Dwarfen Holds ~ Karak Zilfin

“All the other dawi look upon Karak Zilfin with pride and mockery, for we are a small hold of modest wealth. We however know the taste of hardship and loss, something we never wish upon our kin. The wealth and grandeur our ancestors had was lost, and we don’t need the gloating of others to remind us of that. The scars of our past are deep in Karak Zilfin’s collective memory.”

~ Orek Roreksson, Son of King Rorek Granitehand of Karak Zilfin

Karak Zilfin is the southern-most of the Grey Holds, sitting above the dangerous Montdidier Pass between the Empire and Athel Loren, beyond which is Bretonnia. The dwarfs of Karak Zilfin are a hardened lot, shaped by their past and present circumstances. Only they could carve out an existence in the shadow of the Vaults and cradle of Athel Loren.

No one has ever envied the lot of the dwarfs of Karak Zilfin, for their hold is among the smallest and poorest in Karaz Ankor. This comes as little surprise to any scholar of history, for the hold is located in the Grey Mountains, a mountain chain famed among the dwarfs for its mineral-poverty. These are not a mountain range that the first dwarfs settled by choice, but rather a mountain range populated out of desperation and/or necessity.

Millennia ago when the first prospectors headed west in pursuit of great wealth, they crossed the Black Mountains, which were poor compared to the World’s Edge Mountains, before reaching the Vaults. The Vaults are an imposing cluster of ice-laden peaks that live amongst the clouds and act as a great barrier in the center of the Old World. Spanning from the Vaults are four ranges – the aforementioned Black Mountains to the east, the Apuccini and Irana Mountains to the south and west respectively, and the Grey Mountains to the north. When the prospectors reached the Winter’s Teeth Pass, which is the geographic end of the Black Mountains in the west, they were left with a choice to venture into the imposing Vaults or to follow the direction of the Winter’s Teeth Pass north into the Grey Mountains. Initial instinct led the dwarfs to go north for the sake of an easier route, but upon reaching the pass known today as the Montdidier Pass, the dwarfen prospectors were left with a difficult choice leading to the first split of the prospector group.

Dwarfen prospectors have extremely sharp senses that allow them to quickly analyze the nature of the rock beneath their feet without having to sink deep prospecting shafts into the mountains, which would be a rather time-consuming ordeal. They place their ear to the stone and with one hand they touch the mountain while the other hits the stone with a small hammer, using the vibrations to let the stone speak for itself. Small rocks are held up to the sunlight to see how the minerals reflect light, catching even the smallest spec of copper that an untrained eye would miss. There are even those among the prospectors who claim to be able to smell certain ores, or taste their bitterness. While rare, one shouldn’t be surprised to see a prospector licking a stone. All of this is done with with great thinking an analysis as the prospectors search for the faintest signs of mineral wealth beneath the mountain. If there is suspicion of some wealth, then shafts are dug to confirm the suspicions. Only once confirmation has been obtained do the dwarfs mark the site in their ledgers as a deposit of worth.

When the dwarfen prospectors reached the pass known today as the Montdidier Pass, which was the southern border of the Grey Mountains, they took great effort to ascertain the value of the land. After weeks of analysis most of the prospectors deemed the southern Grey Mountains, named for the color of their stone much like the Black Mountains, too poor for further exploration. These prospectors opted to brave the the imposing Vaults and strike further west, while a handful of prospectors opted to give the Grey Mountains a chance. Geologically speaking, the Montdidier Pass offers the potential for mineral wealth as it is where the Grey Mountains once connected to the Vaults before the Old Ones wrested the mountains apart. However, the high concentration of metamorphic rocks, particularly slate whose color gave name to the mountains, was not valued by the dwarfs. Veins of marble were found just north of the pass, but this rock was rather more ornamental than practical. What the dwarfs longed for was gold, silver, or gromril, and the southern Grey Mountains simply lacked that.

Deeper explorations into the Grey Mountains would not yield any promising results. The prospectors returned defeated, serving as little more than cartographers who mapped out the mountains and the various passes bisecting them. The Grey Mountains were found to contain no sizeable lodes of precious metals or gems, and minor lodes of iron suitable to fuel dwarfen society. Decades of exploration were deemed to be a wasted effort, for what good were passes between the forested flatlands to the mountain-dwelling dwarfs?

