The following text describes events in Wyrm Dawn’s First Age of Monsters. In this age, “A Wizard” (How to Host a Dungeon, Dowler, 2019) rose so quickly to “villainy” that I have determined to run a second Age of Monsters following the empire’s demise.

Throrgrmir Legacy

A long, dark silence followed the dwarves’ departure. No more was heard the din of the miner’s pick nor the clank of the smith’s hammer. In workshops, tools were carefully arranged, ready to be taken up again to finish abandoned work. Furnaces and smelteries were dead cold. Drinking halls were still. Walls of fine-hewn granite blocks no longer held the memory of the last echoes of raucous folk ballads nor of solemn dirges. The slow drip of water from cavern ceilings kept time on quiet dwarf-carved stones.

The subterranean river continued its winding way through smooth-worn channels. It flowed by the now dry aqueduct, under the crumbling bridge, through empty dormitories and treasure vaults, past life-like statues of rock, iron, and crystal—indeed living yet unmoving, and rippled between the feet of the Throrgardr Colossus, which still stood, keeping watch over the forsaken realm. The river’s dark water twisted around former graffhellar into the great cavern that once housed a thriving city of proud dwarves.

Now there slept the primordial wyrm atop a pile of treasures collected by her offspring. Between crystal urns and bronze chests, spilling coins and jewels, wyrmlings nestled. In turns, the serpent sisters yawned and tasted the air with darting tongues between long bouts of fitful slumber.

And so, the Throrgrmir Civilization passed into legend, its history and culture preserved on engraved friezes and monuments hidden in gloomy depths and in fables and epic tales. The tales told of fabulous treasures: hoards of gold, precious gems, and objects of dwarven craft, and of the Great Wyrm Ormr and her treasure-seeking spawn.

Ixmundyr

When dragons heard these tales, they were reminded of the Wyrm Prophecy, according to which at such place an Age of Dragons would dawn. Thus did Ixmundyr follow the tales to the broad river valley below the western mountains, to the crumbling citadel of the masked boar, and down into the old dwarven mine tunnels. In the magma chamber at the dungeon’s bottom, the red dragon made its lair.

Legendary Throrgardr

Subterranean denizens from neighboring realms came after treasures. In the old Throne Room, they found the Throrgrmir Scepter. Thinking to have discovered the legendary city, they settled there and in old graffhellar across the bridge. They called the settlement Legendary Throrgardr and, for a time, prospered.

In a treasure vault, Throrgardr denizens built a wizard’s quarter. Not having the dwarves’ skill in construction, their arches and doorways were not hexagonal but triangular. They also built a stepwell, used to capture river water, and when a shadow hulk hunted them from a nearby lair, they built tombs in abandoned gem mines. Exploring deeper, they discovered an incomprehensible thing. It was the dwarves’ Doom Weapon, and they found the Inordinate, its fetish.

Dagrun, a Wizard

Also in those days, an ambitious wizard named Dagrun installed herself in the former drinking hall. From dwarven inscriptions, she learned the place was called Sixth Cairn. Above it, she built a loft, where she set up a laboratory, and so, attracted apprentices. In the neighboring tomb, she learned of Lyngheid’s Prize and the monument called Sigrenormr, which recounted the Battle of Throrgardr between the dwarves and the Great Wyrm Ormr.

Wyrmlings Wake

Even as Dagrun learned of its existence, the golden monument was being defaced. For with activity renewed in the dungeon, the serpent sisters, waking, tasted treasure on the air and began to stir. The wyrmlings could not remove Sigrenormr intact, so they broke what parts of golden limbs as they could carry.

Ixmundyr Touched

Exploring the dungeon, the wyrmlings brought treasure back to their mother’s lair. Among which was the Throrgrmir Scepter, stolen from Legendary Throrgardr. They found also the lair of Ixmundyr, who was not spared their touch.¹

The Star of Darkness

Meanwhile, the wizard Dagrun explored the Dead Caverns and the dwarven barracks and treasure rooms. She opened tunnels to the old gold vein and exploited its ore. With the spoils, she made a cyst, with which she captured malign energy. Then she made a diadem.² It shone by its own bright light. The wizard called it Stjornumyrkur, the Star of Darkness, and with it, she crowned herself Dagrun Stardark, Empress of All Old Throrgrmir.³

Upon a stele commemorating the coronation are inscribed the words of Empress Dagrun Stardark: “We shall rebuild the Throrgrmir Empire for the good of all law-abiding citizens.”

Notes

¹ Ixmundyr, touched by Wyrmling Gamma, adds 1 to all dice rolls.

² The diadem serves the same purpose as the wizard’s phylactery (How to Host a Dungeon).

