Karaz-a-Karak, which the elder tongue names the Everpeak, is the eldest and mightiest of all the holds, capital of the Karaz Ankor and the very foundation-stone of dwarf civilisation. It was among the first delvings of Grungni's children, and it has grown across the ages into a subterranean kingdom without equal: hall upon pillared hall, vault upon treasure-vault, sinking down beneath the tallest mountain in the world. Here the High King sits the Throne of Power, and here, chained open in the deep places, lies the Dammaz Kron, the Great Book of Grudges, in which every wrong ever done to the dwarf race is set down and never once forgotten.
Alone among the great holds, the Everpeak has never fallen. Where Karak Ungor, Karak Varn, and fair Karak Eight Peaks have all passed into ruin and grudge, Karaz-a-Karak still stands unconquered, its gates unbroken, its forges lit without pause since the dawn of the world. It holds the accumulated gold, law, craft, and memory of an entire people, and it is the standard against which every other hold measures its worth and falls a little short. So long as the Everpeak endures, the dwarfs tell one another, the Karaz Ankor is not truly dying: only waiting, and remembering, and keeping its accounts in full.
Order of battle
The Karaz-a-Karak field the units of the Dwarfen Mountain Holds, a detachment from the roster:
Other Dwarfen Mountain Holds formations
Barak VarrThe Sea Hold, carved into the cliffs above the Black Gulf: the only dwarf hold with a harbour, and the gate through which the Karaz Ankor trades with the wider world. Its steam-driven ironclads rule the gulf, and its merchant clans are counted worldly, even dangerously broad-minded, by their mountain kin.
Karak KadrinThe Slayer Keep, iron sentinel of Peak Pass and home to the great Shrine of Grimnir, where doomed dwarfs come to swear the Slayer Oath. Ruled by the Slayer King Ungrim Ironfist, it turns no oath-bound pilgrim from its gates, and so Karak Kadrin marches to war with an army that intends to die well.
ZhufbarThe great engineering hold, built into the walls of a chasm where falling meltwater turns ten thousand wheels day and night. Zhufbar's workshops arm the Karaz Ankor with cannon, handguns, and gyrocopters, and the Engineers Guild counts its forges the finest in the world. Its soot-stained clans are the closest thing dwarfkind has to radicals, which is to say, more conservative than any other race's priests.
Discussion
- No comments yet. Be the first to reply.