During the early explorations of the Old World’s mountain ranges, the flatlands bore no practical value to the dwarfs. Their concerns were with founding strong holds which both could provide the dwarfen race with wealth, and help them withstand the future war with Chaos. The dwarfs would not have long to wait, for the First Chaos Incursion would start soon after their arrival in the Old World. In fact Karaz-a-Karak was but fifty years old when the First Chaos Incursion reached its gates. Before this time the forests of the Old World were a dark and hostile place, and after the First Chaos Incursion had ended they only became all the darker and more dangerous. To the west of the Montdidier Pass as it is known today, the forest the elves called Athel Loren was an entirely different place, this even the first prospectors of the Grey Mountains noticed. Trolls did not lurk in Athel Loren, for it lacked their stench. After the First Chaos Incursion beastmen did not reign within this forest. While it lacked any sense of Chaos within it, it still filled the dwarfs with dread and unease.

The colonization of the coasts of the Old World by the race of elves would prove to be the event that would cause the dwarfs to return to the Grey Mountains for the sake of wealth. This was not to be wealth for the dwarfs who would live in the Grey Mountains, but rather to secure the mountains so that wealth could flow east to the holds of the World’s Edge Mountains. The dwarfs would return to the distant mountains to found a chain of outposts along the peaks, outposts whose role it was to warn of Chaos-breed activity in the flatlands below, and when possible to stop the creatures from crossing over the mountains. One of the outposts in this network was founded above the pass marked Kadrin Grimaz, the Barren Pass, better known today as the Montdidier Pass. This outpost was named after the pass it was to oversee, Migdhal Grim, the Unyielding Outpost.

Migdhal Grim was founded above the pass the ancient dwarfs knew as Kadrin Grimaz. This pass was the southern-most crossing in the Grey Mountains, which gave it the potential to be traversable during mild winters while passes further to the north were snowbound. The dwarfs manning this outpost were quickly turned into a hardened lot, even more so than the remote outposts of the Vaults. It as not remoteness that hardened the rangers of Migdhal Grim, or even the name of their outpost, but rather the nature of their surroundings. The abundant slate in the mountains near Kadrin Grimaz was not viewed as a suitable building material, at least not by dwarfen standards. The pass itself was littered with tons of debris from the Vaults, as spring thaws broke away pieces of the lofty peaks. To make matters more difficult, the area as battered by nearly constant high winds as northern winds battered the Vaults and were forced down. If any race could make a habitable abode in Kadrin Grimaz, it was the dwarfs, but it would be no easy feat.

Migdhal Grim was founded in an important location, as far as logistics and strategy are concerned, though not a location that offered much promise as far as mineral wealth. As such, Migdhal Grim was not accompanied by the usual dozen or so miners to give the outpost some minor economic viability. Not even stonemasons were sent given the predominance of slate in the mountains rather than more reliable rocks, such as granite or basalt. Instead, the ranger expedition was initially accompanied by a dozen or so dwarf carpenters who were assumed to find some use from the surrounding forests. The rangers who would man the outpost and patrol the surrounding mountains would have to make the best of the slate to build their outpost, but initially it was hoped that the carpenters could provide some shelter. While the rangers got to work clearing small hidden paths in the mountains to key overlooks, the carpenter’s guild dwarfs split into two groups to analyze the quality of the wood on either end of the pass. The carpenters who headed east into the lands of present-day Wissenland returned after some days with a crude wagon they has fashioned laden with wood to begin construction of their abode, but of the western carpenters there was no news.

After not hearing from the western expedition of carpenters for almost four weeks, the rangers decided that they had no choice but to investigate the matter. Perhaps beastmen had found them, or a lone manticore from the mountains. The rangers set out west towards the forest the elves called Athel Loren with a sense of unease. There were no signs along the pass that the carpenters had been there recently. After a few days of travel the dwarfs reached the west end of Kadrin Grimaz and saw the vast forest stretch out below them. A narrow path clung to the Irana Mountains heading west, just above the forest, while a hacked out footpath had been made by the carpenters down into the forest. Slabs of slate had been set into the ground to form a path showing dwarfen craftsmanship at work. This gave the rangers hope, for they thought that the carpenters were delayed due to their construction of a path into the forest, surely that took some time.

