was damp. They rushed up the stairs and through the narrow alleyway. A faint light appeared at the end of the tunnel and Gromm opened a hatch. They climbed out to find themselves in the librarians assistance room. Krummi was amazed he never knew about this route. He took his bag and gave it to Gromm. He ran along the shelves and took all he had once owned and threw it in the bag. He just had to grab one more book when a dwarf walked in. They held their breath, it was Krimil Thorinsson, the grumpy dwarf that followed 'the old ways'.
He took a book called 'The Song of Korog' and headed into the direction of Korogs Temple to pray. Krummi inhaled deeply and sighed of relief. He grabbed the last book and returned with Gromm from where they came. Ormild took them back to Tahkul-Rimtar. Krummi sorted the books and added them to the library. He kept a few and returned them to a locked chest in his home.
The cavern.
Now that he no longer had to worry about his precious books that he had done so much for to collect, Krummi had time to focus on something new. He had finished Tahkul-Rimtar's inner walls. Now he had to find out what lurked beneath his town in the large cavern he had found. In order to make it truly safe, he would have to explore and bring it in charts. He took the map of Tahkul-Rimtar and hold it backside-up. Behind it he hold a torch. This way he could draw the walls of the cavern on the map of Tahkul-Rimtar, so he would know below which part of Tahkul-Rimtar he was walking…
Krummi descended at the side of the cavern. He looked down, it was a long, long fall. With the map in one hand and the torch in the other, he pressed himself to the wall of the cavern and slowly, step by step, moved downwards. After what seemed to be a day, he had finally reached the bottom of the cavern. Yet, it did not end there. He had to climb a bit back up at the other side of the wall to find another cavern, a bit smaller. He followed this until he stumbled onto a giant hall-shaped open space. Stalagmites raised up towards the ceiling and stalactites hang from the ceiling, reaching almost half way to the ground… This cavern was huge and it would take some time to map it into charts…
While Krummi was doing his work in the cavern, every now and then he'd meet with Gromm who would hand him some books or scrolls, to add to the ever growing library.
Krummi spent days walking just a little further each time. After two weeks, he walked all the way down to the other side of the hall-shaped cavern with stalacs and found he had mapped it all. He carted the caverns that were hidden below the fundaments of tahkul-rimtar. Hard to find and only reachable for those with great perseverance. The map he had made for this maze of grotto’s he stored away in the locked chest, where also some of the books from the library of Thraall were stored. During his days of exploring this subterranean world, he thought of an ideal use for these hollow spaces. He drew it on a different map, using the first one as a guide. He would turn these damp caverns into a mighty Dwarven realm. A realm lit by the warmth of many fires. A realm with only one exit and entrance, just like the Horgâr Halls from the myth. A realm that would represent the greatness, the divine right of the Dwarves to rule subterranean Altera. To achieve this, he gathered all books there were to be found on the divine myths and history of the Dwarves and took the descriptions of the Horgâr Halls as a guideline on shaping the realm. With the help of a few Dwarves he trusted most, he started to hew out the rock. Slowly the tunnels turned into halls and the caverns turned into gigantic Dwarven rooms. Tahkul-Rimtar would rise the Dwarven glory of auld from below the surface, where indeed the Dwarves of Yore came from.
An evil magick.
A soft warm breeze carried thick clouds of smoke far away. Two, three, four, five clouds drifted up before they vanished. The farmer was smoking his pipe in front of his door peacefully and the leaves of the trees in his garden were softly moving in the gently breeze… Suddenly the wind changed and the once so clear, early evening sky was slowly being invaded by thick grey to black clouds. Before the clouds reached the sky above the farmer’s house, a man in robes walked past him, not even noticing the farmer. Or not paying attention to him. The terrifying moment that the farmer saw the evil presence was past, the darkness of the clouds set in and a cold rain scared away the warm evening breeze. Underneath the clouds an abnormally big pack of wolves followed the man, quietly walking, growling lowly at each other. The farmer quickly turned inside his home and shut the door tight…
The night fell over Port Silver, stars shining bright above, the streets lit by them and the moon. The tavern was filled till the door with laughing and drinking people. They were laughing and drinking so hard and so much, that they didn’t notice the sky grow dark. A cloaked man walked past the tavern and in his wake the clouds followed and covered the entire sky, leaving the streets in darkness, wet from the rain. A man walked from the tavern to release his bladder from beer at the nearest tree. He saw the pack of wolves, growling and scowling as they passed by. The drunk man saw this horrible sight and passed out, not awakening till late in the next afternoon with a bad headache, not knowing whether it had been real or a dream…
The cloaked man stood before a fortress city of Dwarven Making. Underneath his hood he bared his teeth. Then he climbed the fortress to one of the four high towers. Krummi was sleeping below in his house within this castle. He was unaware of the danger that had reached his fortress. The mysterious evil man started chanting and performing rituals on the roof of the City of Knowledge, while the wolves gathered in a large circle around the entire fortress. Suddenly an orange glow appeared in the dark clouds, as if they were on fire… From this moment on, with every word the cloaked man chanted, one of the wolves in the circle died. In this sacrifice the man gathered strength for what seemed to be one of the most powerful evil spells ever spoken in Altera…
When all the wolves were dead and gone up in ashes, the ashes circling around the wizard, he breathed it all in. All the ashes of all the wolves gathered in his lungs, he then shouted the final word of the spell, making himself disappear and all the clouds dissolving in the air...
