Anvil Vale History

This is the history of the Hammer Peak, and of the Anvil Vale. It is also the known record of the dwarrowfolk, insofar as it is known and remembered by historians and archivists.

The Rising Days

The Rising Days are more a thing of legend than true recorded history.

• Unlike many peoples, the dwarrowfolk (a people that includes both lineages of dwarves, as well as the rock gnomes and the genasi who rise spontaneously from the elemetal power in dwarrow lineages; later, this includes the stout halflings) do not attribute the creation of their kind to distant gods or extraplanar powers.
  • Instead, they claim that during the Dawning of the World, when much life rose from the lands themselves, the dwarrowfolk rose from the purest veins of materiél beneath the earth.
  • Born from flint and granite and obsidian, the mountain dwarves rose from Stone.
  • Born from iron and tin and gold, the hill dwarves rose from Ore.
  • Born from quartz and garnet and diamond, the rock gnomes rose from Mineral.
  • To this day, the term "Of Stone and Ore" describes all things dwarven, while dwarrowfolk are somestimes call "the People of Stone and Ore and Mineral" in older texts.
• It is said that the First Dwarrows – each the first of their own kind – roamed the lands of the Vale.
  • Some legends claim that each was alone, and that it was out of their loneliness that the Great Making occurred.
  • Other tales suggest that the First knew or at least encountered one another, and that they each shared their own trove of crafts-lore.

The Great Making

• However it happened, the First Dwarrows undertook the Great Making, taking up the materials from which each of them were made, and made the Elder Dwarrowfolk, the first generation of each type of dwarrowfolk.
  • Mountain dwarves were carved from stone, hill dwarves were alloyed from ores, and rock gnomes were cut and polished from gemstones.
  • It is said that the detritus from the Great Making – the chips of cast-off stone, the ash and slag of the smelter, the crumbled dust of cut-away gems – were cast in the World Fires to be rid of them. Instead, they mixed and changed, and gave rise to the goblinoids of the world: greedy, vicious, full of hate and anger, forever resentful of what the dwarrowfolk were given by the First Dwarrows.
• It is also said that during these days were the First Dragons born in the cataclysmic hearts of the worst elemental chaos of the world: the hearts of blizzards and thunderstorms, the churning morass of stagnant waters and poisonous stinking woodland vales.
  • In the deeps of the earth, the great firestorms of the World Fires gave rise to red dragons, and the early dwarrowfolk were the nearest folk on whom these terrors might turn their rage and fury.
  • In time, the dwarrowfolk drove the dragons from beneath the earth and into the skies above the mountains, though they still remembered their origins and preferred to lair in caverns yet.

The Dwarrow-Crún

• In time, the dwarrowfolk became so many in number that Hammer Peak threatened to burst at the seams with their activity and constant making.
  • Dwarrowfolk raised hand against dwarrowfolk in this place of scarcity, and for the first time the dwarrow-blood was spilt by dwarrow-hand.
  • In disgust, the Elder Dwarrowfolk slipped away into the deep places of the earth, vanishing in their entirety, reuniting with the stone and ore and mineral that they were wrought from.
• It is during this time that half of the People of Mineral – who like gems to stone and metal, were rarest of all dwarrowfolk – followed lights and sounds out of crowded Hammer Peak.
  • Forced out of a homeland which no longer had room for them, the gnomes were lured by promises of beauty and pleasure into the dark temptations of the Feywild, lost to its seductions forevermore.
• Only one was wise enough to mark the departure of the Elder back into the earth, and the loss of half the People of Mineral, and to realize the loss to all dwarrowkind.
  • This one spoke to their people, first finding those among their companions wise enough to see that Hammer Peak should be creche but not tomb.
  • Then, as a smith puts order and form to their workshop or the lapidary sorts their gems by shape and make and color, this one sought to create order among the dwarrowfolk.
• At first those who thirsted for chaos resisted the efforts, for though it is the nature of dwarrowfolk to seek stability and order, still they were birthed in the groaning madness of the earth's creation, all fire and molten rock.
  • Still, the words and wisdom and strong arm of this first peacebringer spoke of the need for the Great Circle, the most perfect of crafted shapes.
  • They spoke of the power of the circle, which contains and defines in its shape, but grows ever greater as it much encompass more, never bursting its limits.
  • They spoke of the dwarrowkind as that circle, and joined with the eldest of the dwarrowfolk – those who wept the greatest to see their descendants spill one anothers' blood needlessly – and bid them help them form a circle of the dwarrowfolk as well.
  • Only the People of Mineral did not join in council, for they wept at the loss of their kin to the Feywild, and had settled in to see the end of things. They refused to look outward and instead chose to stare instead into the depths of the gemstones which were their delight to craft and hoard.
• This forging of the chaotic dwarrowfolk into the first true society was truly the work of a master craftsfolk, and in gratitude the dwarrowfolk shaped a circle of stone and metal and mineral, and bid this Great Architect of dwarven society to continue to guide them with this Crown.
  • Thus was elevated the first of the Dwarrow-Crún of ancient days, whom other folk called "dwarf-kings" for all that half of them were dwarrow-dams.

