“As they mined the ore, the dwarves dug tunnels and built dormitories, treasure vaults, and workshops. Soon they caroused in a drinking hall, and a citadel enclosed the surface entrance to their underground domain.”

—from “Throrgrmir’s Golden Age”

Having friends over for tea yesterday, I hoped to show them the dwarven citadel, finished and under siege, with a red dragon installed in its new-gained lair atop the central donjon. But, as construction does, it took longer than expected. So I set up some dwarves hard at work.

Before the few remaining Throrgrmir clans abandoned their once-great civilization. Before the wyrmlings decimated the dwarven population and stole all their treasure. Before the renaissance, before the disastrous civil war, before they built the Throrgardr Gate to prevent the Great Wyrm’s passing. Before the Battle of Throrgardr, before the wyrm invaded the city, before the dwarves dug too deep and woke the primordial wyrm. Before even they built the city, now in crumbled ruin far beneath the surface and the granite dust of uncounted millennia. The Throrgrmir dwarves built the citadel.

On the edge of steep hills, high atop a plateau, the granite structure seemed to grow from the rock upon which it was built. Towering above the valley, throughout Throrgrmir’s long reign over the region, the citadel served as a surface beacon. All who gazed upon its bright facade from the wide valley floor, all who mounted its magnificent stair and entered within its high stout walls were reminded of the dwarven mastery of stone craft, of dwarven strength and ingenuity.