The next day, Krummi woke up ignorant of what had happened last night. He walked to the library of the City of Knowledge, like he always would. There, he grabbed a book and opened it, not looking at it. He grabbed his tiny glasses and put them on his huge round nose. He fell of his chair in surprise. The book was empty! He checked the other books in the library, they were the same! He ran to the archive in despair and found all the books were empty, only the title on the cover remained. In fear, he dropped the book and took the glasses of his nose, he stood frozen in his archive, in terrible, dreadful fear…
This was the work of an evil magus. It had been magick, whatever kind of magick it was, it wiped all the information on the history of Altera. Many writers of ages gone past, their works, gone up in smoke… Krummi picked up the book he had dropped and stared at it in such a despair, that he could not move or think properly. His head was spinning, his sight going black. Quickly he took hold on the bookcase to prevent him from falling down. An awful magick had filled the atmosphere. He could feel it, the strong Dwarven stones of which the fortress was built felt weak to the touch. Krummi’s fear got such a hold on him, that he fled into the unfinished realm below the town. He took all his important things there and stored them in the very back of the cavern. Then, he told his friend Gromm Wake II that he was leaving Tahkul-Rimtar, not to return again. He told him to tell the other Dwarves that his quest to rebuild their powerful nation was over, he had failed. Gromm was devastated to hear this, in terrible pain of losing his friend, he greeted him with a hard hug and his beard grew wet under his eyes… Krummi left to the Sorrowlands, never to be seen again…
Five years gone by in Altera, without a sign from Krummi. The Dwarves that were true to Krummi gave up hope and left Tahkul-Rimtar.
Ten years gone by in Altera, without a sign from Krummi. Gromm, the last Dwarf of Tahkul-Rimtar left the fortress, as the first stone fell from the ceiling of decay…
Fifteen years gone by in Altera, without a sign from Krummi. The fortress slowly turned into a ruin, as nobody paid attention to it, for Altera was about to strike back at Queen Grief.
Twenty years gone by in Altera, without a sign from Krummi. Gromm bought him a gravestone, thinking he was dead, to put on the track from Port Silver to the Cathedral.
Twenty-five years gone by in Altera, without a sign from Krummi. The crafters had won the war against Queen Grief, but Leminth died. The lands were now without a monarch.
Thirty years gone by in Altera, without a sign from Krummi. Altera’s nobles of all races tried to lay claim on the throne, Dwarf King Seth mysteriously disappears in the process.
Thirty-five years gone by in Altera, without a sign from Krummi. Little Dwarves are ever seen, most of them hiding in the mountains. The lands are populated mainly by Humans and Elves.
Fourty years gone by in Altera, a lone Dwarf returned to his old fortress, Tahkul-Rimtar, to find it in ruin. The great Dwarven Architecture had been undone by the same spell that wiped the letters from the books of this Dwarven center of knowledge. Nature had taken over and little was left of the glory it had once known... Little was left, indeed, for some things remained untouched. The spell had only influenced that which saw the daylight and the light of the moon. Underneath this ruin, the old caverns and half-finished halls remained.
Fourty-five years gone by in Altera, in these unfinished halls the lone Dwarf named Krummi 'the bald' Stenahurr, brings the riches he has dug for during his time of absence. In these halls he displays them and writes to his old friends to visit the ancient halls once more...
Krummi finishes the last of the halls and living quarters before the last of his friends arrive.
Reclaiming the Dwarven Pride.
