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    Canonfire :: View topic - Dwarves in Greyhawk, Specifically Lortmils
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    Dwarves in Greyhawk, Specifically Lortmils
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    Apprentice Greytalker

    Joined: Sep 10, 2011
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    From: Minnesota, USA

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    Tue Oct 04, 2011 5:04 pm  
    Dwarves in Greyhawk, Specifically Lortmils

    Hey all, still finding my way around all of the information on this site and others, but maybe someone can save me a few minutes. Does anyone know of a good base resources of information regarding the Dwur of the Lortmils? Years ago I developed some grand ideas for a Moria-like place within the mountains, but I have no idea if I have anything still around. Any help is great.

    P.S. I plan on charging back into working more information up, but how many hours are there in a day, 24... really?!
    GreySage

    Joined: Oct 06, 2008
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    Tue Oct 04, 2011 5:39 pm  

    Alas, I can only tell you what you probably already know -- the information in the LGG, page 143:

    "Lortmil Mountains . . . home of many dwarves, gnomes . . . richest gem and precious metal deposits . . . Dwarf clan leaders here . . . rich as princes, sought by emissaries of foreign nations . . . Dwarves are notoriously immune to such overtures, except for the benefit of their kin in the Principality of Ulek."

    More than that . . . I'd have to search for.

    But don't seat it, someone will be along shortly with your answer. Wink Happy
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    Apprentice Greytalker

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    Tue Oct 04, 2011 5:46 pm  

    Haha, yeah, that I do have. But thanks, I figured if anyone in the world would have anything it would be here. And honestly just want to use anything as a jumping off point, I do plan on digging deeply into this topic on my own.
    Adept Greytalker

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    Tue Oct 04, 2011 5:51 pm  

    The LGG also states that there were once "legendary dwarven kingdoms" in the Lortmils (p. 121), and that the P of Ulek was an extension of these. Some of us on here have postulated that the other Ulek states may also have owed allegiance to the dwarven kings at some point.
    Apprentice Greytalker

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    Tue Oct 04, 2011 5:55 pm  

    Thanks Robb, yeah, that has always been the idea that I have always wanted to tap into the most, plus one cannot ignore the idea of "princes as rich as Kings..." Laughing
    GreySage

    Joined: Aug 03, 2001
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    Tue Oct 04, 2011 6:00 pm  

    Some possible inspirations:
    The Dwarves of Rockhome gazetteer.
    Players Secrets of Baruk-Azhik
    The Complete Book of Dwarves
    Races of Stone
    Grandmaster Greytalker

    Joined: Jul 10, 2003
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    Tue Oct 04, 2011 7:58 pm  

    cawdmorris,

    I actually have the Ulek states pay homage to a dwarven king. Ulek is full of dwarven influence and rank above human their IMC.

    Later

    Argon
    Black Hand of Oblivion

    Joined: Feb 16, 2003
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    Tue Oct 04, 2011 8:47 pm  

    Dethand has some crazy "Dwarves of Greyhawk - Everything You Wanted to Know About Greyhawk Dwarves, and a Billion Other Things You Never Even Though to Ask" article he's been working on forever. I may have a copy of the preliminary draft, but it is his to unleash(or not), not mine, so no PM's to me about this. So, ask him, and perhaps he'll unleash the monstrosity(or not). Evil Grin Laughing

    EDIT: I didn't remember correctly. The article I am referring to is mostly somebody else's work, and as such Dethand does not have sole authority to release it. So, please don't bug him. Wink

    Otherwise, Search the site for things related to "Lortmil", "Dwarf", "Dwarves", "Hateful Wars", "Hateful", whatever, and have at it. And, Search the forums too. Various posters will no doubt be familiar with some the articles/threads on this subject, but the subject hasn't come up for a while.
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    Last edited by Cebrion on Fri Oct 07, 2011 12:21 pm; edited 4 times in total
    Grandmaster Greytalker

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    Tue Oct 04, 2011 9:05 pm  

    You all heard Cebrion,

    Pm the hell out of Dethand! Evil Grin

    Later

    Argon
    Adept Greytalker

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    Wed Oct 05, 2011 3:48 am  

    See also
    Dwarves on Oearth [sic]
    and
    Looking for Dwarves...Were to start?[sic]
    Apprentice Greytalker

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    Wed Oct 05, 2011 4:52 am  

    Wow, thanks yes, I will PM him. I do have an old issue of Dragon that is kinda a "all-thing-dwarf" good on generalities.
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    Chris Morris
    GreySage

    Joined: Jul 26, 2010
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    Wed Oct 05, 2011 5:43 am  

    cawdmorris wrote:
    I do have an old issue of Dragon that is kinda a "all-thing-dwarf" good on generalities.


