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The Honoured Greatholds of the Undivided Southern Dwarfclans (Old Tongue: Castra Honorata Magna Tribuum Nanorum Indivisorum Australium), otherwise known as the Khargrim Greatholds, is an old dwarven nation consisting of various cities and settlements throughout the Tropical Lands of Koldenwelt which serves as the primary unified government of the Khargrim dwarves - the descendants of Dweorg clans and tribes which migrated southward from the Eastern Plains following the Grand Defiance against the Cobalt Kingdom. Founded within the first centuries of the Old Age by the Venerable-Clan Khargrim and associated clans and tribes led beneath them during their migration into the southeast, the state of the Khargrim Greatholds has since become a regional superpower through its mastery of metallurgy and rune magic and its focus on upholding philosophies that promote militarism and utilitarianism among the dwarven populace, boasting an industrialist military culture which allows the Greatholds to retain large and highly organised standing armies and, through the exportation of ore and military materials to allied and neighbouring nations, generate the wealth and assets required to sustain them.
The Khargrim Greatholds are each governed by largely autonomous Thanes and their individual councils of advisers, runemagi, and military leaders, although ultimately it is the Lord-Thane of Khargrimhold who holds ultimate authority throughout the realm; a constitutional monarchic figurehead drawn from the Archclan - the Khargrim equivalent of a royal family - whose responsibilities include supporting the clans and lands of the Thanes, defending their nation and the Hammer Throne of the God of Dwarvenkind, and maintaining peace and balance within the Greatholds, occasionally through militant means, in order to keep the Thanes loyal. The Greatholds reflect the stubborn nature of dwarvenkind in that, even after millennia, they retain many traces of ancient Dweorg culture and are built upon tradition, oaths of loyalty between clans and lords, and a combination of pragmatic and conscientious attitudes generally held in high esteem by the dwarves. In spite of its grand scale of military assets and the undoubted efficiency and value of dwarven craft, the Greatholds, in regards to technology, progress slowly and tend to stagnate, with significant innovation being uncommon due to a reliance upon methods and technology that have been deemed safe and dependable for centuries, if not millennia.
Instilled with a deep hatred for the Simulacra as a result of their enslavement to servants of the otherwise malicious and evil pantheon, alongside a general distaste for servitude built upon slavery and oppression, the Khargrim have built their Greatholds through order to be unyielding, wealthy, and powerful, and in spite of the stagnant nature of dwarven technological development, the southern dwarves constantly seek to expand the reach of their territories and exploit resources in lands elsewhere - supported by armadas built of warships, escorts, and armed exploratory vessels and retaining trade and military connections with the various nations and cultures of humanity, the interconnected states of the elves, and multiple kingdoms of beastfolk, the Khargrim are averse to the idea of delving too deep or sailing too far, for they seem to be driven by a suspicious necessity to endlessly consolidate power and riches for the Greatholds.
History[]
Origins and Grand Defiance[]
Although many of the details of their ancestors have been almost entirely lost to time, thus causing speculation as to whether they were an artificial race or not, the scholarly dwarves of the Greatholds, alongside those dwarven kingdoms and cultures that reside across the other regions of the Eastern Continent of Koldenwelt, believe they know that they descend from the bloodlines of the ancient Dweorg, otherwise known as Ur-Dwarves to some; a Deiwos race native to the Eastern Plains, their ancestral mountainous homelands were overtaken, conquered, and exploited by the forces of the Cobalt Kingdom, whose sophisticated mastery over the alchemical arts of transmutation and their greater mumbers ultimately assured them the path to victory while the divided warring tribes and clans of the Dweorg found themselves both outmatched and outnumbered. Decimated and enslaved by their new Ordnung masters, with only minute fractions of a number of tribes escaping to live beyond the region, the captive Dweorg's bodies were forcibly changed and transmutated into different shapes to suit differing purposes - many found themselves physically enhanced in a number of ways to serve as strong and fortuitous warriors and manual labourers, although at the cost of much of their creative thought and intellect, turning many of their kind into obedient, quiet slaves who innately feared or respected their lords and owners. Those who were mutated and made to serve their Ordnung overlords would then be set upon their free cousins who escaped to the northern wilds, acting as proxies for the Kingdom as they hunted, decimated, and captured their brethren to be returned to the Eastern Plains and suffer the fate of indoctrination and seemingly eternal servitude.
