Difference between revisions of "King Dwarden"

Latest revision as of 14:49, 5 August 2018

(RAW NOTES - POSSIBLE EDITS FORTHCOMING)

Dwarden as such was founded by the Heurennasian people, whose lords called the Sea Kings came to the rocky shores in the 19th century before Mandador. They were mighty men, long adrift, but after generations had warred with the King of Thorania, their longtime host, and were cast out. One brother was killed, the other betrayed, but three escaped with their followers. Two of the brothers escaped to their ships, and the other to the Tresians.

Arden was the eldest surviving brother, and chose to settle in the austere and harsh land of Dwaros, the home of the Dwar peoples. They founded the hard castle or city of Anren, after their slain and eldest brother, but found the local people hard and unruly, unable to easily tame them, or make them their friends. The druids and totemic shamans of the men of these lands nearly destroyed their fortress, but Arden and his brother Erron slew the giants of the mountains and even the red dragon that ruled their land. Anren married the princess of the Dwar, Kelday the Fiery. Arden built a castle in the Nargad Mountains, and had a son he named Dwarden, whose lands were bequeathed to him. Arden however was besieged by the mighty orcs, who led by a great red dragon slew Arden. Kelday and the young Dwarden escaped to Erron at Castle Anren, and unable to relieve the siege of the orcs, walked down the Steps of Maernost to Storm Port, and took ship to reach his younger brother Alden Giant-Slayer, now a great ranger of Tresia.

Having many adventures along the way, including the slaying of the red dragon of High Gate, Erron and Kelday appealed to King Thamian of Tresia, who came with his allies, as well as Alden and his followers. The god Kalantor appeared to young Dwarden as a retainer of Alden named Kaldor, and taught him to ride a horse, use a lance, and use an axe, abandoning his mother’s teachings of magic. In the Markan Hills they slew the hill giants, but undone by kobolds and goblins, the heroes were captured and dragged before the copper dragon Kelmalkamis the Gleaming. With the help of Kaldor, Dwarden was freed and outwitted the dragon’s son, freeing the rest.

Unable to defeat Kelmalkamis, Dwarden sacrificed to Vandadon, who gave him great strength through the priest Nathos, and Dwarden defeated the hill giant chieftain in unarmed combat. In return for his life, the chief promised to help Dwarden defeat Kelmalkamis. Advised, after sacrifices, by the mysterious avatar of Vandadon named the Autumn Pilgrim (he only appears in autumn), Dwarden is given strategy of how to outwit Kelmalkamis, and so the dragon is trapped in his own valley maze. Wounded by the giants, the great dragon submits to opening the valleys of the Markan Hills for being outsmarted by the young warrior, while the heroes take the dragon’s treasure.

Reaching the Erlokt, Alden slays the monstrous giants there, and the shepherds agree to aid them for their protection. There they rest for ten years, building fortresses. Erron however commands that they continue their quest to free all of Dwaros. Dwarden is sent to the Black River, and shows feats of strength to gain the help of the Dwar warriors there, and Erron crushes four of their mountain kings, killing the fifth one called the King of No Lands, who otherwise had been immortal, for Vandadon blessed his axe.

Now with more allies still, Erron and his army return to the Nargad Mountains. Erron marched into the interior, led by duergar dwarves, to the highest mountain where the dragon slept, but while he and his companions marched up the mountain, the orc army came. Many were slain, and all would have been lost, but the Autumn Pilgrim showed a rare pass and let them escape, sealing the way behind them with an earthquake. Erron himself and his guard held the rear, but Erron was slain by the dragon’s fire.

Kelday next became the Great Queen, and reduced the plateau people with her new Heurennasian magic. But the shepherds were fierce, and Kaldor was slain by the great shepherd warrior Angor Axebreaker, and so prince Dwarden named the plateau after him. Amidst this revolution, Kelday was forced to marry Angor upon the plateau, and so Alden became commander of the war. Returning to the Erlokt, Alden and Dwarden sought the counsel of the gold dragon Anthamatox in Tresia, and told them to seek the aid of the sea dwarves, who might fashion for them the weapons they needed. Bringing back the sons of his remaining followers in Tresia, Alden now led the heroes to the sea, slew the sea dragon that threatened Castle Anren, and was crowned king there. Fighting amongst the sea, for years the slew monsters there until the sea dwarves were freed, and so they forged for them great arrows to slay the red dragon, and a lance for Dwarden to do the same.

Alden then commanded his nephew to take command at Erlokt, which Dwarden did, and married the first daughter of Angor from a previous marriage, named Nalmoria. Dwarden defended the Erlokt from the orc raiding bands, and became friends with the druid Malankor, and the high bard Baldkaram. Soon however, the dread red dragon Zarmakon’s spawn came forth, and Alden slew one that threatened his domain, and so Zarmakon came an slew Alden, as his brother had been slain, and burned Anren into ruins. Zarmakon then burned many villages, and much was feared.

