Dweghom

Dweghom

separator-white

With souls and bodies shaped by Fire, Earth and War, the Dweghom have driven the Dragons to extinction and broken the world to become masters of their own destiny – just to then disagree on what that destiny should be… 

“We turned the very weapon of our freedom into the shackles of our kind, fearing our own blessings, our own strength, and putting numbers and measures in our very freedom. We try to limit them, while we pretend to revere them! It was sufficient for a time.”

– Alekhaneros, called Azdhaen, the Fire Thane

The Dweghom are the firstborn children of War, and their long history is steeped in warfare and loss. Originally crafted by the dragons as a race of peerless craftsmen, their Ancestors were forged to be the ultimate servitors – hardy, industrious, loyal, and dedicated to the creation of beauty. Their lifespans were vastly extended, and their memories made deep and enduring, so that the secrets of their craft would not be lost from generation to generation. For millennia, they labored for their masters, and the Dragons thrived. Matchless artifacts and beautiful relics swelled the Dragon hoards, while the Rooks, the dragons’ lairs, were transformed into marvels of architecture and engineering.

Revolts and uprisings were all but unknown, as loyalty had been imprinted into their very essence, and they found it impossible to raise weapons against their masters once one of them joined the fray directly. Those few rebellions that did occur were swiftly put down, their leaders rounded up and executed, while the followers were exiled to the unforgiving depths of their vast mine networks to toil in the dark and dangerous passages close to Destruction’s heart. But the dragons had wrought their craft too well. Those Ancestors who were exiled to the depths were bowed, but far from broken. Their gift of memory stoked the fires of their fury, fueling their determination to bring down their masters. Their tunnels delved ever deeper into the hidden places of the earth, the cool stillness of those dark chambers echoing with their anger as they dug, the quiet slowly giving way to the seething wrath of the planet’s core. There, surrounded by a fury and rage that dwarfed even their own, they came across their doom, as well as their salvation. Bound by the Dragons in Primordial Earth and Fire since Eӓ itself was still young, it had languished in the smothering embrace of its chthonian tomb for eons uncounted, beyond the reach of the mortal races – or so the Dragons thought. Every rage-fueled strike of the Ancestors’ pickaxes and every angry, shattering blow of their hammers had become a prayer, turning their ordeal into a pilgrimage that burrowed through not only the miles of obdurate stone that separated them, but across the very borders of reality itself, until they stood before the throne and prison of War, the Second Horseman and Incarnate Soul of Destruction.

All Dweghom are taught this memory, Dheureghodh, the Breaking, by their Mnemancers. It was then that the very race and fate of the Dweghom were altered forever, finding the means of their freedom in War’s prison and War itself. Physically changed by their sojourn and efforts in War’s prison, their bodies swelled with the gifts of Primal Fire and Earth. They became tremendously resistant to fire, heat, and its effects, also needing far less food and rest than their physiology would otherwise dictate. A remarkably large percentage of the Dweghom population also displays the Gift. Gifted Dweghom are characterized by tremendous potency, but very little control. Some of them see this as a byproduct of the manner in which they came into these powers; a poisoned gift from a capricious master. A Dweghom who does not master them is doomed to be consumed by them.

 

Their return from War’s prison heralded the end of countless millennia of peace. Gone was the time of short-lived rebellions. This conflict would not be a rebellion, a battle of subjects against their master, but a true War, a contest of equals. Wielding the power and will to shake the very foundations of the world, the Dweghom looked their creators in the eyes and took the fight to the Dragon Rooks, plunging the whole world into chaos and flame. When the ashes of that conflict finally cooled, only the Dweghom were left standing. Driven by their own unreasoning and bitter pride, they had quenched their fury in the blood of their makers… and their ancestors. Of the Dragon Rooks and their loyal slave population, only cinders remained.

Alas, War’s teachings resent peace, and Memory does not bring unity. In the centuries after the Dragons were eradicated and their slave population destroyed, the Dweghom lost their focus. Sickened by their belligerence, the High King and his family abdicated their leadership. Alone and without a purpose to guide them, the Dweghom called upon their Mnemancers to lay their deeds before them and build their new society. They looked upon their past, their future, and each other and promptly disagreed. The Memory Wars that ensued have never truly ended. Divided by castes, clans, and beliefs, the Dweghom walked perilously close to extinction. Only their very survival as a race compelled them to withdraw to their Holds. The scars of this conflict run deep, and, to this day, their civilization is a shattered mosaic of conflict.

 

Split between the fanatical Ardent, the gifted Tempered, and the civilian populous, Dweghom society is riven through and through. Violent confrontations between members of these factions are a common sight, where long-standing feuds can spark isolated incidents into full-fledged internecine warfare at a moment’s notice. Leadership within each hold rests on a tenuous distribution of responsibilities and power between these three castes, established and held only through a delicate balance of violence, compromise, and efficiency, under the supervision and guidance of the Mnemancers. One of the only things the leadership can agree on is that internal conflicts can be set aside in the face of an exterior enemy; as a result, most Dweghom hosts are in a state of perpetual conflict and ever ready to bring War to any brave, or foolish, enough to give them cause.

The Scars of Memories

With scars as old as the first battle of the Memory Wars, the Dweghom have stood deeply divided from as early as War’s Prison. It is not power that drives a wedge between them, but something deeper and more profound: the very nature and future of the Dweghom as a people.

