Yar'Ankor, the Western Domain

Yar'Ankor, or the Western Domain in the common tongue, is the final city of Dwarves. A vast mountain fortress, beautiful in architecture and terrible in its despair. Of all the races of Alduroum, the Dwarves suffered the greatest. The mountains thrust upwards, crushing homes, collapsing halls, and severing mountain roads. The Dwarves have slowly rebuilt, but are a shadow of their former glory.

They are now bullied by various factions within the Western Mountains. The Hobgoblins of Rith'tik have entered into a long-term peace treaty with Yar'Ankor, with draconian terms for the Dwarve's participation. This results in monthly tithes of gold, gems, iron, and adamantium.

Dwarf society is stratified, the grand majority existing as laborers and craftsman under Kings and Smithing Lords. Many still revere the old god of Dwarves, Moradin. The younger Dwarves have looked to other deities for inspiration. Rumors of a Spider Cult spread among the back alleys of Yar'Ankor, speaking of pale elves in the deep who have built a grand empire of treachery and avarice. Gods of strength, anger, war, and bloodshed have also risen lately as the frustrated Dwarves seek for ways to fulfill their need to vent their aggravated pride. The elder god Kord is a favorite among Dwarvish brawlers and travelers.

### **A Shattered Race**

When the howling insanity of the Fall was swept aside, the Western Domain was no more. There was no re-organization. There was no lords to converse with. There was no army to fortify the lands. Half of the empire was crushed under new rock formations and the other half had dissapeared entirely. What Dwarf clans were left alive and together banded together at a local level. Lighting torches and manning the barricades, they waited for a sign from the lords that peace had been restored. A stubborn people, they were determiend not to be ambushed by the mysterious beyond.

That day never came. Weeks became months, months became years, and five years after the Fall a Dwarf expedition was sent from Yar'Ankor to explore the nearby mountain ranges. They traveled to the former locations of seven Dwarven cities. The only sign that anything had been there at all were the remnants of Oregather. A singular stone door was cemented into a cliff face. Exploration into the mountain revealed nothing else survived.

The hills beyond were alive with threats as they traveled. Dragons, Orcs, Trolls, and mountain denizens had spread and began to adapt to this new world. In this treacherous world, the Dwarves found one other enclave that survived the catastrophe. Duraz'und (Kingdom of Stone in Common), an outpost east of Yar'Ankor, was still manned by a group of Dwarves. Commanded by a Dwarf king named Drobur Cragli, they had tenuously rebuilt their fortress. They came under repeated attack from Hobgoblin raiders, even during the expedition's stay.

### **The Kingdom Splinters**

The centuries rolled forward and things did not become easier for the Dwarves. Their mines of gems and metals were now infested with Goblins, Otyughs, slimes, and other horrid creatures. Their surface roads now riddled with Orc and Hobgoblin ambushes. Their prayers to Moradin fell on deaf ears, feeding concerns that their deity was long gone.

These fears shattered the defenders at Duraz'und. The death stroke was an army of Orcs led by Hobgoblin warlords, but it began with infighting among the Dwarves. Many wanted to leave for safer lands. Some believed submission was the only future. Others would stand by the tenants of their past until the bitter end. It did not matter when the fortress gates were broken in 321 A.F.

Yar'ankor did not take this news lightly. The fears that had pushed the Kingdom of Stone to its breaking point were also festering here. The loss of their only ally, the only other Dwarven community was enough to bring tensions to a breaking point.

The Splintering began with a single night of rioting and civil unrest. Several months after the fall of Duraz'und, a new law was passed that increased tariffs on imported goods from outsiders and foreign lands. This was a crippling blow to the market. Seen as a xenophobic and knee jerk effort to boost their own mercantile exploits at the cost of their standard of living, many revolted. This rebellion was about the law at face value, but a lot of the frustration was about the state of their people.

The revolt was put down in a matter of days. Most of the rebels either dropped the cause after a handful of battles or were arrested. No Dwarf died during the clashes, but the scars were left. Bands of Dwarves now left Yar'ankor, looking for a better life anywhere than at home.

### **The Treaty of Racial Communion**

The beleaguered kingdom moved on. With masses of Dwarves leaving their city, they had even fewer resources to combat the newly coined "Mongrel Empire". The Smithing Lords sensed the final war coming. The king knew as well, the Mongrel race would sweep their people from the map and the history books if they carried on as they did presently.

In 477 A.F., a diplomatic band was sent to Rith'tik, wearing the white banner of surrender. Taken peacefully into the kingdom of swords, they presented a conditional treaty to ensure the survival of the Dwarven race. Interested in such an offer, an agreement was struck in just three days of negotiation. The product was the Treaty of Racial Communion.

Yar'Ankor ceded all territory beyond ten miles of Yar'ankor's main gates. They agreed to a peace offering of 10,000 gp. a year, a delivery of 100 carts of iron every six months, and access to the Shining Plunges, the Dwarves long-guarded Mithral veins. In exchange for all of this, the Mongrel Empire agreed to cease all hostilities toward any Dwarven outpost and to ensure military reinforcement in the even that Glacieus the Dragoness should agress towards their people.

This deal was seen as treason by the majority of Dwarves, but a stern speech given by the king silenced the majority. Deep down they knew that such a yoke was necessary to survive. More began to flee the dying kingdom.

**The Vision of Gren Hammerhail**

In 501 A.F., the king's mage, Gren Hammerhail, received a vision from an unknown source. Awaking from sleep, he remembered a series of images and a message he received. After some thought and study, he presented this vision to the king.

He spoke of a Dwarven kingdom, the lost half of their people. So much of their people dissapeared entirely they assumed they had vanished. Hammerhail's vision suggested they were not blasted from the planet, but rather moved deep underground. Impossibly deep under the surface, they had survived for five hundred years in absolute darkness.

He saw Dwarven buildings lit with green fire. Dwarves in sleek armor of unearthly design and strange spires entirely of non-Dwarven architecture. He saw their peopel surviving as quasi-slaves. Held in respect, but always laboring under an overlord race. A horrid people with tentacles for mouths and awful eyes that could pierce into your soul. He saw pale elves working great wars against their deep brethren. He foresaw a whole new world miles beneath their feet that had been hidden for so long.

The message he heard, repeated several times, was in a language he could not recognize. To recall the sounds he heard, he could not understand them. Almost like a hidden meaning though, the core message hung with him.

*We are coming. Persist brothers. We are coming.*

These revelations were kept to only the social and military elite, but rumors have seeped into the common people and into lands beyond. It is still considering a myth or the ravings of a small, sad creature.