Dwarden now took command, and demanded Angor and his army merge with his. Their priests competed, and when old Nathos summoned power greater than Angor’s shamans, he relented. Dwarden led an army against the orcs of Zarmakon, and destroyed them, but knowing the dragon had still more allies, and remembering the fate of his father, did not yet invade the mountain. Instead Dwarden crossed the Black River, and in those lands demanded allegiance. He sent men to Thorania, and brought still more of his father and uncle’s followers that were hiding as bandits in that land. Refused by the fierce shepherds of the land, Dwarden then climbed the mountains of Antanor to fight Elenstarmana, Zarmakon’s mate. With prayers to Vandadon and Kalantor, he was at first rebuffed and badly burned. Dying, old Nathos brought him back from death, but died himself. And so Dwarden was visited by Palantana who showed him how he might defeat the dragoness. Summoning his powerful mother and armed with a great bow Palantana gave him, Dwarden slew the fire giants like his uncle, and raided the dungeons of evil beneath Elenstarmana’s mountain, slaying her remaining young, and piercing her eye. Elenstarmana fled forever, and he took her many treasures, including a girdle of power made for the ancient kings of Tresia.

Dwarden now became mighty and the dragon of the red dragon of the southwest mountains also fled before him. Marching to the sea, he freed more men from sea monsters, and built a shrine to Maernost.

Worshiping Kalantor, he was granted war priestesses, his uncle Alden’s daughters, who blessed his army, but Kalantor told him final victory could not be granted to him through valor in war alone. Dwarden marched against the Nargad Mountains once more, and for ten years fought five battles against the new orc general, a bugbear captain named Norgum Blackmane. Outgeneralled, he climbed into the Nargad alone into a great plateau, meeting subject shepherds whom his father had once liberated, but now once again in the dragon’s thrall. He prayed there on the peaks, and the Autumn Pilgrim appeared before him, and showed him the secret ways to Lake Skyfold.

There Dwarden was confronted by the gnomes, but who respected Autumn Pilgrim. Meeting the gnome Galikilnest, the greatest of their illusionists, he sees he will risk the wrath of the red dragon, but only if Dwarden can bring forth the amethyst dragon beneath the waters to teach them the secrets of the deep. Dwarden, with the help of an avatar of Maernost named Melgon the Sea Dwarf, constructs a vessel of crystal, and descends beneath the crystal waters, and Galikilnest and he descend. Meeting the dragon, he agrees to help, but only if his own enemies far beneath the waters are defeated. With the sea dwarf’s lance, Dwarden and Galikilnest fool the monsters there, and with Melgon’s help, slay their master. As reward, the amethyst dragon gave to Dwarden a circlet to protect his mind and person, for he told him that the dragon was watching him from afar, and using his magic to peer into his mind.

Marshalling his friends, Dwarden then followed the advice of the dragon, and raided the lair of the duergar dwarves who were making secret weapons against his people, slaying their chief, then using Galikilnest’s magic, stole into Zarmakon’s lair, and stole his treasures, including scrolls of magic and many gems.

Returning to his lands and people, Dwarden then purchased a considerable army, and purchased new weapons from Tresia. Dwarden then set a trap for a raiding army of orcs, destroying them, then marched on the mountains once more, defeating the bugbear general. A third battle, the greatest yet then came, but with his mighty bow, his sea dwarf arrows and his magic strength, he shot away at the dragon, saving his army, and the bugbear fled.

Next, Dwarden marched into the mountains, using illusions to hide his army’s progress, and make another one appear where the was none, avoiding the ambushes of the giants, then he exhausted the dragon’s fire with a siege that had not yet appeared. Dwarden and his friends then scaled the mountain, and slew the dragon at last.

Dwarden was crowned king of Dwaros and all the Dwar, and ruled at Anren, which he rebuilt, and at other castles.

Rule of Dwarden: King Dwarden made the language of the Dwarden people his followers’ tongue, and visited by Vandadon, decreed knighthoods for he and his uncles’ followers, who would help him rule. For the Dwar chieftains, he decreed daughters of his knights for them to marry, and for his knights, the daughters of chieftains. Although this for a time was accepted, in later years, the chieftains, grown rich through their king’s rule, refused the king’s demand for their daughters. Angor, though grown older, rallied their wrath, and in defiance was himself crowned King of the Kald, and betrayed many of the knights. Eventually, the country rose in rebellion, and sieged Castle Anren. Kelday descended from the castle and burned her rebel husband alive from the inside out, then consumed the army in a sea of flame. For such a display, Dwarden exiled his mother.

Later in life, Kelday’s son Kaldar led another rebellion in the country, this time with help from his mother and the King of Thorania. She brought with her also an army of hobgoblins, whom she had compelled into her service. Dwarden and his three sons rode to defeat Kaldar, and succeeded, slaying Kaldar, and sieged the King of Thorania, during which Palantana invested herself as Alden’s youngest daughter Daylora, who as a priestess protected the army from Kelday’s spells, and slew Kelday with an enchanted spear. Kelday however slew one of Dwarden’s sons.

When Dwarden grew old, his second son attempted to slay a son of Elestarmana, but he himself was slain.

Dwarden died of great old age, but still wise and powerful, walking up the highest mountains of the Nargad. The gods took his body away directly, and a great earthquake shook the land, and a rainbow was seen arching up from the mountains into the heavens.