Amerah--it lies just to the northwest of Cassant-- a region of four cities--Issenkrag, Hamorberg, Strengeats, and Hohesheild--and numerous towns and mines, a region rich in iron and metals. For centuries before the Aleasani arrived Amerah (a Shay term meaning "The Mountains of Woe") was the center of a mighty empire, the place from which the Dvergar ruled the land, and the Utgardi clan ruled the Dvergar. Mighty, merciless, and morose, the proud Utgardi claimed direct descent from Koschei the Deathless, and lordship over all dwarfs. And the clan had the power to back such boasts, for they controled the mines of the land the Dvergar called the Issenmotter. It was by their will the Dvergar chiefs recived the weapons needed to beat back Shay, Fae, Isslen and Bodai, and keep them under the thick heel of the dwarfs. And the Utgardi waxed strong on this power, the outright rulers of twenty seven cities, the puppet masters of countless more, recieving tribute from dwarf, elf, Northerner and even the occasional halfling and lizardfolk. This was the age of the High Clan, and all of what is now Aleasana chaffed under their heavy yoke.
The Aleasani changed all that, upsetting the delicate balance the Utgardi had masterfully exploited for so long. As Majerus Alsea plunged westward, his wayward hordes spread chaos and came to threaten the cities of the High Clan. And worse, Dvergar and Shay flocked to the banner of these Eastern giants, for the Utgardi were not beloved rulers, but seen as debauched and haughty tyrants. As the High King Hoder Thyrmson na Utgardi watched his thanes and eorls betrayed him, and his kingdom tottered and swayed. By the time, Majerus reached Strengeats, he came at the head of an army of Aleasani, Dvergar, Shay, and Bodai, while Hoder's force was compromised of Urukh and Northerner merceneries as well as a battalion of dwarven criminals scraped from the Utgardi dungeons. Majerus seeing his opponents pathetic force, was said to have sent a bottle of fine Shay wine as a consolation for his foe's upcoming defeat. The Aleasani ruler expected Hoder to surrender in the face of such a grave disadvantage, but he knew not Thrymson, who would go down in the chronicles of his people as "Hoder the Cruel". Majerus's gesture was to the Dvergar king like the sting of a wasp, and Hoder was a man used to crushing insects that irritated him.
On the morning of the battle, the High King brought forth young children, the sons and daughters of many of his rebellious nobles to the shores of Lake Kaltwasser, and had them executed on its shores. It is said that he drank the bottle of wine with savor as he did so. As Majerus sent envoy after envoy to beg Hoder to stop this grisly slaughter, the executions continued, dyeing the Kaltwasser red (as it remains to this day) with the emissaries joining the condemned. Finally, Wind Blowing North, the Black Fist Brotherhood's commander, led a charge which freed the captives, and then defected to Majerus's army. With that, most of the Northeners fled, and Hoder faced a charge by his enraged and numerous enemies followed only by a small army of depraved criminals. He perished in the fighting, killed by a Dvergar soldier he tried to swap armor with in an effort to avoid identification and so escape, or so the legends say.
The Utgardi fled the Amerah after the Battle of Kaltwasser, fled to the north where their power was still strong, and there they remained, rulers of a steadily shrinking kingdom that continued to plague Aleasana until it was vanquished utterly. (Though a handful of Utgardi lurk in the hills and wilds, pretender kings and plotting insurgents, and rumor states that a city is hidden the icy hills of the Northern wastes where they have stored much of their wealth, and where they wait for a day to reclaim the land they see as stolen from them.) Majerus gave the Amerah to the Eorl Fafnir, a cousin to the Utgardi who had fought by the Aleasani's side, and his family ruled its cities in the name of the Aleasani Seat for generations, gathering to themselves wealth, power and prestige. But then Ralin Valerus declared himself king, and the Fafniri were a threat, lying so near, with so much wealth and power. And so his armies laid siege to its cities and mines, and killed the Dvergar warriors that fought to keep them. At last Suter Garmson na Fafniri had no chocie but to flee, leaving a father and brother dying behind him, to be dismembered and burnt by the armies of Cassant. Now Grand Marshal Kase Varn rules there, and Suter, like so many others, has come to Val-Alen, a mournful figure in the court of Illendus, penniless and desperate--and yet, to many Dvergar, he is the Lord of Dwarfs...