The friends from times gone past came to visit him and after their visits spread the word of the trade under the ruin. Soon enough the first Dwarves came to the halls. It started with Tarkin, a Dwarf that just needed a place to sleep for a single night. Then Urist Stonefist. A master-smith and great forger. Urist tells him of the disappearance of King Seth. Krummi once again sets a goal, this time greater than before. He has become a traditional Dwarf, more traditional than most of the Dwarves and he is stubborn. So stubborn that he sets his mind on reclaiming the Glory of Yore. The Dwarves will no longer hide. Too long ago have the Alterans had the honor to gaze upon the riches of the Dwarves. For too long have Elves been an unmatched and unrivalled force. The Dwarves will reclaim their honor and compete with the Elves, trade with the humans, fight with greylings once more. Urist believes in Krummi and is charmed by his charismatic and powerful ways of talking…
Urist and Krummi make way to Grafjell, where a very successful trading Dwarf was told to live. They offer him a place among Yeradur as grandmerchant, an offer he can hardly resist. He replies to them he will stay to live in Grafjell, but talk to his brother about joining the house. Krummi, remembering the words of Seth; “Ye cannae restore ‘te Dwarven Glory if ye dunnae ‘ave a leadin’ figure.” Claims the throne for himself. His days of slowly mending the Dwarven wound that has led to their fall are over. His days of working hard, fighting for their rightful place underneath the surface and intensively calling upon the Dwarves have begun. His house was to be called Yeradur, a Horgaahn word for ‘Nobles of Yore’. Being a king, he saw he had enough “political reason” to come back to Thraall and bring all the Dwarves that were still living there under the banner of Yeradur…
More Dwarves come to Tahkul-Rimtar as they hear the call of their new King. They all acknowledge him and the traditional Dwarven ways as more and more Dwarves join House Yeradur. Thrain Frostpeak, chieftain of the Frostpeak clan, becomes Grand Marshall of house Yeradur and leads many a dwarf under the banner of this new royal Dwarven house. Among them are Argam Frostpeak and Renlar.
Together with Krummi, these Dwarves reclaim their rightful place as traders of the minerals of the earth. They made two statues in the halls of Tahkul-Rimtar, which are now referred to as the Horgâr Halls, just like in the myth. One statue of Zustid and one of Babin, from the same Dwarven myth as the Horgâr Halls. The goal of these Dwarves was to live once more as the Dwarves of auld had and so they did. They lived in the replica of the Horgâr Halls, being watched over by gigantic structures representing the two Dwarven divines...
Their claim on the trades of minerals restored and wealth pouring in, they start to set out and find scattered Dwarves that lived with humans or the like, and bring them to Tahkul-Rimtar. Krummi sat upon his throne from which he had made alliances with The Engems, from which he had reclaimed the ceremonial ‘Dwarven Grounds’ in Aeroch Nor, from which he now heard a Dwarf calling him “King under the Ruin...” Krummi has already reclaimed much of the former glory of Dwarves. There is no dwarf to be found that is not grateful for his deeds and leadership. The right of a Dwarf to be King has never been so appropriate...
Our story starts with Krummi at the age of 40, he lived in the lower town of the Dwarven capital called Thraall in this time. The lower city was inhabited by humans and the lowest degree of Dwarves in the social system. During one of Krummi’s trips to make trade in Port Silver, he met a Dwarf that was also from Thraall. Yet this Dwarf lived in the shaft, while Krummi still lived in the lower city. The dwarf was just waiting for the airship that would take him back to Thraall to arrive and Krummi went with him. The dwarf introduced himself as Kzaka Giantpick I. Krummi had a lot to ask Kzaka about life in the shaft. Krummi only went their occasionally, because most of the buildings in this giant cavern were owned by royalty, he had no business there. Kzaka was charmed by Krummi’s polite ways and interest and they spoke to each other without end during their flight in the airship. When they arrived in the dockingtower of Thraall, Krummi said goodbye and went to walk to the lower district. But he was halted by Kzaka. Kzaka had a certain interest in this relatively young dwarf. By their new born friendship, Krummi got the chance to climb higher up the social ladder; Kzaka took him to the shaft. There he led Krummi in front of the Dwarven king Hrothgar. Hrothgar Sharppick was a very charismatic figure, yet bizarrely kind. Krummi did not expect such kindness from the King towards someone from the lower districts and Krummi felt honored to meet him. Hrothgar spoke in a low commanding voice, yet Krummi felt like he was listening to his father, as the voice of Hrothgar was kind too. After asking some questions, Krummi was allowed to live in Thraall’s shaft, close to where Kzaka lived.