³ Texts of the era preserve the domain’s name as “Ganz Elt Throrgrim.” In the heroic age in which the Wyrmwyrd campaign takes place, scholars refer to Dagrun’s reign and domain as “Throrgrmir Eld.”

Following the primordial earthquake that spawned the wyrm, seasons skipped across years, like stones on the river’s placid surface. Fairies frolicked in the primeval woods, while the river wound its way to the sea. Beneath it, water dripped from ceilings in subterranean caverns. Trickles crept between cold rock into dark flowing streams. Magma bubbled in deep chambers, and so, millennia passed while the wyrm slept, and the land, above and below, was quiet.

Then, wind rattled leaves in the old woods, and dwarves came rambling down from the western mountains. They sought gold, and they found it beneath the limestone hills and established a mine there. The vein was rich, the dwarves prospered, their number increased, and the Throrgrmir civilization, named for a founding father, was thus established.¹

A note about the notes: As standard practice, I include the context in each footnote, so the reader may comfortably follow the narrative and read the notes afterward, using—if necessary—the superscript numbers for reference. The notes, while integral to the continuing story, are not essential to the immediate narrative.

As they mined the ore, the dwarves dug tunnels and built dormitories, treasure vaults, and workshops. Soon they caroused in a drinking hall,² and a citadel³ enclosed the surface entrance to their underground domain.

The dwarves built a city in a great cavern, which they excavated from around the subterranean river.⁴ They erected a colossal statue of the founding father, which straddled the river where it entered the city.⁵ Throrgrmir flourished in a golden age of growth and prosperity.

From the crystal caverns, they mined gypsum, with which they covered the walls of their dwellings and carved into statues and course glasswork. They built a furnace and melted crystal,⁶ thus producing fine glassware tinted pink and blue. Over the river, they built a great bridge and, beyond it, a throne room, whence an emperor ruled over a mighty domain.

Led by pride and the search for new wealth, the dwarves dug a shaft below the city. Cutting through the last layer of granite, the miners broke into red limestone. The limestone, more porous and fragile, crumbled beneath them. The miners fell, with a great mass of rock, into the deepest caverns, where slept the wyrm.⁷

Notes

¹ From lists of Norse dwarf names (see below), I derived Throrgrmir: thror (boar) + grmir (mask). I see adventurers finding ancient treasures stamped with a symbol of the masked boar, and three syllables with only two vowels sounds goodly dwarvish to my ear. When my human tongue stumbles over the name, dwarves only grunt their amusement.

Dwarf name sources:

• Olive Bray’s translation of The Elder Edda contains an index. Start with the “dwarfs” entry, page 316.
• In addition to dwarf names, Nordic Names contains many categories, including Old Norse bynames, which will soon be useful.
• Wikipedia gives a comprehensive list with each dwarf name’s meaning and source. See also the source material in the References and General References sections.

² Where the dwarves built inside the Dead Caverns (stratum 2), they used natural pathways between constructions. To guide travelers, they erected cairns along the paths (shown on the map). Counting five of these rock piles from the easternmost vault, one arrives at the drinking hall, known as “Sixth Cairn.”

³ I reserve the citadel’s face for a stylized symbol of the masked boar.

⁴ How to Host a Dungeon makes you think about things you might not otherwise consider. Example: While the dwarves used much of the excavated rock for building, future surface explorers will notice rubble strewn down hillsides and piled in ravines. Though it’s mostly limestone, also present are basalt and granite, the latter sometimes streaked with quartz. By then, the rubble may be covered by a layer of soil or overgrown by vegetation. Still, through close examination, clever delvers might infer, from the rubble, the existence of a nearby dungeon; from the amount, its size; and perhaps from the style of markings on discarded carvings, that dwarves built it. The presence of quartz, which often accompanies gold, might lead the greedy and the foolhardy to make bad decisions.

⁵ Note the detail inset of the colossal statue: In case of flood or invasion, the axe is lowered to dam the river and block the passage. Meanwhile, a chute opens in the hollow handle, which channels the flow through a tunnel to a point downstream, below the city.

⁶ Last week it was geology, this week I’m stretching chemistry thin over the fantasy. Some crystal, not selenite, can be melted into glass. In modern civilization, this decreases its value. But since glass is otherwise unknown in this age, Throrgrmir glassware is a valuable commodity in the milieu.

⁷ The dwarves’ blunder reformed the ceiling of the deepest cavern and deposited a huge pile of rubble into it, possibly creating an island in the lake. The event also rerouted the subterranean river, cutting it short and drying up the eastern loop.

milieu noun
pronounced mēl-yü
: the physical or social setting in which something occurs or develops : ENVIRONMENT

—Webster’s

[Popularized among old-school gamers by Gary Gygax, most notably in his Advanced D&D Dungeon Masters Guide (TSR Games, 1979), a 238-page work, wherein we find 72 instances.]