The Crownrule

• The Crowning of the Dwarrow-Crún was the dawning of the age of true dwarven civilization.
  • Because the elder dwarrowfolk drew upon their familial bonds – love and care and the desire to protect ones kin – the Dwarrow-Crún raised up those family groups, creating the Great Clans.
  • (This is why the Great Clans are made up only of the People of Stone and Metal, it is worth mentioning, although some historical records of particularly ancient provenance seem to hint at the notion that there were once Great Clans of rock gnomish lineage as well.)
  • The Crown entrusted much of the ongoing care and ordering of the dwarven people to the Great Clans, and they strove to the best of their ability.

The Days of Thunder

• It was during these early days that the underways beyond the Hammer Peak became dangerous for the peoples' prospectors and hunters, who began to disappear in great numbers.
  • The Crown appointed great heroes and sent them seeking their lost kin.
  • These heroes also died, but not before some managed to return to Hammer Peak to speak of the Thunder Ways, a warren of caverns that rose from the roots of the mountains into a high peak, filled with the stormborn blue dragons who ravaged anyone and anything that neared them.
  • Such a threat could not be countenanced, and so the Crown called upon their people to rise up and clear this threat.
• For a generation, the dwarven peoples fought against this threat, and many died.
  • In great despair, the first Dwarrow-Crún gave in to the grief of seeing their people die by the scores, and strode out to do battle with the Living Storms, those eldest of blue dragons.
  • They smote half their number down, with great power and fury, but grief had already laid a pall of mortality on the heart of the First Crown, and they were struck down and passed into death.
  • All seemed darkest in these days, for the notion that the Crown might need an heir one day had never occurred to the dwarvefolk, and chaos seemed inevitable once more.
• It is said that the First Crown passed into the deep shadows of the deathly realms, and there found the Elder Dwarrowfolk, weeping yet.
  • When they asked them what it was that caused them to weep, the First Crown found that the Elder did not know of the great reordering of dwarrowkind! They'd slipped into these shadows in grief at the chaos, but had never heard of its resolution.
• So it was that the First Crown spoke of the great virtue of dwarven society, of its order and nurture, its protection and wisdom.
  • How gladdened were the Elder Dwarrowfolk, fearful that their creations were lost forevermore, but now seemed saved!
• But with great grief, the First Crown told them of these Days of Thunder, when it seemed like the chaos born in the hearts of storms might spell and end to the dwarvenfolk.
  • The Elder Dwarrowfolk rose as one, and said "This we will not permit."
  • Though they were in the shadow for too long, and could not emerge once more, still the Elder Dwarrowfolk could bring one final gift to their people.
  • They went a-seeking, and found the spirits of the eldest of them, the very children of the Elder.
  • Though long dead, these were the wise dwarves who'd once reordered dwarven society for the First Crown, and at the urging of their Elder ancestors, they came and gathered around the First Crown in the shadows of the underworld.
  • The First Crown spoke of the dangers and the deaths of the Days of Thunder, and these elder wisedwarrow vowed upon their names – the very names of the Great Clans themselves – to rise up out of shadow to aid their people again.

The Coming of the Ancestors

• And so it was that in a great battle where the blue dragons threatened to storm the very gates of Hammer Peak that the Urram Athair came, ghostly and wise.
  • Their power raised up the dwarven dead, returning them to life, and healed the injuries of the dwarven wounded, allowing them to fight once more.
  • The wisest among the dwarven warriors dedicated themselves to the service of the Urram Athair, vowing to deliver the wisdom of the ancient ancestors to dwarvenkind forevermore.
• The first of these wisdoms was whom among the kin of the First Crown should bear the Crown themselves.
  • Thus was founded the Thirteenth Great Clan, the Royal Clan, and a dynasty was founded.
  • Clan Forgecrown thus led the dwarven people into final battle with the wyrms of the Thunder Ways. With their victory against the blue terrors, the new Dwarrow-Crún declared their old lairing caverns to be a new dwarven settlement, and founded Caer Stormhold.
• Thus began the millenia of the Crownsrule, those golden days of the highest form of dwarven society, under the kind and benevolent rule of the dwarf-crown of old.

The Clansrule

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The Guldrule

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