Krummi dug himself a room from the bare rock. A bed to sleep in and other necessities were placed and soon he started practicing his profession. Krummi was a Dwarf that was eager to learn as much he could about as many subjects possible. He built a small laboratory made up from different rooms to investigate different subjects. From the ways the world worked till ways to make plants grow faster, Krummi was intrigued. He wrote his first book: “The Dwarves” after two years of living in the shaft. This book was full of facts on Dwarves, their history, their myths, their lands and their habits. Many Dwarves bought the book and knew Krummi for writing it. They came to visit his odd looking laboratory and spoke with him about his findings. Soon, because of his success and by the will of the royal family, Krummi was made part of House Yearnen, which was a thriving Dwarven house with many a famous Dwarf in it.
Krummi expanded his laboratory and added an observatory to it, from where he could oversee the lower town. Many times did he think back of the friends he had there. Sometimes he would go down to the town, but all of his friends would sent him back as soon as he came walking towards them. Not because they did not like him anymore, but because they wished Krummi the best in life and saw he had a chance to live with the nobles of Yearnen. They did not want to spoil his chance by wasting his time in the lower town.
As his construction work on the laboratory continued, so did his knowledge. He wrote everything he discovered down in his journal and kept on expanding till he had a room for everything he needed to do. He was fully settled in the shaft of Thraall after 10 years, now being a part of a noble family and selling a new book every year.
The times were kind to the Dwarves and with Roman as the great architect they soon began to fill the freshly mined shaft. Krummi got the task to build the library, with which Roman helped of course. Building the library took him 10 years, but it was for a very good cause. When the library was done, Krummi added all his books to it and his fame extended to beyond the realms of the Dwarves. People as far as Port Silver knew his writings. Now that Krummi reached the age of 60, he began to ease his pace. During the construction of the library, Krummi had gone on some adventures. Now was the time to record these and write them down in books, so that they may never be forgotten and shared with the other Dwarves. He wrote about the encounter with the SoulGriefer, he wrote about the story of Elberith the Elf. He wrote about the events that happened at the royal court. Yet, he did not think his own stories were enough and he thought Thraall should become a more important center of knowledge. So he left to find more books from other cities and gather knowledge about all there was to know about the world of Altera, which was: a hell of a job.
Ill tidings
It took him 15 years to do so and he came back to Thraall afterwards. What he found there, was a shock... Travelling the far corners of Altera in search for knowledge favorable to the Dwarves, he never heard much about other Dwarves or Thraall. Krummi walked through the gates of Thraall and loved to see the high statues once again. He walked over to Gromms house, but it was abandoned with just a note on the door saying: “Gromm’s been banned from Thraall for dating a Wood Elf!” He walked on and found Ginnslars home abandoned too. If there was any trace of Kzaka, it was buried in the snow outside, for his house was completely empty too. This was the moment he realized he hadn't seen a soul in the shaft of Thraall since his arrival. He went to his laboratory which was all the way across, yet he didn't encounter anyone. When he entered his laboratory he heard the old familiar tune to the song ‘misty mountains’. A device a pal from the lower town, a tinker, had once installed. As soon as one would enter the door, the tune would ring to notify Krummi of a visitor. It was until Krummi ran into Roman that he gained knowledge about where everyone had gone, and more importantly: Why…
King Hrothgar had left the Dwarves, he never said why, just that Korog commanded him to. With his absence, the house of Yearnen fell apart in quarrel and deceit. The royal members of the house of yearnen had started to steal from each other and left to live with outlaws and assassins in other towns, or worse, with elves... Fights started to destroy the very essence of Thraall and the house of Yearnen fell with the sound of crumbling rocks and shouting dwarves. The dwarves were scattered and some went back to live in clans. The old clan-wars threatened to start once more. Yet.. some dwarves remained loyal to the house of Yearnen. Though the inhabitants of the shaft of Thraall had diminished to a few, the city was still standing. Guarded by the folks from the lower town.
Krummi was shocked to hear of these events and started to feel hopeless and foolish for ever leaving Thraall. It seemed as Korog had abandoned Thraall. Though the work of the dwarves that had built Thraall and the shaft will always be visible, their honor had gone with the winds. Krummi was alone, he thought, left in Thraall. He started to realize that Yearnen was vulnerable and Thraalls' defences weak without the manpower to defend the gates. He had to think of something or soon it would be swarming with tramps, Elves, muggers, Earthspawn, Greylings, bandits and thieves.