The enslavement of the Dweorg tribes led to the loss of much of their culture, with nearly all knowledge of their own history and ancestors being selectively bred out of them with each new generation due to the oppression suffered at the manipulative claws of the Ordnung and their God-King, Goldemar, although a number of old practices and skills that their masters failed to breed out of them had persisted, such as the brewing of alcohol within the slave camps - allowed by their masters by merit of seemingly unlimited access to drink - and the growing of beards and bodily hair in spite of their lords' consistent attempts to alchemically augment and cease, if not at least suppress, their copious amounts of hair growth. Under the command of the God-King's generals and lieutenants, castes of Dweorg, forged and reshaped for war, met the forces of the Void, the servants of the Adversary, Simulacrum of the Void, and his allied lords, on the battlefield to fight alongside the armies and legions of the other powers of the Earthsea League, an alliance consisting of the Cobalt Kingdom, the Ondarei Mharinis of the Marinis Dominion, the Kormacvarah of the Realm of Kormacvarah, and the Sohet of the Sohetar Realm, with a number of Dweorg, both wild and captive, being allowed membership into the ranks of the Dawn Wardens alongside their Ordnung masters. Following the end of the Adamantine Age, marked by the defeat and fall of the Adversary, the creation of the Eye, the corruption of the Orichalcum Elves and their Imperium into the Shiarchon and their Adravaelic Empire, and the migration of Klaxxa from Abyssus into the Eastern Plains, the Dweorg were forced to serve their lords in participating in the systematic slaughter and decimation of the Dragonlings who sought refuge at the mountains of Ar-Klith - events which seemed to stir an awakening among the enslaved Dweorg that caused them to no longer naturally fear or respect their masters, but instead, resent them, even after the Ordnung had taken extreme measures to ensure that their strong, psychologically nulled warrior-slaves would remain absent of thoughts of doubt, aggression, and disobedience towards them.
Following the declaration of a New Age - now known as the Old Age - the Dweorg would eventually receive an opportunity to unwittingly enact vengeance for the ancestors that their masters had convinced them never existed due to their kind being, as they were told, 'artificial' and a product of the Kingdom's mastery of advanced alchemy in the form of the conception and birth of the New Colossus of Lightning; although the exact details of his creation are unknown, Thunardormir, the Thunderous Hammer of Koldenwelt, would be brought into the material world with a purpose gifted to him by the Great Mother and the soul of Koldenwelt itself, Isiris. In the form of a shade composed of lightning and storm clouds, the Colossus infiltrated the Cobalt Kingdom behind the backs of its Ordnung rulers, escaping the notice of the God-King and his underlings, and sewed the seeds of rebellion and inspiration among various Dweorg individuals and populaces throughout the Eastern Plains, already doubtful of the authority and power of their slave-lords, through demonstrating his godlike power - abilities unmatched by the Dweorg's mortal masters - and selecting a number of chosen folk to learn and teach the powers of rune magic - a method of spellcasting accessed through imagery and written words serving as physical incantations, allowing the Dweorg to access the capacity for destruction bestowed to them by Thunardormir. These champions chosen by the Thunderous Hammer would become known as the Rune-Heralds, whose purpose was to ignite the cinders of doubt into the very flames that would lead to the fall of the God-King and his realm.
The bloody events that transpired following the selection of the Rune-Heralds would become near-universally known, both among Dweorgs and their descendants, as the Grand Defiance; the eruption of revolution of the Dweorg slave-castes against the Ordnung lords and their God-King, with the Rune-Herald Khargrim Thrain, once a gladiatorial champion owned by one of the God-King Goldemar's highest-ranking peers, utilising his newfound strength, magic, and freedom to pay visit to the Ar-Klith refuge settlements of the Claeg-snaha with a personal guard consisting of fellow gladiators and slave-warriors to call for a truce and alliance with their ruling Matriarchs against the Kingdom and grant one another significant strength. Reinforced by, and in turn reinforcing, the forces of their new Klaxxa allies and being accompanied into war by Thunardormir, now fully physically manifested into the material world, the Grand Defiance concluded in the systematic decimation of the Dweorg, the sacrifices of nearly all of the Rune-Heralds, further death and bloodshed dealt to the vulnerable clay-snakes, and, ultimately, the long-awaited downfall of the Cobalt Kingdom as of 4,900 BNA, alongside the extermination and execution of many of the defeated Ordnung, with the Dweorg celebrating, and yet mourning, their victory by building their first independent, sacred city - Dweorghold - and constructing the Hammer Throne, a colossal seat at the heart of their settlement, as a gift to Thunardormir - the newly-crowned God of Dwarvenkind.
