Mindelspar Keep

"A dwarf atop the land betrays his heritage and his clan, when he seeks to stride where humans ride upon their hairy beasts, may his beard fall out and his senses dim, to him all that shimmers and shines shall remain beneath." - A Dwarven curse made about those who leave the Earth.   It was these words that followed Umidal Mindelspar through his times as a lord atop the world. When he spoke of settling beneath the open sky, near the sea, where the sound of the waves would become the constant and not the sound of the moaning earth, many a dwarf turned away in disgust. To leave behind the warmth of the earth, the endless bounty of the world beneath, this is a sacrilege to most of the Dwarven clan, especially those who reside within the vast halls of the city of Gronheim. Umidal saw these traditions as stifling though, as a hindrance to the expansion and growth of his people. Why would they continue to restrict themselves to a single way of life? The Dwarves are the greatest of all the races, they thrive wherever they land, their craftsmanship and skill with pick and hammer the envy of the world. So why hide away beneath the mountain, why not spread across the land as do the humans, we can build great castles of stone, to bring the beauty of the mountain outwards into the world. To spread the strength of Moradin to all the world, to grow his influence and spread his name to the lips of all that utter speech. This vision pleased his god and he was gifted strength and power beyond that of the common dwarf, but this also drew the attention of the other gods, especially the covetous and vile Abbathor, who always stood far back in the shadows of Moradir. He sent many of his priests to follow Umidal, to encourage his heresy and to further him along on his journey away from his mountain home.   Upon emerging from the Cloud Peaks, Umidal and his followers were assaulted by the bright light of the day and spent much time travelling in the evening hours to adjust to this world of brightness and fluctuating temperatures. Their first winter was an awful experience and they shivered away their days, adjusting to the cycles of the seasons, unfamiliar with the oddity of change. A dwarf's life beneath the mountain is one of consistency, or diligent work and study, or exploration and continuous expansion. Here in this world their is a cycle to things, feverish activity during the months of the great walkers passing and a general cooling of ambition during it's absence, when the world grows cold and quiet. His followers wished to join the bears in their dens, to sleep away the winter and wait to continue onward, but Umidal was determined to find a place for he and his people. 200 strong they marched through driving snow and frozen wood, journeying ever away from the mountains that they called home, pushing ever south seeking the sea, of which his dreams were filled. After many months of traveling the great walker emerged from the sea once more and the great melt saw the snow washing down the mountains in great torrents along rushing rivers. It was then that they crested Griffin ridge and found themselves staring down upon the land of Howe Sound. A vision took Umidal at that point, he could hear the sound of hammers beating, the clang of metal upon metal, before him within a stormy bay he could see an island shaped as an anvil. "Here we shall build our home he said, here we shall fire the forge once more, we shall erect a great shrine in Moradirs honor, here our people will thrive upon the top of the world!"   To many of his followers this was a fools errand, one without any sense or reason. The mountains ringed this new land, surely any dwarf with a bit of stubble could feel the stones call. They could tunnel within these great walls and find warmth and security away from this infinite expanse of water that stretched on and on and on towards the horizon, threatening to destroy the mind with a form of vertigo. How would one journey across the roiling surface of a cauldron of water? "A stone is at home upon the bottom, not bobbing upon the top like a cork cast off the bottle." But from this vantage point they espied many a ship moving people back and forth across the bay, even in the strongest of currents and waves. "If those folk can ply these waters as we do the underground rivers, then surely it is within the grasp of the greatest folk that ever lived!" Hardened by his words and boundless enthusiasm his road weary companions continued along, he was chosen by Moradir himself was he not, he spoke the old prayers and was a creature of justice. Faith, faith would see them through.    They journeyed down from the pass and first came to know a tribe of halflings living upon the plains of the western expanse, they were creatures of the hunt and of the grass and did not know much of the ways of the sea. So the Dwarves spent time learning of the bow and the spear and how to take down the buffalo and the elk, regaining strength lost through lean months in the cold. They spent many a week journeying around the bay, ranging through great green forests, unfamiliar and beautiful. They encountered strange beasts, wood sprites, owl bears, wolves and strangest of all, the great amber dragons. They hid amongst the foliage during encounters with these terrible creatures, their numbers great but their caution and patience steeling their dwarvish temper. After many tense days travelling beneath the towering canopy of conifers, they came upon a settlement in the southern plains astride a beach upon the southern shores. Several long wooden structures stood parallel to the sea, their entrances all looking out towards the beach. Great statues of wood were erected at the front of some of these structures, depicting carved images of various animals from the surrounding region. Tan skinned folks wearing brown stiff clothing walked about upon the shores, some working with tools shaping great logs into canoes, carvings and planks for use in construction. The Dwarves approached these strange humans slowly and sought out their elders, the humans were kind and though their languages were not the same they were able to communicate with patience. The Dwarves slowly convinced the elders to allow them to setup their tents in the nearby field, and were invited to come and join them for a feast. The humans presented them with many gifts at this dinner, carvings of wood, jewelry made of alabaster, pearl and bone. When they were invited to join them in dancing to the rhythm of the drums they made from seal skins though the dwarves politely declined, uttering amongst themselves "You ever seen a worm fidget" Dwarves are not known to dance, it is something for the lightfeet.    