Krummi sat back as the candle-light lit the paper that lay before him. He had been thinking of a way to solve this mess. He had to come up with some way to rejoin the Dwarves that had now scattered and fallen to each other’s deceit. But not all was as easy as it initially seemed to be. He had to regain the trust of the people from the lower town that he had left behind. Of course, his old friends stood by his side, but the other folk weren’t as eager to help him. They felt no need to help the nobles of the shaft that had never came to help them either. Still, he was determined to return the shaft of Thraall to its former glory.
It was in this situation that an old friend showed up. Gromm Wake II had heard that Krummi was back in town and although Gromm had been banned, he decided to seek Krummi and talk to him. After all, the forces that exiled him from the town were no longer in action. The laws that once banned Gromm were no more. Gromm agreed to help bring the dwarves back to their former glory and decided to help Krummi. He funded the cause with a certain amount of Radiants and gave Krummi enough materials to start to rebuild the broken library.
A week passed and Krummi had only met Gromm every now and then to discuss matters considering House Yearnen and the shaft. His days of making jokes and drinking too much ale were over. Krummi became more serious and felt the goal to rejoin the Dwarves that had fallen so far from their traditional ways was his responsibility. This goal was not achieved easily and it needed someone to spearhead it properly. Krummi went to Port Silver in the hope to find some of his kin there. Even a drunken dwarf in the local tavern would suffice for now. He had only just stepped off the airship, when he ran into an old friend of his, Krimil Thorinsson. They greeted each other with much merit and agreed upon having a ‘skara bitter’ in the local pub. There Krummi told him what he told all the Dwarves that he would meet; all that had happened and his own view on it. Krimil, a bitter Dwarf from the many wars in which he fought, was perhaps even more traditional than Krummi. He hit Krummi on the shoulder and told him this was a noble quest. Krimil would go with Krummi to Thraall, Krummi could almost touch this new hope during his way back...
Back in Thraall, in these chaotic days, Krummi ran into another old friend, Seth Jenkins. Seth was as unaware of the situation as Krummi was before. but he was skeptic. He thought it was not possible to achieve this goal by just spearheading it. It needed more, the Dwarves needed a leader, a King. Seth used to sit in the hall of nobles, where King Hrothgar used to discuss matters concerning the Dwarven Kingdom. Seth had a very hard claim on the seat that used to be Hrothgar’s, as only known heir to the throne. Krummi, seeing this as an opportunity to bring order in the chaos and put the social system back in working, followed Seth. Gromm was unbanished from the kingdom and together with Krimil and Krummi, they acknowledged Seth as their new king.
Krummi was chosen as right hand of Seth and got a seat in the famous Hall of Nobles. Krummi’s task was to find more Dwarves and to lay the fundament of what would become a Dwarven rise, and so insure Yearnen and the Dwarves of a future.
A fundament is only laid if there is a place to lay it. Krummi chose the region where the city Khuldas was going to be build. This region was still in the hands of Yearnen. He made there a new city and called it Tahkul Rimtar, which is freely translated: Book's Castle. The reason for calling it this way, was for its purpose. It was to be a defendable stronghold, a castle, filled with books to serve as a new start for the Dwarves; a center of Dwarven Knowledge. In Krummi’s view, safeguarding the knowledge would eventually lead to a quicker way of restoring the Dwarven pride.
A hard blow from the King
Seth had always been a proper dwarf, meaning that he loves his race and what they craft and despised any other race. There is nothing wrong with that, but Krummi was quite the opposite back in those days, since he came from the lower town where also humans lived. For this reason Krummi and Seth got into arguments very often. And worst of all; it happened more often every day. Seth in his new role as ruler of Yearnen and Thraall marked Krummi as 'undwarvish'. He grasped all the power for himself in an unexpected move and exiled Krummi 'The Bald', former Librarian of Thraall. The Dwarf that tried so hard to make the Dwarves rise again, was left with no tools to do so. Krummi was never to set foot in Thraall again without permission or political reasons, he was no longer to represent the Dwarves and if he would want to meet any dwarven friend, it would be somewhere outside Thraall.
So Krummi walked down to his house to pick up the last of his belongings, he then walked along one of the many bridges through The Shaft to The Temple of Korog, and prayed to Korog for a prosperous future for the Dwarves. He told Korog he had no tools nor titles anymore that would allow him to function as a leading figure, but the strength of his wish to restore the Dwarven Throne grew ever stronger. With Seth’s quick move to reign, Krummi could see the future with little hope for the shaft. He then took an airship back to Tahkul-Rimtar, never to set foot in Thraall again.