Founding of the Southern Greatholds and the Old Age[]
Following the aftermath of the Grand Defiance and the construction of Dweorghold, for the liberated Dweorg, and the Hammer Throne, for Thunderous Hammer Thunardormir, the Runehaven Domain - a kingdom built atop the remnants of the Cobalt Kingdom's ruined settlements following innumerable raids and assaults on part of the rebellious Dweorg slave-soldiers and their allies - was established from the decimated population with the assistance of the Klaxxa and their Matriarchs and founded by a council of surviving Rune-Heralds, alongside the disciples of those who had died during the Defiance, known as the Conclave of Runelords in order to allow the opportunity to survive as a unified, independent people; trading minerals, ores, and other valuable alchemical ingredients with their allies in exchange for food, the Runehaven Domain recovered and thrived as their numbers and military strength expanded throughout the course of approximately six centuries, with guidance beneath the joint leadership of the Runelords and the divine Thunardormir allowing the descendants of the rebels to move from their slave roots to a prospering, strong people as dwarves - a thrall-tongue corruption of dweorg, the Ordnung title for their race. However, in spite of the successful growth and recovery of the Runehaven Domain, the Runelords who governed it eventually came to the conclusion that, to prevent the risk of following in the footsteps of their ancient masters and claiming the Eastern Plains for their own, the strength of the dwarven people must be divided and dispersed across the Eastern Continent, thus many clans and tribes of dwarves migrated outward from the Domain into neighbouring lands and regions, with those guided under Khargrim Asmund of the Venerable-Clan Khargrim, the grandson of the martyred Rune-Herald Thrain, travelling southward into the Tropical Lands to settle in the southeast.
Khargrimhold, the centre of political power and authority for Clan Khargrim, and neighbouring fortress-cities would be constructed onward from 4,200 BNA, establishing the Honoured Greatholds of the Undivided Southern Dwarfclans, or the Southern Greatholds and Khargrim Greatholds following Asmund's passing as the dwarven migrants and nomads who were guided into the south beneath his leadership took on his name as the Khargrim Dwarves in tribute towards him, his grandfather, and the other members of his lineage who proved heroic or reputable in the past. Following the establishment of their fortified settlements in the south, the dwarves were swift to find trade partners - while initially suspicious of them due to their worship of the Simulacra, the Freeland City States, an ancient nation of tribal humans, proved themselves helpful to the Greatholds as they offered their services to the dwarven industrialists in mapping and exploring the tropical wilderness of the region, alongside their methods of astronomy, in exchange for the secrets of metalworking and various precious materials that the dwarven clans mined from the deep earth and used for their weaponry and jewellery, while the Greatholds continued trade with the draconic denizens of Ar-Klith and their reigning Matriarchs.
However, the Greatholds would soon find their warriors tested following the rise of the Duergar Empire, an imperialist faction of fallen Dweorg who, after opposing the idea of dividing and splitting the strength and power of the Runehaven Domain as decreed by the ancient Conclave and their patron deity and reclaiming abandoned lands left by both the dwarves and the old Ordnung, became tempted and corrupted by the promise of further power from a remnant of a supposedly ancient, primeval entity in the form of a fabled dragon-lord of darkness; the kingdom of cruel, bitter slavers, empowered yet cursed by the touch of dark magic, would arise from their underground lair of Blacktar in roughly 3,850 BNA to maraud and claim the northern settlements and territories of the Khargrim for themselves, embodying ideologies reminiscent of the Old Masters their ancestors once fought against. Simultaneously, Khargrim that had settled the lands of the southwest, near the accursed Plagued Lands, or Qliphoth, revolted against the authority of the Lord-Thane and the Archclan in what became known as the Bastard Rebellion, for it was a group of illegitimate descendants of the Venerable-Clan Khargrim and allied families who assumed ultimate leadership of the southwestern colonies and eventually attained full independence as the Bastard Clans due to becoming equipped with Qliphothic iron attained through mining and trade with the local Oevrumine populace, reinforcing the beastfolks' own rebellion against the kingdom of the Khalmartia with dwarven warriors and berserkers while minotaur soldiers ravaged the Realm Companies of the Greatholds.
