Troigh Leud

The **Troigh Leud** (Pronounced as Truie Liad) was an ancient war between the dwarves of the Dwarven Imperium and the giants that took place from 357 AD to 367 AD, ending in giant victory and the lost of the dwarven capital of Aurum Invicta.

## History

The Dwarven Imperium was once a mighty empire stretching from the mighty mountains to the Sea of Resonance. Their soldiers were respected for their discipline and bravery while their artists were revered for their craftsmanship. But their rulers grew vain and prideful, losing touch with the changing world around them, and in the year of 357 AD a prince was sent on a diplomatic mission to one of the nearby giants settlement, called Lectal, to offer them to become a vassal under the Imperiums wings. The prince was foolish, and when he got his audience with the jarl of Lectal he spoke of the giants as if the were mere beasts, unable to take care of themselves without the guidance of the Imperium. The jarl was deeply offended, and had the prince and his entourage locked up in a cell, making the prince the first ever member of the Imperial royal family to be imprisoned by an enemy faction. The jarl, after calming his outrage, tried to be reasonable and asked for nothing more than the personal apology of the dwarven kaiser in return of his son and his servants and a return to the negotiation table.

### **Prelude**

When the kaiser heard of this great offence he was furious. Foes far more superior to the giants were lucky enough if they walked away with their lives with this kind of audacity. And yet this giant Jarl had the guts to lock up his child and demand an apology from him. The kaiser turned to his people, rallying them for another beautiful conquest for the mighty dwarfs, and the legions of Aurum Invicta were ready to march upon the city of Lectal at the next dawn.

The legions reached the wooden palisade of Lectal, demanding their immediate surrender in return for their lives, but the giants were too stubborn to listen. When these dwarves were standing at his gates, the jarl knew that his city was about to fall over, and he called upon an ancient accord of kinship among the giant clans to protect each other by blowing his mighty lituus, filling the air with a mighty horn that drowned out the sounds of his people's slaughter. After the giants refused their mercy, the leading centurions called upon this master evokers to blow open the gates with mountainous boulders and the soldiers flooded the city, slaughtering every adult they met, be they soldier or civilian as the streets filled with the sounds of screams, howling, and warhorns. They eventually reached the throne room, where they bound the jarl with ropes, pulling his massive body to the ground. As the dwarves dragged him out through his now red coloured streets, the jarl saw the horrible sights of giant children, which were as big grown man, tied upside down with their Achilles heels slashed open. When his captors reached their leader, the jarl was place down in such a way that his face looked up to the general that had ravaged his city. Few know what was said to him by their leader, but after the centurion was finished he had raised his spear, and plunged it into the jarl's heart. Ending the siege in a decisive victory for the Imperium, one of the last ones they would see. For the sound of the jarl's lituus had reached the other giants, and they would see the danger that the dwarves posed to them.

### **The Siege of Aurum Invicta**

At the end of the Troigh Leud the giants under command of thane Svengir Hammerarm had pushed deep into the Ortus Mons, all the way to Magna Paulum where the dwarven capitol was situated. As the giants approached the legendary city they quickly realised that even their bulk would not be enough break through its gates. The massive golden gates were impossible to smash through, and the walls were part of the mountain itself with slits which the dwarves could use to endlessly rain down arrows from.

Thane Svengir Hammerarm knew his people would not be able to break through the gates without a great lost of giant life. For five days he sat in his tent, thinking about what they could do to swiftly deal with these gates, until one day one of his elite guards called alarm from his post. A dragon and a dragonborn rider just flew over, and it was suspected that the duo would return with more dragon-kin to attack the giants. Eventually it seemed that they hadn't spot Svengir's warhost but they did give the thane an idea: What if we could melt down the golden gates. He quickly grabbed his climbing supplies and commanded his private retinue to come with him. Together they stalked the two dragon-kin to their hidden base in a nearby mountainside. Svengir Hammerarm humbled himself before the draconian warriors of Reyim standing guard at the gate and requested an audience with their leader. To his surprise this request was actually granted but only he himself was allowed to enter. His man had to wait outside. As he entered the cave he was met with a tribunal of priests and a enormous wizened red dragon. Before the tribunal that lead the dragon-kin expedition he explained the situation, careful to choose his words as he knew that a single mistake could cause him and his fellow giants to be slain as heathens. He told them about their war with the Imperium, how they had massacred their kin and forced their might on all of Sahul. His plea he concluded with a request for aid from their mighty dragons to burn down the golden gates of Aurum Invicta. The priests discussed the situation among themselves. After a short while they turned back to thane Hammerarm and told him that they would lend him their aid in exchange for Svangir and his people denouncing the fallen god Yiskarang. Svengir, who while mostly a practical giant still feared the wrought of the Alpine King, took a moment to assess this choose but decided that their revenge was worth the cost. The dragon smiled and the priest cheered, having completed their mission in destroying the hedonistic Imperium and simultaneously converting the giants, and praised themselves for succeeding in their sacred duties. Svengir returned to his warhost, riding a dragon of his own, and he awed those who he left behind with his mighty mount and with the pack of riders that followed in his wake.

The dragons all focused their fiery breath on the golden gates of the fortress, yet it still took them an entire week, melting it little by little as the dwarves shot their ballistae at them, before they melted it down to a mere puddle of gold. Many of the dragon-kin that Svengir had brought along lost their life to the ballista bolts reigning down upon them but their mission was a success and the giants rushed into the breach. They quickly swarmed the streets of Aurum Invicta, but the dwarves were not about to just give their city to them. They made the giants fight for every inch of city, causing cave-ins to block roads and raining buckets of hot iron down from their forges to kill as many giants as possible. In the last days the giants managed to reached the colosseum at the centre of the city, and with that they also reached the imperial palace hanging above it. The Kaiser was quick to evacuated his royal palace, while seven mining dwarves went to the top of the palace and detached it from the rest of the roof. The seven dwarves and all of the imperial palace crashed down on an entire regiment of giants sieged them below, with no survivors. All this fighting however was to no avail and after 35 days of battle the Kaiser and his remaining asked for a peace treaty in exchange for a save escape out of Ortus Mons.

### **Aftermath**

After the giants captured Aurum Invicta the dwarves were forced to sign a peace treaty. They where to leave the mountains and release all of their vassals. The dwarves went into diaspora and the kaiser moved into the small sea side city called Tyria Rupes and declared it as the new capital. Many of the old generals refused to recognise the kaiser any longer after his shameful defeat against the savages and declared independence. The next couple of centuries of the Dwarven Imperium were filled with iron, steel, and the reconquest of these rogue kingdoms and eventually managed to regain some of the lost lands again.