    In case you're not aware, the Best of Dragon Magzine, Vol III, July 1983 (affectionately known as The Gold Dragon to my friends and I back then Happy ) begins with two articles that may be of great help to you. They are The Dwarven Point of View and The Gods of the Dwarves. It is all written for AD&D.

    SirXaris
    GreySage

    Joined: Aug 03, 2001
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    Wed Oct 05, 2011 6:56 am  

    The fan-created Runes of the Dwurs at Azak-Morad has the following history of the Lortmil dwarves:

    In the year 77 RD (-5699 CY), the dwarf lord Lorduïn, Son of Durin, and his people settle in the Hellfurnaces. There he founds Tergorom, The Fire City (hex I5-147), and names his kingdom Holgereth, the Lava Realm.

    In 5352 RD (-424 CY) the Twin Cataclysms destroy most of the old dwarven realms. The dwarves of Holgereth flee to the Lortmils.

    5565 RD (-211 CY) Dwur refugees from Holgereth found Balnorhak (hex M4-107) in the lowest parts of Lortmils, north of the current Principality of Ulek (OJ2).

    5575 RD (-201 CY) Another clan from Holgereth founds the large fortress of Gilmorack (hex Y4-101), in the northern Lortmils (OJ2).

    Those last two entries reference the article on the Lortmils in Oerth Journal #2.

    I suppose I can quote from my own fey-centric history of the Ulek states, which I haven't posted anywhere before. It begins with the imprisonment of Tharizdun and ends with the hero-goddess Fionnghuala, but there's a bunch of dwarf stuff in between, partly inspired by the dwarf history in Races of Stone, by Monster Mythology, by the Book of Artifacts and by my own article on the Underdark of the central Flanaess.

    Quote:
    There is an obscure myth recorded in the Book of Inverted Darkness. Before time began, it is whispered, there was Good and there was Evil, and in the heart of Evil glimmered a vast jewel that manifested all the might of Evil incarnate.

    From elsewhere came one who lusted for power, Tharizdun, who sought the jewel and was corrupted by it. The gem bought Tharizdun power greater than all the gods, some say at the price of his sanity. Others say that Tharizdun came from a place where what we would call madness was all there was, and the gem gave him instead a terrible focus, a kind of chilling sanity that bound him to the logic of our multiverse for all eternity.

    Fearing Tharizdun's might, all the other gods and demons joined together to defeat Tharizdun and lock him away where he could do no more harm to the fabric of existence. In the struggle the dark jewel was shattered into 333 pieces, the pieces flung across the planes. If those pieces could be reunited, the owner would have enough power to set Tharizdun free and return him to his former strength.

    Of those pieces, the fates of three are known.

    One became the Heart of Darkness, the gem the first of all ultroloths used to remove the taints of Law and Chaos from the yugoloth race. These taints became writhing larvae, which were driven to the far corners of the Lower Planes, where they became the first devils and demons. The Heart of Darkness is said to hang still around the throat of the first ultroloth, now known as the General of Gehenna, whispering instructions, taunts, and pleas.

    One became the Crystal of Ebon Flame, which the Oeridians brought from the western lands, and which fell into the hands of the wicked priest Ohjos in the Hool Marshes until his cult was driven to lands far to the south. It was last seen in the hands of the lich Blaise, who has it still.

    The third was a ten-faceted gemstone of terrible beauty unearthed by dwarven miners using the Brutal Pick during the reign of Silvervein Moradinson, the first king of the dwarves. They gave it to Mab, sister of Queen Titania of the Fey, as a way to honor the Seelie Court. Mab was corrupted utterly by the gem, transforming into a dark, hollow creature, the self-proclaimed Queen of Air and Darkness. It is said that even owning the gem for a short time corrupted the dwarves, and began a civil war that ended with the dwarven people split into different races, and the Axe of the Dwarvish Lords lost for the first time. The Queen of Air and Darkness still carries the gem on her person at all times.

    The elves say there are two worlds, the mortal world that we know and the Fading Lands, ruled by the Seelie Court of the fey. It was not always thus. Once, the Seelie Court ruled on our own world of Oerth, and the elves were their children. But tragedy struck, and they were forced to move away.