Krummi did not give up, the Dwarves still had hope. He met Ormild Wake, a sister of Gromm. She and Gromm did all their best to help Krummi getting the city up and running. The city began to grow rapidly. It gained all kinds of chambers: A Library, an inn, a meeting hall, a laboratory, living quarters, a temple of Korog. The Castle-city was getting too many chambers to count. In no-time the castle stood as a fortress that was hard to take without effort. One day, as Krummi dug through the rocks to make another fundament for yet another chamber of Tahkul-Rimtar, he found a strange cavern. This cavern was quite large and went straight down into the earth. Krummi did not understand yet, but the finding of this cavern would change the future of Tahkul-Rimtar… and himself…
Repossession
Krummi asked Ormild if she could contact her brother, who was doing work for Krummi in Port Silver, because Krummi had important matters to discuss with him. They met in the Central Hall of Tahkul-Rimtar. Krummi asked Gromm if he knew a way to get him in and out of Thraall unnoticed. Gromm frowned at Krummi and asked him why he wanted to do such a foolish thing. Krummi told him that Seth hasn’t given him the chance to take his books from the library of Thraall and wanted to repossess the books, for the betterment of Tahkul-Rimtar, which hold tons of useful information. Gromm started to grin with the idea of such a mission to help a friend and said he knew a secret passage which led to the shaft. The trickiest part was to reach the entrance of this passage, which was close to one of the walls of Thraall.
Krummi and Gromm took their own small airship and let Ormild fly it. They jumped out somewhere far beneath the Great Bridge that led to the Gates of Thraall and started the steep climb up the mountain, heading to just below the wall. Sentries were patrolling the wall so they had to be careful. Just before a sentry turned to look down, they slipped into the entrance. The walls were mossy and the air was damp. They rushed up the stairs and through the narrow alleyway. A faint light appeared at the end of the tunnel and Gromm opened a hatch. They climbed out to find themselves in the librarians assistance room. Krummi was amazed he never knew about this route. He took his bag and gave it to Gromm. He ran along the shelves and took all he had once owned and threw it in the bag. He just had to grab one more book when a dwarf walked in. They held their breath, it was Krimil Thorinsson, the grumpy dwarf that followed 'the old ways'.
He took a book called 'The Song of Korog' and headed into the direction of Korogs Temple to pray. Krummi inhaled deeply and sighed of relief. He grabbed the last book and returned with Gromm from where they came. Ormild took them back to Tahkul-Rimtar. Krummi sorted the books and added them to the library. He kept a few and returned them to a locked chest in his home.
The cavern.
Now that he no longer had to worry about his precious books that he had done so much for to collect, Krummi had time to focus on something new. He had finished Tahkul-Rimtar's inner walls. Now he had to find out what lurked beneath his town in the large cavern he had found. In order to make it truly safe, he would have to explore and bring it in charts. He took the map of Tahkul-Rimtar and hold it backside-up. Behind it he hold a torch. This way he could draw the walls of the cavern on the map of Tahkul-Rimtar, so he would know below which part of Tahkul-Rimtar he was walking…
Krummi descended at the side of the cavern. He looked down, it was a long, long fall. With the map in one hand and the torch in the other, he pressed himself to the wall of the cavern and slowly, step by step, moved downwards. After what seemed to be a day, he had finally reached the bottom of the cavern. Yet, it did not end there. He had to climb a bit back up at the other side of the wall to find another cavern, a bit smaller. He followed this until he stumbled onto a giant hall-shaped open space. Stalagmites raised up towards the ceiling and stalactites hang from the ceiling, reaching almost half way to the ground… This cavern was huge and it would take some time to map it into charts…
While Krummi was doing his work in the cavern, every now and then he'd meet with Gromm who would hand him some books or scrolls, to add to the ever growing library.
Krummi spent days walking just a little further each time. After two weeks, he walked all the way down to the other side of the hall-shaped cavern with stalacs and found he had mapped it all. He carted the caverns that were hidden below the fundaments of tahkul-rimtar. Hard to find and only reachable for those with great perseverance. The map he had made for this maze of grotto’s he stored away in the locked chest, where also some of the books from the library of Thraall were stored. During his days of exploring this subterranean world, he thought of an ideal use for these hollow spaces. He drew it on a different map, using the first one as a guide. He would turn these damp caverns into a mighty Dwarven realm. A realm lit by the warmth of many fires. A realm with only one exit and entrance, just like the Horgâr Halls from the myth. A realm that would represent the greatness, the divine right of the Dwarves to rule subterranean Altera. To achieve this, he gathered all books there were to be found on the divine myths and history of the Dwarves and took the descriptions of the Horgâr Halls as a guideline on shaping the realm. With the help of a few Dwarves he trusted most, he started to hew out the rock. Slowly the tunnels turned into halls and the caverns turned into gigantic Dwarven rooms. Tahkul-Rimtar would rise the Dwarven glory of auld from below the surface, where indeed the Dwarves of Yore came from.