In roughly 3,000 BNA, the southernmost descendants of the culturally and technologically primitive Loron, known as the Bharloron, would arise within the Tropical Lands and, with their immense strength and powerful physiology, would serve to pester the settlements of the Greatholds and surrounding powers; while initially mocked for their divided state and primal ways, eventually, in 2,800 BNA, the beastmen would unify under the banner of the Grand-Horde of Karn'Gor, founded and governed by the self-proclaimed Chief-King Karn'Gor, and prove a significant problem and growing regional power as Khargrim settlements, including a number of Greatholds, were claimed and taken from them to be either pillaged and razed or turned into seats of power for the Chief-King's Warchiefs - the lieutenants who served to expand Karn'Gor's empire of barbarians across the south and, eventually, into the eastern and western regions of the Eastern Continent. The Savage Wars, as the conflict became known among the Greatholds, lasted until 2,500 BNA where the Chief-King Karn'Gor the Immortal, as he had taken to calling himself, was slain following the deaths of numerous strong and capable Warchiefs, causing the Bharloron folk to scatter into numerous divided tribal kingdoms and sub-empires which would persist in raiding the Khargrim and neighbouring cultures. However, while faced with the fall of the western Greatholds which would compromise the standing and defence of Khargrimhold, the last renowned Lord-Thane of Clan Khargrim, Khargrim Throthok the Stalwart, and a vast majority of the Khargrim Honour-Guard, alongside those of a number of allied Highclans, travelled westward to reinforce their settlements and attempt to inspire morale among the Realm Companies, only for Throthok to die a martyr saving the Greathold Kunmaldur at the hands of Karn'Gor and his First Heir, Khargrim Maldhorm, to later die of wounds afflicted with potent venom magic during an intense duel against the Warchief Zul'Baljin - a master of guerilla warfare and a naturally underhanded, yet surprisingly calculated, Bharloron warrior who, alongside his disciples, utilised enhanced venomancy to bypass the dwarven resistance to natural toxins.
In early 2,000 BNA, the Southwhistle Gnomes found their coastal homelands ravaged and themselves preyed upon by the warriors of Warchief Tor'Kakan, an ancient survivor from the Savage Wars who was later slain through the intervention of the Khargrim Greatholds following first contact between emissaries of the desperate gnomes and the dwarven lords. In compensation for their lands being ruined and their smallfolk decimated by the Bharloron, the Greatholds accepted the Southwhistles as refugees, eventually integrating them into their culture and society and building Whistlehold - a Greathold reserved exclusively for the authority of the Southwhistle clans - atop where their old ancestral lands once stood, with the first Sibling-Lord of Whistlehold, Bilben Tinloflink, being elected among the most influential gnomish families in 1,850 BNA.
From Whistlehold and a number of other coastal settlements, with assistance from their new Southwhistle companions and their innate ingenuity and knack for creative talent, the Khargrim would begin attempting to settle the islands off the southern coast off the mainland of the Eastern Continent with capable ships and vessels, beginning to build a potent fleet, expanding their rule and garnering new information, lore of the world, and material resources as the Greatholds established colonial settlements upon isles such as the Archipelago and garnered contact and trade with the Mikmik of Hyperion Island, although their various attempts to settle Akriarion Island were met with subsequent resistance and overwhelming hostility from the resident Vulcanus Horde, under the command of a Vulcanus Orc that would become known as the infamous Scorched General, Wrugrak; all servants of one of the last surviving members of the Ondarei Mharinis, Xacutus, the ancient, powerful, and irreparably insane Mad Pyromancer of the Adamantine Age who sold his sanity to combat the heretical Cult of the Eclipse. The sheer strength of the Vulcanus Horde, demonstrated in their technology constructed of molten ore, adaptation to the hostile landscape, numerical advantage, and mastery over the school of augmented and enhanced pyromancy, served to cause the Greatholds to soon steer clear of the vicinity of Akriarion for they came to fear the isle as a home for powerful, fiery daemons.