    A word must now be said about the Seelie Court. This was the first ruling family among the fey, who ruled the elves at the beginning of time. With the corruption of the Queen of Air and Darkness, a war began between those who remained loyal to Queen Titania, the Seelie Court, and those enslaved by her sister Queen Mab using the power of the dark gem, the Unseelie Court. So that this war would not engulf the elven race, Titania and her court disassociated themselves from the mortal world, leaving for the Fading Lands and their new Court of Rings. The war between the Seelie and Unseelie continued without troubling the elves left behind. The elves were left to fend for themselves, to choose a new Fey Queen from among their number. After a century of deliberation, they did, and the Fey Queen of the Elves sat on the throne of Enstad in Celene. Yet the elves never forgot the Seelie Court who had ruled them in the beginning, and some communication and trade continued between the kingdom of the elves and the Court of the Rings beyond the veil between worlds.

    For millennia the Fey Queen ruled from Enstad, the spiritual heart of the elven race. Without the guidance of the Seelie Court, they stumbled on occasion, sometimes very badly. Some fell to the worship of demons; after a civil war, they were exiled as drow. Still, the Fey Court of Enstad remained, fixed and unchanging.

    Millennia later, however, a new civil war erupted in Enstad. The House of Tarefell, long one of the most powerful noble houses in Celene, had secretly fallen to the worship of demons. Their evil was only revealed, it is said, thanks to the intervention of the legendary elven hero Lafarallinn. The other houses united, and House Tarefell was cast into the underworld, where the pale-skinned exiles made common cause with the drow.

    Here, a tragic sequence of events unfolded. Seeking to increase their power in the underworld, the exiles of House Tarefell led their drow allies on an assault against Kroesus, the capital city of the Dwarven Kingdom of Ulek, in the year -245 CY.

    Some more explanation is in order. For centuries, the Kingdom of Ulek, surrounded by mountains, had the chief bulwark against the insidious Empire of Vecna's westward expansion. It had been founded 750 years before by Borin, the first High King of Ulek, who is said to have received a vision from Ulaa herself commanding him to build a city of perfect beauty deep within a mountain, a city which all the dwarf clans of the Ulek Mountains eventually accepted as their capital. No expense was spared in making Kroesus an architectural marvel; it is said that the legendary gnomish artificer Nebelun was recruited to design a series of dams to harness the power of the subterranean rivers. Such was the kingdom's strength that neighboring elves, halflings, and humans swore allegiance to the crown of Ulek in exchange for its protection, and so the Duchy of Ulek, the County of Ulek, and the Principality of Ulek were founded as extensions of Ulek's might, lone hold-outs against Vecna's tyranny, and after Vecna's fall hold-outs against the expansion of Keoland. As time went by, the County of Ulek absorbed the neighboring state of Jurnre, and only grew more prosperous.

    This all changed with the fall of Kroesus. The drow sent spies into the city, and bribed weak dwarves to look the other way while they created a secret entrance in the city's heart, concealed with Tarefell magic. After months of preparation, the fallen elves attacked from inside the city, slaughtering all whom they met. In desperation, the last High King, Kreadin, activated a secret mechanism within Nebelun's floodgates, and the entire city was drowned, killing elf and dwarf alike. There were almost no survivors. The plans of House Tarefell were set back for a generation, but the fate of the dwarves was far worse. Their capital and reason for unity, and the only recently recovered Axe of the Dwarvish Lords, were lost.

    With Kroesus gone, the kingship naturally fell to King Kreadin's cousin, the ruler of the southern Principality. Many would not accept the Prince's rule, however, and competition between the rival claimants for the throne degenerated into open warfare between the dwarf clans. The orc and goblin tribes, who had long been kept in check by the mighty Uleki armies, flooded the mountains and valleys in vast hordes, determined to seize control of the lands they believed had been promised to them by their gods. The Duchy, County, and Principality that neighbored the mountains was cut loose from its long-time protector.

    In the Duchy, which was dominated by elves, things were perhaps even worse. Since the expulsion of the Tarefell, the royal succession in Celene was in disarray, and for the first time in countless millennia the elven race had no Fey Queen, and thus no heart. Celene had long been distant to the elves of the Duchy of Ulek, standing aloof and untouched within its borders as Vecna's depredations forced them to swear allegiance to a dwarven king. With succession in both Ulek and Celene unclear, however, an extreme solution presented itself. The elves of Ulek looked to a much more ancient ruler, the Queen of the Seelie Court, for protection. With marauding orcs and goblins to the west, humans to the east, all in chaos and no help coming from Celene, Titania reluctantly agreed. The gates to the Fading Lands were opened, and tall, aristocratic fey from the Seelie Court returned to Oerth for the first time in years beyond counting. And with their return, the Unseelie Court began returning as well.