After some time the dwarves were taught the ways of the region, shown what plants were safe to eat, what wood worked best for making ships, and how to recognize when the sea was safe to enter. In time they applied their great skill of engineering to the vessels they crafted and provided many gifts as repayment to the people who had shown them such kindness. Learning to speak their native tongue and returning for every potlach they were invited to attend. But the ways of these people were not the way of the dwarves and their structures of wood felt impermanent and drafty. Once they had managed to construct the vessels they needed to become established they embarked in the summer months to land upon the island of the anvil. There they built their first homes, in the rock of the island itself, hollowing out caves in the sides of the sea cliffs and digging deep within the rock. But these shelters were only temporary, and once they had built a stable fleet of ships, they constructed mines within the mountains north of the the Chekanamus river. They toiled long hours and built great barges to haul stone, gold, silver and ore back to the anvil to work with hammer and fire. The work took many years but over time the trees of the island fell and the stones began to pile up. One by one they stacked the great slabs of rock, working from scaffolding and practicing with great care, digging ever deeper into the mountain and moving its innards over onto the Anvil. After 12 years time Umidals vision was complete, he had built his great castle beside the sea, but the whispers of Abbathor and his priests were always in his ear. Spurring him deeper and deeper into the hill sides, carving out greater and greater tunnels within the rock. Seeking more gold, more jewels, more wealth.    His friends upon the eastern shores who would come each summer to fish the calm waters and would westward each fall following the great walker to the edge of the continent and sailing the great with the other races that would join the migration around the world and back to the continent. They would return each year to see more of the forests cut down, to hear the din of the island echoing across the bay, they asked Umidal to halt his expansion and to slow his work, lest he completely reshape this place they have called home for many generations. But there pleas fell upon deaf ears, and he began to suspect that they grew jealous of his wealth and power, he would no longer join them at their ceremonies, would no longer send gifts to give thanks for the knowledge they had shared. He scorned the Halflings of the west and the Humans of the East, he built no shrine to Moradin and instead had great statues of his own likeness erected about the island. After a while no trees remained upon Anvil Island, with which to pull up these great towering bits of stonework built in honor of himself, at this time many of the largest ever built still lay upon their side. For when they began to run logs from the neighboring island over to continue their work of idolatry, the Giants descended from the peaks.    For years, the great frost giant king Laufey would stand the sound of the termites within his kingdom no longer. His forces descended upon the idyllic and quiet sound in the night. Dozens of towering warriors, with blue gray skin and mighty battle axes held in hand came striding down the mountains. Standing 5 times the height of an average dwarf, they set upon the mines of the Chekanamus with axe and hammer, smashing down the supports and caving in the mines as they pounded upon the earth and stone. They watched as some of the Dwarves took to ship and barge and plied the waters to their fortress upon Anvil Island and wrenching the stone statues of Umidal out of the earth tossed them in pursuit of the fleeing dwarves, smashing through wooden ships and sinking them to the bottom of the bay, many laden with treasure and stone. Then they stepped out into the waters and began to wade across the bay, with little concern for the cold and sloshing waters, when their heads would plunge under the waves they took their massive axes in their teeth and swam for short bursts before setting foot upon sea bottom again. The great beasts were met with stones flung from trebuchets and bolts hurled from ballista upon the other side, and felt the scorn of Moradins clerics spells but sadly the faith of his followers had grown weak and his influence upon the surface is nowhere near the strength it has deep within the mountain. It took no longer that a night and a day to lay waste to the legacy of Umidal and his kin, to smash through their great stone doorways and to pluck screaming dwarves off of parapet and from within cellar. Those that managed to hide deep within the tunnels and catacombs beneath the castle were starved out as the giants laid siege to the place, waiting patiently till only the sound of rats scurrying the corridors remained. After several weeks they returned to their mountain home, watched with horrified eyes by the halflings of the west and the humans of the east. Who dared not draw the attention of these fiends upon themselves. Since this day the castle has stood barren upon the island, a stark reminder of hubris, defiance and greed. Bats have since filled the halls and stunted and twisted trees have grown up about the toppled and ruined statues. Umidals face still looks out from many points, though his name is only a legend in the area today.