Characteristics[]
Species[]
Government[]
The Khargrim Greatholds are governed by a collection of largely autonomous individuals derived from numerous highly-influential and financially and militarily powerful families known as Thanes, who serve as administrators of dwarven cities and settlements and maintain a significant hand in matters of law and justice, inter-clan feuds and disputes, military and public security upkeep, and handling the internal economy and tax collection within their cities, while also retaining communication with neighbouring communities and settlements - both dwarven and foreign. The Thanes and their varying responsibilities are bound by codes, traditions, and guidelines determined by a figurehead known as the Lord-Thane of Khargrimhold, a constitutional monarch drawn from the Archclan - the Khargrim equivalent of a royal family - who cooperates with the autonomous Thanes and their families, alongside other affluent clans, and handles significant internal and external political matters alongside overseeing the numerous organisations founded to defend the Greatholds, such as the Truthsounder Lodge, the Black Company, and the Runemagi Brotherhood, among others.
Highclans and Thaneclans[]
Lord-Thane and the Archclan[]
Military[]
Realm Companies and Free Companies[]
Truthsounder Lodge and the Black Company[]
Society[]
Magic[]
Runemagi Brotherhood[]
Religion[]
Disciples of the Hammer[]
Technology[]
Individuals[]
“Now, now. If you're going to do something, do it for something other than coin; do it because it is what your heart and soul tells you to do.”
- Name: Jalaric Hathgar
- Affiliation: Khargrim Greatholds
- Status: Active
Great-Captain Jalaric Hathgar the Third of Khargrimhold, otherwise known as Hathgar the Berserker, is the eldest son of the Lord-Thane Jalaric Hreithar the Second and the current Great-Captain of the 4th Khargrimhold Company. A former mercenary and exile in his youth due to an incident involving the unintenional murder of the son of a Clan-King during his time in the 2nd Khargrimhold Company, Hathgar is a self-proclaimed patriot and a recognised, and valued, defender of the Greatholds due to his compassion for his role and his experience and skills as a dwarven warrior. While noted to be the First Heir of Khargrimhold, thus inheritor of the position of Lord-Thane, Hathgar shows little to no interest in the internal politics of the Realm and no desire for the role, instead preferring to leave the task to his younger sibling, Hafgrim, once the next monarch is to be coronated.
Hathgar possesses a penchant for adventure and frontline combat in contrast to his role as a commander, a role at which he is undoubtedly competent at, and is known to be marked with a Rage Enchantment - a runic tattoo which distinguishes him from other dwarven warriors as it allows him to enter a berserk state at will and channel supernatural strength and the essence of electromancy. Hathgar is recognised as a potent warrior across various regions of the world due to his ventures and actions as a mercenary, although he is also known to be largely jovial and friendly and a caring family man as he supports both a wife and a child, Jalaric Konal the Second, and seeks to uphold the pride and dignity of Clan Jalaric, alongside the Greatholds in their entirety, at any given opportunity.
“There is more to the world than bloodshed and death... To resist that false truth is the greatest challenge.”
- Name: Kvo Eirik
- Affiliation: Khargrim Greatholds
- Status: Active
Kvo Eirik, otherwise known as the Lightning Bruiser, is an Adept of the Bheldaral Monks, a sect of the Disciples of the Hammer, and one of the most potent warriors of his order despite his rank in the hierarchy. An ex-adventurer who travelled the Eastern Continent of Koldenwelt while on pilgrimage in his youth, Eirik is a kind and gentle soul who prefers the ideals of peace and mercy to violence in contrast to his devastating strength, skill, and capacity for electromancy, which owes itself to a distaste for causing permanent harm and, to a far greater extent, death. Considered to be a pacifist, Eirik is a master of unarmed combat and is capable of harnessing and channelling intense amounts of power and magic although he will only bring himself to fight in self-defence or for the safety of others, with the full extent of his ability never having been seen even by his masters and tutors.
Eirik has no known family due to having been orphaned and delivered to a monastery of the Bheldaral Monks and, as per the traditions of the Disciples of the Hammer, is celibate, instead considering his fellow members of the Bheldaral Monks to be his family. He enjoys drinking as all Khargrim do, in fact contributing to his martial prowess as well as his social ability, and resides at the Hammer Throne of Thunardormir at Dweorghold as part of a group of other dwarven monks in order defend it and represent his monastic order. Eirik is known to be a close friend to the First Heir of Khargrimhold, Jalaric Hathgar, due to having accompanied one another in many adventures prior to the onset of the New Age.