The lower they descended into the forest, the greater unease they felt. It was almost as if the forest was reacting to their presence; moving but not moving, speaking but not speaking. When they reached the forest floor their fears manifested before their eyes – the carpenters lay strewn about slain, lashed by branches it seemed. This couldn’t be the work of the Chaos breeds, for the bodies were not eaten, and seemed almost fresh as if they had been slain recently given how the blood had not dried. The rangers were confused for they had heard no shouts in the previous hours of their descent, and given the state of the bodies and blood, the battle had to be recent. A single axe as still buried in a tree trunk, and when a ranger approached it to dislodge it, the tree groaned as if the wind was uprooting it. For the dwarfs who are a stoic and stubborn race, that lone dwarf whose hand was outstretched towards the axe may be among the first dwarfs in unrecorded history to feel a sensation foreign to dwarfs – paralysis by fear.

That day the dwarfs left Athel Loren ever more loathing of the woods and the darkness within. That forest was unlike all the other forests of the Old World. Perhaps it did not contain brayherds or foul trolls, but something else stirred within it, something that took the lives of several dwarfs. The rangers gave the forest a new name, Thingaz’Dum, the Forest of Darkness, and they would not eagerly set out west again. So it was that the population of Migdhal Grim suffered its first losses early in its existence, a sign of the harsh existence around Kadrin Grimaz.

Migdhal Grim would manage to build a decent outpost, sturdy enough to keep the winds at bay, though any sane engineer would think thrice before setting foot inside Migdhal Grim. The rangers found themselves hard pressed to monitor the desolate stretch of mountains that fell under their watch, for the closeness of the forests at the eastern end of Kadrin Grimaz meant that beastmen were never far away. Additionally, the proximity of the Vaults and other poorly manned mountains made for excellent breeding grounds of flying Chaos breeds, particularly manticores. The rangers would have to toil endlessly to keep the Chaos breeds away from the pass, while the poor carpenters worked to harvest what wood they could from the eastern forests in the hope of constructing more buildings to draw other dwarfs to their outpost.

Throughout the Golden Age Migdhal Grim would struggle in the dual shadow of the Vaults and of Thingaz’Dum, with only the elves daring to travel the path to the west. Kadrin Grimaz became a very popular trade route for the southern colonies to transport shipments of grain to their kin in the northern flatlands. The elves didn’t seem to mind the dark forests to the west, and they paid the dwarfs the necessary customs fees to use the pass without argument. The carpenters also became invested in the elven trade, for wagons laden in dozens of sacks of grain or corn were prone to suffering from broken axles or wheels. Elven grain and other foodstuffs were of course welcomed by the dwarfs whose own ability to provide food was limited to game-meat. The carpenters would establish a small settlement of their own closer to the pass, form which they were better able to service the elven caravans.

When the War of Vengeance came, it did not affect the dwarfs of Migdhal Grim much, for they existed in a somewhat remote corner of the center of the Old World. The far greater threat to the outpost was the population of manticores who occasionally made their presence known soaring on the strong winds. Even worse was the sighting of a chimera, something that would require all the dwarfs of Migdhal Grim to come together and track the beast for weeks before they had a chance to lay a trap and kill it. It wasn’t until the first century of warfare passed that elven scouting parties began to appear in the pass. The struggle of war in the north became more dire for the elves after the first century, and soon the scouts would return from the east, leading convoys of elven refugees west. The dwarfs who were guardians of the pass were obligated by their loyalty to the High King to intervene, but their numbers were insufficient to face the elves and they lacked the spite to attack columns of refugees. The elven scouts of course saw the dwarfs up in the mountains looking down, and could have easily dispatched them with a well-aimed arrow, but the elves also opted to avoid conflict with the ragged-looking dwarfs.