    In -145 CY, the Count of Ulek was the human Obutair II. After swearing his allegiance to Oberon, king of the fey, Obutair became the first Count of Ulek to be both a leader of the druids and the secular leader of the County. His ascent to the throne was not bloodless, however. The previous Count, Ubutair's brother Orloi, was killed by Obutair using magical trickery, and Orloi's daughter Gwenhara was secretly a daughter of the Queen of Air and Darkness. When Ubutair's son Cartair and Gwenhara were wed, it spelled the doom of Ubutair's line.

    That doom was not far off in -95 CY, however, which is when the story of Fionnghuala begins.

    Fionnghuala (pronounced "finella") was a ranger in the service of both the Seelie Court and Count Cartair, revering the goddess Ehlonna as well as the fey rulers Titania and Oberon. In her many missions she battled giants, orcs, goblins, and other monsters, but primarily she fought the minions of the Unseelie Court. Wicked fey would regularly sweep through the countryside, hunting mortals and slaying or enslaving them according to their whims. None of the rangers pledged to defend the land against them could discover the gate through which they entered the world, but Fionnghuala went deeper than any other, and discovered the gate in an isolated tower run by none other than Countess Gwenhara, influenced by her mother, the Queen of Air and Darkness. After a mighty battle, Fionnghuala killed the Countess and closed the gate. Then she traveled to the court of Oberon to persuade him that, with Count Cartair, the people of Ulek could govern themselves and the Seelie Court was no longer needed. If they would retreat once more to the Fading Lands, the Unseelie Court would concentrate on other planes and their depredations would cease. Oberon was convinced, but as he attempted to take Fionnghuala to Titania's court so that she could make her case there, the group was ambushed by knights of the Queen of Air and Darkness. Fionnghuala managed to save Oberon's life almost at the cost of her own; mortally wounded, she was healed by Titania herself.

    The fey retreated back to their Fading Lands, and the war between the courts no longer troubled the world of Oerth to the same extent. The battles between the Ulek states calmed, too, as the fey no longer manipulated the politics there. Yet the hatred of the Queen of Air and Darkness for Fionnghuala only grew; the dark Queen demanded that Fionnghuala be brought to her court to become her new "daughter," replacing the one she had slain. When the demand was refused, the Queen of Air and Darkness plotted...


    ...and that leads directly into my story about Fionnghuala and Quaal...
    GreySage

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    Wed Oct 05, 2011 8:34 am  

    That's a great bit of fan-written Greyhawk history, Rasgon! Happy

    It would be much easier to use as a reference in other works if you would submit it to Canonfire! as an article. Wink

    SirXaris
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    Joined: Sep 07, 2011
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    Wed Oct 05, 2011 6:51 pm  

    SirXaris wrote:
    That's a great bit of fan-written Greyhawk history, Rasgon! Happy

    It would be much easier to use as a reference in other works if you would submit it to Canonfire! as an article. Wink

    SirXaris

    Here Here! I second that! would be nice to include as "alt canon" in the "prehistory piece" of "the not defined" area in any of the Chronicled histories of the past. Most Flaness history is more detailed out from the "Human inhabitants" perspective in the other published works. Would be a great addition to the Update gazetteer we are assembling.
    Black Hand of Oblivion

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    Fri Oct 07, 2011 12:20 pm  

    Cebrion wrote:
    Dethand has some crazy "Dwarves of Greyhawk - Everything You Wanted to Know About Greyhawk Dwarves, and a Billion Other Things You Never Even Though to Ask" article he's been working on forever. I may have a copy of the preliminary draft, but it is his to unleash(or not), not mine, so no PM's to me about this. So, ask him, and perhaps he'll unleash the monstrosity(or not). Evil Grin Laughing

    D'oh! I didn't remember correctly. The article I am referring to is mostly somebody else's work, and as such Dethand does not have sole authority to release it. So, please don't bug him. Wink
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    Last edited by Cebrion on Sat Oct 08, 2011 2:34 pm; edited 1 time in total
    Apprentice Greytalker

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    Sat Oct 08, 2011 1:56 pm  

    I already had reached out to Dethand, but he was cool and figure we will chat more about it, so no worries. Figure take what I and others can and build from there. As Cebrion mentions, a history from any non-human perspective would rock and I will do my best to help that along.
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    Chris Morris
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    Sun Oct 23, 2011 11:46 am  

    Sort of a side-issue, but is it possible that the Lortmil Mountains were named after game designer Stephen L. Lortz who played a legendary Dwarf character in the Blackmoor campaign?

    -Havard
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