Dwarf

Hallow be the halls of the old Mountain-kings Five in their thrones of stone   Four in the depths of cold   Three above, where the birds sing   The expulsion was borne,   Their lore now told.   The fire was burning,   A hot, destructive thing,   And ended the dwarven lords.   In the beginning, when the gods made the heavens and the earth, it was from earth and rock and clay that they bore the stout dwarven progenitors, who were hardy folk; yet their hearts were stone, and hardened, and did not love.   Thus Moradin bore into their hearts desire, love, and passion, and curiosity to dig deep and see the things below the earth; and he was their lord; and they his project. Below they worked with their hands and begat great kingdoms made of rock and dwelt and multiplied beneath the rock. These were the first clans. From their thrones of stone the dwarven-lords did bore into the rocks below, and found a kingdom of darkness hidden far beneath – the Underdark, or the Khalzzad-dur, where things not meant for mortal ken lie. And the things attacked the dwarven lords for their greed and pushed them out onto the sun, where kingdoms of men and elves and orcs squabbled.   The gnomes were the friends of the dwarves, the little ones forged of metal, but metal is a temperamental thing, and can melt. Then the orcs, who in those days were like the tide, washing, passionate, caring, yet liable to storm; and finally the elves, of wood, whom did not deign to much treat with the folk of stone. And the elves and dwarves quarreled and battled over land where the dwarves emerged; and they were Enemy. Then in the east an empire grew under the silver banner of the dragon Bahamut, who is a friend to Moradin, and expanded. In this time, the orcs felt Desiccation; and their skin lost the blue; the waters receded; and they became the dry folk of the desert; the reason why is lost to dwarves; yet now they thought the elves Enemy for they were mocked and warred against them.   Yet the banner of the dragon bore westward and north to the mountains and valleys of the dwarf-kin. With religious fervor they warred, and the dwarf clans of old – Clan Walor married into the human House Wens thus tying their history in an effort to stop the eastern empire; yet it was lost, and the dwarven kingdoms lost under the banners of the Holy Empire of Vallencourt.   When the Rifts opened, the dwarves left and dwelt in lands beyond, and were many, and multiplied; and the dwarves of far-away lands may seem strange; but kin are they, with powerful beards.   Many dwarves have forgotten the Old Ways and dwell now under the dragon. In faraway Realms they might remember and stir old cities and remain as the old lords, but in Vallen they are pawns of the dragon, of houses, or barons and dukes. In Khalzzad-dur, they say, there remain, lost, an ancient pale race of dwarves; and they are lost to us; and they say they are gone to the evils of the deep.   This is the lore of the dwarves of Vallen.