It would not be the War of Vengeance that would bring Migdhal Grim to its darkest hour, for that would come after the war. When the Time of Woes struck Karaz Ankor, the Old World was a changed place. Without the elves to cull the Chaos breeds in the flatlands, the remote dwarfen outposts that survived the war now faced isolated in a sea of rabid foes. Most of the outposts in the Vaults had been destroyed during the war, or collapsed almost immediately during the onset of the Time of Woes. Migdhal Grim looked south in horror on that fateful day when the earth began to quake, as a piece of a mountain came down upon a distant outpost, crushing it in an avalanche of rocks and ice. Further to the north, the only dwarfen hold in the Grey Mountains, Karak Zanda, disappeared due to a similar fate. Surprisingly Migdhal Grim would survive the initial quakes that rocked the world, much credit to its carpenters who had worked tirelessly for nearly five centuries to strengthen the structures and not count on the slate to hold up. The wooden beams were more likely to bend than break, a quality the stone did not share.

The Time of Woes would find Migdhal Grim in its most isolated state, left to fend for itself in a desperate bid for survival. The outposts of the Vaults had fallen. The outposts of the Black Mountains mysteriously lost signs of life as hunched creatures resembling beastmen scampered over the mountains. The path to the north had been lost under rockslides and not much time passed before contact was lost with the northern outposts as well. The coming decades would be the darkest hour for Migdhal Grim. Soon after the earth stopped shaking, other forces assailed the lone dwarf outpost, the hour of the Chaos breed had come. As far as the dwarfs of Migdhal Grim were concerned, it was the Second Chaos Incursion.

The exact fate of Migdhal Grim is not entirely known. Any paper records that would have been made in a ledger were lost to time and ironically the only surviving record was carved into the wooden beams by a carpenter in his final days. The final message wrote of the outpost being besieged initially by skaven who the dwarfs managed to fend off, but soon after the clamor of battle attracted a large beastmen herd who the battered dwarfs were unable to repel. Throughout the centuries the outpost had stood strong against the elements, and even the abominations of nature. Alas it was not to survive the darkness that swept over Karaz Ankor.

The next chapter of dwarfen presence above the windy pass of Kadrin Grimaz would not come until a thousand years later. By this time humans had settled the northern forests of the Old World and pushed the beastmen brayherds back, deeper into untamed forests. Around this time the Bretonni tribe would migrate west into the untamed lands vacated by the dwarfs, while at the same time the dwarfs were forced to vacate yet another hold that fell to the greenskin. The initial losses of the Time of Woes were stopped and for nearly a thousand years the dwarfs destabilized their hold on the World’s Edge Mountains and Karaz Ankor. This period of tenuous peace would come to a crashing end when in the span of fifty years Karak Eight Peaks, Karak Izril, and Karak Drazh would fall. From this tragedy, dwarfen life would return to the Grey Mountains.

The fall of the three ancient southern holds would be a crippling blow to the morale of the dwarfs. Many of the survivors from these holds fled to nearby Karak Azul, which still stood in defiance to the greenskin and skaven. However, there were some clans from among these holds who did not want to await their doom in Karak Azul, and instead tempted fate by travelling north against greenskin-occupied lands. A clan of stonemasons from Karak Izril would make this arduous trek north. They had heard of other clans settling in the western mountains, and despite the High King’s disowning of the newly founded western holds, they felt that exile was preferable to death.

In -469 IC the holds of Karak Izril and Karak Drazh fell to the same greenskin WAAAGH! Tempting fate, a clan of stonemasons from Karak Izril decided to trek north across the World’s Edge Mountains, hoping to reach Mad Dog Pass as a first goal. Travelling in the wake of the greenskins who were on their way to conquer Karak Drazh, the stonemasons of Karak Izril would soon find themselves joined by a group of refugees from Karak Drazh including a skilled carpenter and master wutroth craftsman. Their journey north was shortened by a daring move to take a tributary of the Blood River towards Barak Varr, for the dwarfs believed that if they could paddle faster than the orcs could run, then they stood a chance. The plan worked to the astonishment of the water-dreading dwarfs.

Upon arriving at Barak Varr, the refugees of Karak Izril and Karak Drazh related their tragic tale to the citizens of the hold. Many a sympathetic pint of ale flowed from the dwarfs of Barak Varr to the refugees. After hearing of their harrowing flight north atop a hardly-seaworthy raft, the dwarfs of Barak Varr deemed this a sign from the Ancestor Gods, that the refugees had it in their blood to be mariners. The refugees however did not see it this way. Their trade was in stonecraft and mining, not sailing. The refugees had heard of the tale of the dwarfs of Ekrund and how they found a new life in the Vaults, which got the refugees thinking that perhaps there was a chance for them to start anew as well.

