Candle Color: Black
 |
| Screenshot from Age of Conan |
Welcome back to Dungeon Mastering by Candlelight and Terra Firma Thursday. Today I share a little information about one of the locations or regions in my home campaign. In this blog post we will focus on The Lost Kingdoms of Mithril.
Dwarves have held a special place in my imagination going back to my introduction to Middle Earth via the novel, The Hobbit. In my own campaign I wanted the Dwarves to have a rich history but be a little out of step with the Dwarven civilizations I had read about in fantasy novels and in other roleplaying books.
The Lost Kingdom of Mithril dominates most of the central Goblinspite mountain range and extends from the ruins of Uth'Framorg in the West all the way to Lost Borandur along the High Way in the Trollish Peaks to the East. This covers a region approximately 1,000 miles in expanse from West to East where Dwarven ruins of the old kingdoms are linked by a twisty thread of road known as the Low Way in the West and the High Way in the East. In real world terms this region of snow peaked high mountains and valleys filled with fir trees occupies a region very nearly the equivalent of the geographic area of the State of Texas.
Dwarves and goblins in my campaign were once part of the same race. Goblins are the descendants of one of the original dwarves created by the Lord of the Earth Elementals. This brother, who was named Gauran tragically murdered his twin during a feast after he was humiliated in front of his kin. In the lore of the dwarves, Gauran brought the first murder into the world and thus created a break in the perfect order of the elements allowing other evils from outside of this realm to slowly seep in over the ages. As a part of his punishment, Gauran and all of his folk were cursed and became stooped, twisted and beardless. Centuries in exile have seen Gauran's Folk or later, the "goblins" emerge as a humanoid race of their own. The goblins became the adopted children of Aglaeca, the Mother of All Monsters and with her machinations and backing they have risen to become a power to rival their former brothers.
Approximately four hundred years ago the goblins managed to defeat the dwarves during the last of the great goblin wars and the last of the great Kingdoms of Mithril fell into darkness. Defeated and scattered the dwarves of my campaign mostly dwell to the South of the Goblinspite mountains in a sort of lingering exile. In the current age the dwarves simply do not have the strength of arms to force a return to their old kingdom and so most of the dwarven cities and strongholds now languish as lonely ruins, overrun by goblins and other evil creatures.
Heithgar Morath on the Northern shore of Lake Mirthwine is the ancient capital of the last Kingdom of the Dwarves. There it is said that the skull of Welf, the last High King of the dwarves is nailed somewhere above the great gates of that city. It is said that the dwarves will remain in exile until they manage to return to the halls of Heithgar Morath, retrieve the skull of Welf and return it to the rest of Welf's remains which are believed to be buried within an ancient mound somewhere in the hills Northwest of the current human city of Trove.
The hex map featured above shows the region of the Lost Kingdoms of Mithril pulled from my grand scale campaign map. This map is scaled at approximately 20 miles per hex. You can use the scroll feature at the bottom of this blog entry to view the entire thing.
Well that is it for today's issue of Dungeon Mastering by Candlelight. Take a moment to hit the "follow" button. Remember following my blog doesn't cost you a nickel and I usually post something handy to consider pulling into your homebrew campaign every day. See you next time!
Happy Gaming!
-Ed
No comments:
Post a Comment