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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(contact)" data-source="post: 1084403" data-attributes="member: 41">80—WinterbeardThe ancient and hoary dwarven recluse known to the people of Storm’s Rise as Winterbeard the Builder has taken something of a shine to Merkatha.  This is evident by the fact that he speaks to her at all, if not by his incredulous tone of voice.  “Are you stupid, or have you gone mad down there?”  Merkatha has just told him of the party’s plans to confront Ceredain and make her aware of the Night Hag’s presence in the Delve.  “Ceredain could defeat Night,” she asserts.The dwarf is fuming.  “At what cost!  Would you wake the lion to scatter the mice?  Do not trifle with her.  Kill the hag yourself, or have your swaggering friend kill her, but leave the Mother of Suffering be.”Merkatha slyly says, “If we’re not to trifle with her, how shall we free her?”But the dwarf will not be baited.  “That is not my concern.  Nothing changes within the Delve, and the sooner you learn this . . .”“It changes!  Things get worse.”“Then it is your fault.  Your friends opened that door.  Speak to me no more of such senseless things.  And don’t you slam that . . .”Merkatha slams the door.-----The dominated hag looks about herself with disgust.  As a final insult, she was instructed to plane shift to the Seven Heavens, and on arriving, wonders how she is going to get out of this alive.  She practices her best groveling face, and prepares a speech.-----“Winterbeard is key,” Taran says.  He and the party sit around a table in the town’s only inn.  It is still early in the day, and they are the only ones in the place, as all of the customers as well as the proprietors are still in the fields.  Taran serves himself another cup of the innkeeper’s dusty reserve port.  “He’s a player here, I just know it.  Why don’t we legend lore him behind his back?”“That’s not a bad idea,” Thelbar says, “but it is a sticky one.  If he knows anything useful, divining him without his consent will likely shatter any hope that we might win his trust.”“Leave that to me,” Taran says.  “I have a way with people.”-----Taran raps sharply on Winterbeard’s door.“What price solitude?” the dwarf says wearily as he greets the bull-headed fighter.“What?” Taran replies.“What price will you extract to leave me be?” “Oh, yeah.  Look, like it or not, you’re here and so are we.  You grow plants, and we intend to fix this dwarven mess before it spills out and makes of Faerun what it made of my home-world,” Taran says.  “We know you won’t talk about the Delve, and believe it or not, we respect that.  But we have other means at our disposal, magical means that would require no action on your part.  We need information, and I’m asking you man to man for your permission to get some answers.”Winterbeard regards Taran carefully for a long moment, then replies, “I cannot and will not speak of myself or my past.  So I am sworn.  But I will grant you this permission, on one condition.”“Name it,” Taran says.“You must swear to seal the Delve.  You must close it off from this world, for now and forever.”“How?” Taran asks, then adds, “nevermind, I didn’t say that.”  Taran clasps Winterbeard’s shoulder and smiles at the ancient dwarf.  “Okay, deal.”-----Sonora the Wise.  An elder of House Thrarin during Kor’En Eamor’s peak of power and grandeur, Sonora had taken a holy vow of silence as a personal Dak’qis—the first and best part of his life given in humility to the dwarven Father.  Sonora pleased his god, and for many decades, all was well both within and without. During Sonora’s three hundredth year, House Thrarin married a high-born clan-daughter to the King of Kor’En Eamor, Adwan Aq Med, sealing their position as the leading crafts-house of Moradin’s realm.  But when the patriarch of house Thrarin called Adwawn to task, and challenged him to a blood-duel on grounds of  infidelity, adultery and blasphemy, the First Home was polarized.Adwawn was victorious, but the honor of house Thrarin was too deeply damaged for the issue to be so easily settled.  The beginnings of a war between the two houses was forestalled only when Sonora the Wise broke his vow of silence, and used his mastery of Dwarven tradition-law to convince the two houses to make a stilted peace.  Sonora then spoke prophecies, that fore-warned the fall of Hepis, the child born of blasphemy.  His vow renounced, Sonora left the faith of Moradin, gathered the most pure of the dwarven people, and left Kor’En Eamor for places unknown.And so it went.  Hepis was born in exile, his shamed mother renounced, and the clan of Ahk-Med fell into the hands of other sons of Adwan.  Each new King was weaker than the last, and the Ahk-Med became figureheads as the craft-clans grew stronger.  In time, Hepis Ahk Med returned from his exile and reclaimed his father’s throne.  Hepis allied himself with the low-crafts and formed a populist coalition that soon challenged the powerful houses and reasserted the majesty of the dwarven monarchy.  There were those dwarves who asserted that Kor’En Eamor had fallen into a new Golden Age. Certainly Hepis believed as much.  Satisfied with his clan’s return to power, but driven still by an overweening ambition, Hepis surrendered to the beguiling caress of Ceredain and petitioned Wulkas the Lawgiver to support his claim to the Divine Throne.  As blood of the First Dwarf, and therefore son of the son of Moradin, he sought to apply dwarven succession-law to the Divine Family, and through this application of audacity and precedent raised himself to Godhood through the auspices of his Mother.  Those who would not forsake the Father were killed outright or cast-out and driven into the deep places of a thousand worlds.Moradin’s wrath was terrible, and celestials from his Mountain Realm descended on the First Home, cursing and slaughtering the dwarves by the thousands.  Hepis led a resistance, but his power, even bolstered by two dwarven deities, was far insufficient to the task.  Moradin seemed bent on destroying his first and best creation—for if such a betrayal were within the hearts of the dwarven race, could such a flawed invention be called a masterwork?  Should not such an imperfect craft be destroyed that it might bring its Maker no further shame? At this time Sonora the Wise was called by the blood back to his home, and at the height of the killing he shamed Moradin in front of His people, recalling to the Father the apocryphal promises he had made when the race was new.  Moradin hid his face and relented, abandoning the field, but Sonora was not finished.  The former priest swore an eternal vigil for all those lost within the halls, and thus refused for all time his place in paradise, a last scolding and the deepest criticism any dwarf could give—a self-imposed eternal exile.The wounds given the dwarves by their Creator can never be forgotten so long as Sonora lives and Sonora shall never die. -----“I think Winterbeard may wish to see something,” Thelbar says as the group discusses his divinations.  “Where is the Book of the Dead?”“We gave it to the Lady at Eveningstar,” Merkatha says.“Then we shall need to take it back,” Thelbar says.“A raid?” Taran asks eagerly.“Lady Tesseril is a friend of mine,” Elign says.  “I saved her life in Myth Drannor, long ago.  I suspect if I ask, she will surrender the book.”“Oh,” Taran says.  ----- “These are the names of power.”  Winterbeard gazes at the Book of the Dead with a mixture of revulsion and attraction.  Uncharacteristically, he fidgets slightly, and refuses to come near the thing.  “Yes, I know them all—they are the names that mark our great and enduring shame.   Have a care; speaking them aloud will attract His attention.”“Attract his . . .” Thelbar says.  “Alvodar was invoking Moradin!  That is why he drove himself mad memorizing the names.  The fool meant to summon his own god!”This notion hangs heavy in the room for several moments.  Taran says, “No wonder he went Evil.  The f-cking dumbass.”</blockquote>

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