An evil magick.
A soft warm breeze carried thick clouds of smoke far away. Two, three, four, five clouds drifted up before they vanished. The farmer was smoking his pipe in front of his door peacefully and the leaves of the trees in his garden were softly moving in the gently breeze… Suddenly the wind changed and the once so clear, early evening sky was slowly being invaded by thick grey to black clouds. Before the clouds reached the sky above the farmer’s house, a man in robes walked past him, not even noticing the farmer. Or not paying attention to him. The terrifying moment that the farmer saw the evil presence was past, the darkness of the clouds set in and a cold rain scared away the warm evening breeze. Underneath the clouds an abnormally big pack of wolves followed the man, quietly walking, growling lowly at each other. The farmer quickly turned inside his home and shut the door tight…
The night fell over Port Silver, stars shining bright above, the streets lit by them and the moon. The tavern was filled till the door with laughing and drinking people. They were laughing and drinking so hard and so much, that they didn’t notice the sky grow dark. A cloaked man walked past the tavern and in his wake the clouds followed and covered the entire sky, leaving the streets in darkness, wet from the rain. A man walked from the tavern to release his bladder from beer at the nearest tree. He saw the pack of wolves, growling and scowling as they passed by. The drunk man saw this horrible sight and passed out, not awakening till late in the next afternoon with a bad headache, not knowing whether it had been real or a dream…
The cloaked man stood before a fortress city of Dwarven Making. Underneath his hood he bared his teeth. Then he climbed the fortress to one of the four high towers. Krummi was sleeping below in his house within this castle. He was unaware of the danger that had reached his fortress. The mysterious evil man started chanting and performing rituals on the roof of the City of Knowledge, while the wolves gathered in a large circle around the entire fortress. Suddenly an orange glow appeared in the dark clouds, as if they were on fire… From this moment on, with every word the cloaked man chanted, one of the wolves in the circle died. In this sacrifice the man gathered strength for what seemed to be one of the most powerful evil spells ever spoken in Altera…
When all the wolves were dead and gone up in ashes, the ashes circling around the wizard, he breathed it all in. All the ashes of all the wolves gathered in his lungs, he then shouted the final word of the spell, making himself disappear and all the clouds dissolving in the air...
The next day, Krummi woke up ignorant of what had happened last night. He walked to the library of the City of Knowledge, like he always would. There, he grabbed a book and opened it, not looking at it. He grabbed his tiny glasses and put them on his huge round nose. He fell of his chair in surprise. The book was empty! He checked the other books in the library, they were the same! He ran to the archive in despair and found all the books were empty, only the title on the cover remained. In fear, he dropped the book and took the glasses of his nose, he stood frozen in his archive, in terrible, dreadful fear…
This was the work of an evil magus. It had been magick, whatever kind of magick it was, it wiped all the information on the history of Altera. Many writers of ages gone past, their works, gone up in smoke… Krummi picked up the book he had dropped and stared at it in such a despair, that he could not move or think properly. His head was spinning, his sight going black. Quickly he took hold on the bookcase to prevent him from falling down. An awful magick had filled the atmosphere. He could feel it, the strong Dwarven stones of which the fortress was built felt weak to the touch. Krummi’s fear got such a hold on him, that he fled into the unfinished realm below the town. He took all his important things there and stored them in the very back of the cavern. Then, he told his friend Gromm Wake II that he was leaving Tahkul-Rimtar, not to return again. He told him to tell the other Dwarves that his quest to rebuild their powerful nation was over, he had failed. Gromm was devastated to hear this, in terrible pain of losing his friend, he greeted him with a hard hug and his beard grew wet under his eyes… Krummi left to the Sorrowlands, never to be seen again…
Five years gone by in Altera, without a sign from Krummi. The Dwarves that were true to Krummi gave up hope and left Tahkul-Rimtar.
Ten years gone by in Altera, without a sign from Krummi. Gromm, the last Dwarf of Tahkul-Rimtar left the fortress, as the first stone fell from the ceiling of decay…
Fifteen years gone by in Altera, without a sign from Krummi. The fortress slowly turned into a ruin, as nobody paid attention to it, for Altera was about to strike back at Queen Grief.
Twenty years gone by in Altera, without a sign from Krummi. Gromm bought him a gravestone, thinking he was dead, to put on the track from Port Silver to the Cathedral.