Sometime after 400 IC an exhausted column of dwarfs marched across Winter’s Teeth Pass towards the Grey Mountains. These mountains were famed for their poverty, but after all so too were the Black Mountains and the Vaults, and both were now the sites of numerous dwarfen holds. Even before the Time of Woes during the Golden Age, the Grey Mountains only had one dwarfen hold, and Karak Zanda was founded specifically to support trade along a key pass between the major northern elven colonies. After the Time of Woes struck, the dwarfen holdings in the Grey Mountains disappeared one by one, either due to nature’s wrath or the primal fury of races hostile to the dwarfs. At the time when the refugee stonemason clan from Karak Izril arrived in the Grey Mountains, only one new hold of Karak Norn had been founded by the dwarfs centuries earlier, but the rest of the Grey Mountains were unclaimed. There was hope in a fresh start in lands of untapped wealth. With the arrival of the humans, the dwarfs understood that there was as much wealth to be gained through trade as there could be through gold or gems. Thus when the stonemasons of Karak Izril came upon the formerly named Kadrin Grimaz, which had been since rechristened as the Montdidier Pass, they viewed it as an opportunity to restart.

The Montdidier Pass, or Kadrin Grimaz as it was once known on maps that had faded to dust, was an economic route, and those who controlled it would profit. The human tribes who had settled the lands of present-day Bretonnia and the Empire did not take interest in the rugged pass, as centuries of neglect had left it once again covered with debris from the Time of Woes and largely unpassable by wagon caravans. When the dwarfen column had arrived after their years-long trek from Karak Izril they found along the northern rim of the pass the wooden frame of the carpenter’s lodge that had once serviced elven caravans, and further north the ruined outpost of Migdhal Grim. To their credit, the carpenters of Mighdal Grim knew their trade and even after centuries of exposure, the solid wooden beams still stood. The fact that they still stood was a sign to the refugees of the Durazrund clan of Karak Izril, for it meant that the dwarfen presence in the pass never died out. It faded, but lasted until that moment for the Durazrund dwarfs to find it and see potential where others saw none.

Atop the ruins of the forgotten Migdhal Grim, the Durazrund clan established their hold, which would start a new chapter in the history of the dwarfs in the Grey Mountains. The unsavory name of the outpost was a legacy of the past, and a new name was chosen to better reflect the new times. The exact date of the founding of Karak Zilfin, or the Windswept Hold, is not noted, though it is generally assumed to be sometime after -400 IC. The hold was founded by seasoned stonemasons, accompanied by a renowned carpenter, which proved to be just the right combination needed to carve out an existence in the harsh lands of the southern Grey Mountains.

A minor iron mine was established at Grung Ardzufak to provided for the barest needs of the crafts-dwarfs, who wasted no time in carving out a proper hall for their hold into the slate. The stonemasons knew how to read the rock better than the original rangers, and therefore knew how to read the lines in the slate that would easily split the rock. While their halls do not bear the straight-cut ninety-degree cuts that one would find in other holds, the stonemasons worked with the natural lines of the slate to carve out a sturdy hold that looks rather abstract by dwarfen standards, but somewhat artistic by the standards of other more-artistically-attuned races. The inside of the hold has been described by visitors as if the raging winds had shaped the inside of the halls, with the walls formed in all sorts of angles. It was not an orthodox-looking hold by any measure, but abstract thinking was what would allow the Durazrund clan to thrive in a land that others would shun.

The first four centuries of Karak Zilfin’s existence were not an easy time where dwarfen grit and determination manifested in the quick reaping of rewards. No, the dwarfs of Karak Zilfin, originally but a few hundred in number, had to tighten their belts and toil strenuously to carve out their hold and allow life to take root in the barren landscape. Early exploration into the ruins of the outpost Migdhal Grim, which was left standing as a gatehouse guarding the gate into the hold, revealed a room hidden from prowling scavengers by the rune of hiding and within it were the ranger logs revealing the past of the outpost. The warning of these rangers about Thingaz’Dum spared the dwarfs of Karak Zilfin considerable strife. Therefore, any wood that would be harvested for Karak Zilfin’s needs would have to come from the east, from the lands inhabited by the early tribes of men.

