Duergar Empire

## The Empire Below

Sigil of the Royal House of Throdug

**The Duergar Empire**, or as it is officially known **The Empire Below** is the largest Dwarven civilization in all of Immorhia that has existed since the time of Gilder and claims to have predated the Luminous Kingdom.

## History

### 1st Epoch

The History of the Dwarves is written in stone of cairns that have been lost to society for Epochs before the current history. The Dwarven people maintain that the foundations of their Empire predated the founding Gilder and have the world's largest nation to date although this claim has always been unverifiable due to the sheer extent of the Below.

In the earliest era of Dwarven society, the Dwarven clans were divided into various factions of warring princes and city-state Kingdoms who competed for wealth, technology and prestige. This era is told in romantic glamour of heroic princes and princesses seeking to become the inevitable Harbinger of the Dwarven future that could only be resolved by contest of the mighty to see who had the self-attained right to rule supreme.

It was at the conclusion of this era that Prince Murmur Gladan triumphed and united Dwarven society in the auspicious War of Bent Truths where the Prince struck down the manipulative Puppetmasters who lead dystopian societies built on falsehoods.

### The Arrival

In the 2nd Epoch with the arrival of the Elves on Immorhia the geopolitical balance of the world shifted for the Dwarves when the Elves not only settled Omnieve but entered the Below through the cave systems that were soon flooding with marching Drow seeking to extend the Elven domain.

The Elves claim those domains were unsettled and unclaimed, they were simply unaware that the Empire Below even claimed it and the Dwarves insisted that it was an intentional slight of a Dominion they have claimed since the Dawn of Time. Being that the Elves were foreign to Omnieve the Dwarves simply believed they were invaders who cared nothing for the customs of Immorhia and struck their 'attackers'.

The subsequent war was largely uneventful as the Dwarves were unable to field a large enough force to expel the Drow who had been building permanent settlements in the Deep making them almost impossible to dislodge. Enmity between the Elves and Dwarves remain to this day. It was the Dwarves failure to expel the Drow that made some believe that the Below was not truly all governed by Dwarves, a perception the Dwarves sought to dispel soundly when the Kingdom of Ultheim began mining the Below. A war exists between the Empire Below and Ultheim to this day.

### 3rd Epoch

In the 3rd Epoch the Empire Below has become increasingly quiet and seemingly at peace in its relative isolation from world events but in truth it is because Dwarven society itself is disquiet and experiencing upheaval. The Dwarven Society's long held belief that the surface world was not for them has become increasingly untenable as more of their population travel to permanently settle on the Surface and now a permanent Dwarven Kingdom of Achela sits independent of their authority.

The Empire Below is wracked with tension and teeming with political rivalries that affect every part of society. But the Dwarven Nation has always been stubbornly strong and despite this mounting pressures the Empire Below is as strong as the stone it lives in. There is no question that the Empire cannot be overthrown, but will it change? Dwarves are beginning to wonder that very question.