Twenty-five years gone by in Altera, without a sign from Krummi. The crafters had won the war against Queen Grief, but Leminth died. The lands were now without a monarch.
Thirty years gone by in Altera, without a sign from Krummi. Altera’s nobles of all races tried to lay claim on the throne, Dwarf King Seth mysteriously disappears in the process.
Thirty-five years gone by in Altera, without a sign from Krummi. Little Dwarves are ever seen, most of them hiding in the mountains. The lands are populated mainly by Humans and Elves.
Fourty years gone by in Altera, a lone Dwarf returned to his old fortress, Tahkul-Rimtar, to find it in ruin. The great Dwarven Architecture had been undone by the same spell that wiped the letters from the books of this Dwarven center of knowledge. Nature had taken over and little was left of the glory it had once known... Little was left, indeed, for some things remained untouched. The spell had only influenced that which saw the daylight and the light of the moon. Underneath this ruin, the old caverns and half-finished halls remained.
Fourty-five years gone by in Altera, in these unfinished halls the lone Dwarf named Krummi 'the bald' Stenahurr, brings the riches he has dug for during his time of absence. In these halls he displays them and writes to his old friends to visit the ancient halls once more...
Krummi finishes the last of the halls and living quarters before the last of his friends arrive.
Reclaiming the Dwarven Pride.
The friends from times gone past came to visit him and after their visits spread the word of the trade under the ruin. Soon enough the first Dwarves came to the halls. It started with Tarkin, a Dwarf that just needed a place to sleep for a single night. Then Urist Stonefist. A master-smith and great forger. Urist tells him of the disappearance of King Seth. Krummi once again sets a goal, this time greater than before. He has become a traditional Dwarf, more traditional than most of the Dwarves and he is stubborn. So stubborn that he sets his mind on reclaiming the Glory of Yore. The Dwarves will no longer hide. Too long ago have the Alterans had the honor to gaze upon the riches of the Dwarves. For too long have Elves been an unmatched and unrivalled force. The Dwarves will reclaim their honor and compete with the Elves, trade with the humans, fight with greylings once more. Urist believes in Krummi and is charmed by his charismatic and powerful ways of talking…
Urist and Krummi make way to Grafjell, where a very successful trading Dwarf was told to live. They offer him a place among Yeradur as grandmerchant, an offer he can hardly resist. He replies to them he will stay to live in Grafjell, but talk to his brother about joining the house. Krummi, remembering the words of Seth; “Ye cannae restore ‘te Dwarven Glory if ye dunnae ‘ave a leadin’ figure.” Claims the throne for himself. His days of slowly mending the Dwarven wound that has led to their fall are over. His days of working hard, fighting for their rightful place underneath the surface and intensively calling upon the Dwarves have begun. His house was to be called Yeradur, a Horgaahn word for ‘Nobles of Yore’. Being a king, he saw he had enough “political reason” to come back to Thraall and bring all the Dwarves that were still living there under the banner of Yeradur…
More Dwarves come to Tahkul-Rimtar as they hear the call of their new King. They all acknowledge him and the traditional Dwarven ways as more and more Dwarves join House Yeradur. Thrain Frostpeak, chieftain of the Frostpeak clan, becomes Grand Marshall of house Yeradur and leads many a dwarf under the banner of this new royal Dwarven house. Among them are Argam Frostpeak and Renlar.
Together with Krummi, these Dwarves reclaim their rightful place as traders of the minerals of the earth. They made two statues in the halls of Tahkul-Rimtar, which are now referred to as the Horgâr Halls, just like in the myth. One statue of Zustid and one of Babin, from the same Dwarven myth as the Horgâr Halls. The goal of these Dwarves was to live once more as the Dwarves of auld had and so they did. They lived in the replica of the Horgâr Halls, being watched over by gigantic structures representing the two Dwarven divines...
Their claim on the trades of minerals restored and wealth pouring in, they start to set out and find scattered Dwarves that lived with humans or the like, and bring them to Tahkul-Rimtar. Krummi sat upon his throne from which he had made alliances with The Engems, from which he had reclaimed the ceremonial ‘Dwarven Grounds’ in Aeroch Nor, from which he now heard a Dwarf calling him “King under the Ruin...” Krummi has already reclaimed much of the former glory of Dwarves. There is no dwarf to be found that is not grateful for his deeds and leadership. The right of a Dwarf to be King has never been so appropriate...
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Just change your screenshot for a skin with a crown and I'm guessing you already added to your char profile? 
If you wanna give it a read, here ya go