As the dwarfs had little in terms of goods to trade with the men, the main good traded in the early years was naturally slate, which had some practical uses for the humans who had lower building standards. The foundation of the Empire in 1 IC would prove to be not only a changing moment in the history of humans, but also of Karak Zilfin. The stabilized eastern frontier began to urbanize and dwarfen stonemasons from Karak Zilfin played a large role in the construction of cities in neighboring Wissenland. Superior dwarfen stonework played a role centuries later when some human holdings in Wissenland survived WAAAGH! Gorbad Ironclaw, while neighboring Solland was utterly devastated and subsequently annexed by Wissenland.

The first centuries of the Empire’s existence were by no means a glorious chapter in Karak Zilfin’s history, for the hold was still miserably poor by dwarfen standards and often looked down upon for having to work in service of the humans to make a poor earning. The Montdidier Pass saw minor traffic, and only after the dwarfs employed considerable effort to once again clear the pass of all the rock debris and stabilize the mountainside. The true changing moment in Karak Zilfin’s history would be the founding of Bretonnia in 978 IC, which brought stability on the western end of the pass. After this point in time the two human kingdoms grew and trade between them, and Tilea, also increased. The old carpenter’s lodge at the rim of the pass was rebuilt and around it arose the settlement of Kazad Elgazund, which sought to capitalize on the increased trade by offering lodging, ale, food, and carpenter services to trade caravans.

After centuries of toil and struggle, the belief that gold can be obtained by trade instead of mining came to some fruition. By the second millennium IC the kingdoms of men had advanced from a society of wood (and slate) into cities of stone and, more importantly for Karak Zilfin, marble. The veins of marble under Karak Zilfin had little value for the dwarfs, who found the stone unsuitable for construction and had the sickly taint of elvish-ness around it. Elven towers had been built of marble, towers that tens of thousands of dwarfs lost their lives to topple. However, human nobles acquired a taste for marble, a cultural trend exported by the Tileans who themselves adopted this from the elves. The demand for marble offered Karak Zilfin its true economic purpose, and subsequent population boom. Marble from Karak Zilfin could be found in the palace of Nuln, castle of Quenelles, or ducal manor of Miragliano. The marble was known to the humans as Windshaped Marble, perhaps due to the translation of Karak Zilfin’s name, but more likely due to the unique swirls in the stone formed when layers of limestone metamorphized with quartz as the Grey Mountains collided with the Vaults ages ago.

Karak Zilfin today is still among the smallest dwarfen holds in Karaz Ankor, with just over two thousand adults falling under King Rorek Granitehand’s domain. The hold has managed to avoid being caught up in any major confrontation with the denizens of Athel Loren, thanks to the warnings of the bygone rangers of Migdhal Grim, or the human kingdoms. Likewise, thanks to the ‘protection’ of both ends of the pass by other civilized forces, Karak Zilfin has been spared largescale incursions by greenskins, beastmen, or other foul creatures. Any hostile force that enters the pass can expect to meet waiting eyes of Karak Zilfin’s renowned quarrellers. It is said that their bolts cut through the winds of the Vaults as if it was a calm windless day. In truth, the quarrellers of Karak Zilfin have mastered the craft of reading the winds and adjusting their flights to flight with the winds than against them, hitting their target as the bolts dance through the air. A Karak Zilfin quareller’s bolt may not flight straight, but it always strikes true.

The banner of Karak Zilfin has seldom ventured outside of the Montdidier Pass or beyond its holdings in the southern Grey Mountains. After WAAAGH! Gorbad Ironclaw ravaged Solland and Wissenland, the throng of Karak Zilfin marched out to cleanse the lands of unorganized greenskin looters. This was not so much a battle as it was the purging of an infestation of pests. Dwarfen ranks cut down the greenskins and gave Wissenlanders breathing room to recover and rebuild. The banner of Karak Zilfin has as its central image mountains surrounded by stylized wind. This is in reference to the winds that bear down upon the southern Grey Mountains from the Vaults. The central image and border of the banner are of a deep azure blue as the open skies that feed the winds of Karak Zilfin. The background of the banner is a glacial blue as the southern peaks of the Vaults from whence the winds come. Some have said that looking upon the banner of Karak Zilfin is enough to fill you with the icy cold of the winds that bear down from the Vaults.

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