Ardent
Clans
Tempered

Ardent

The Tempered would claim the Ardent were born at the foot of War’s Throne, where they broke the chains that bound them to their Draconic masters and doomed the Dweghom race to eternal War. The Ardent, however, claim they were born millennia before; the first time a Dweghom refused to bow before a Dragon and found he could not. In War they saw a promise of freedom, a force so powerful even their master could not control, merely contain.

Driven by their cold pride and thirst for freedom, they were the first to fall upon the bound Primordial, shattering and devouring what they could. In doing so, they broke their masters’ chains and took the gift that had been offered to them. No longer would their struggle be a mere rebellion, the conflict of an inferior against a superior, but a contest of equals, a War that would grow to consume the world and finally release the fallen Primordial.

The Ardent ride the violent currents of War with pride, equating any sort of craft aside from this with their millennial slavery to the Dragons. Their initiates are trained from induction in martial craft, tested to their very limits and beyond in preparation for the Dheukorro, the Descent, a pilgrimage following their ancestors path to the Throne of War through the deepest bowels of Eä. In each Dweghom hold there is a pit that plunges so deep into the bowels of the earth that it scratches the surface of Destruction’s prison. Here one can almost hear the beating of Destruction’s savage heart, the power of his rage bleeding through the miles-thick wall of his eternal prison and setting the very earth afire. Nestled deep within these hellish tunnels rests the breached chamber that once imprisoned War itself and fueled the emancipation of the Dweghom.

It is the sacred duty of every member of the Ardent to descend through these tunnels to pay homage to the sacrifice and fortitude of their ancestors. The deeper one descends, the closer he comes to those paragons of old and the greater the initiate’s worth; but the greater the danger as well. Deep within the bowels of the earth, the blood of Destruction has changed many of the subterranean denizens into raging monstrosities that prowl the deepest tunnels. Those initiates that survive these encounters emerge as Exemplars, embodiments of War like none other. The fate of the Gifted who undertake the Dheukorro, the Flame Berzerkers and the Stone Sentinels, are part of the price the Ardent pay for their freedom, for nothing can contain their will, not even the limits of own bodies.

To this day, the Ardent defend their decision, embracing the simple truth that life is a struggle and War a way of life. Their militarism is not the blind adoration of the faithful to a savior, but rather the most exalted manifestation of their own freedom. To any who oppose them, the distinction bears little significance, for, of all the Dweghom, none revel in War more than the Ardent; they are its fiercest proponents, ever eager to prove their faith on the field of battle.

Clans

While the castes of the Ardent and the Tempered wrangle over the past and the future of the entire race, the bulk of the Dweghom define its present, forming its living and breathing society. Freed from the burden of sustenance by the tireless work of Dragon automata, the Dweghom view labor as punishment or the task of a slave. Instead, they live their lives in constant effort to display their Aghm, their “weight” or “worth”, through deeds. This is no simple vanity, a Dweghom’s Aghm is not some vague conceit. It is their social hierarchy, their currency and, some would argue, their reason for being. This peculiar cultural trait is perhaps only possible due to the incredible capacity for memory the Dweghom possess. Memory and its recording plays a tremendous role in Dweghom culture. Its discipline, Mnemancy, and its practitioners, Mnemancers, playing a central organizational role in Dweghom society.

Taken early on by the Clan and put in communal crèches, every Dweghom is raised as little else than a soldier to the Clan, until they prove themselves. While individuality exists, an individual is not valued until he can prove his worth. All possessions are acquired by reaching the required status within the Clan. Ranging from squad sergeant all the way up to the lofty title of Eldest, status is earned through deeds, for nothing is inherited. All material wealth and power a Dweghom amasses throughout his life is sealed within his chambers upon his death, becoming a memorial to the individual interred within. The greater one’s standing, the greater the treasures and chambers upon which he is laid to rest. As a result, the Dweghom are deeply competitive and every issue of social standing is resolved through arbitrated challenges. These can range from simple physical contests between two young, unproven Dweghom, to entire military campaigns when Elders feud. The Mnemancers maintain an immense codex of laws and traditions, which ascribes and quantifies the value of deeds within Dweghom society, outlining the worth of each deed performed and precisely ascribing the Aghm of each member in the Hold, based on the calculations held within. It comes as no surprise to anybody who has met them that the activities with the highest value are all military in nature.

This has created a heartless military regime that drives the standards ever upwards, leaving many at the bottom of the social ladder. While many of these individuals are forgotten and abandoned, it matters not to the Clan, for it becomes ever stronger on the efforts of those who strive and succeed. When the Clan marches, the enemy commander can have no doubt that even the lowliest soldier is a deadly fighter who has earned his right to fight and is deeply motivated prove himself worthy of more.

Tempered

When they encountered the Throne of War, the Tempered, much like the Ardent, saw the future of their people writ large, but not in the awesome power of the hulking Primordial form bound within it, rather in the colossal energies that raged around it. Blinded by pride in their craft, they saw in this elemental prison a power that would ensure the success of their rebellion and secure their future. As the Ardent used the infusion of raw Primordial essence to shatter the chains binding them to the Dragons, the Tempered took advantage of the flux created in their very essence and infused their people with the raw elemental might of the Throne. The powers they dabbled with, however, were completely beyond their measure.

The results of this single momentous act changed the Dwarves and the world forever. Enhanced by War’s destructive essence, the raw power of the elements served them well in their victory over the Dragons. In their thirst for power, however, they drew too deeply from the well that maintained the Throne and weakened War’s prison. Fractured into a hundred pieces by the Ardent and fed by the growing conflagration of their struggle against the Dragons, War was finally able to break free and has roamed unchecked since. This thought haunts the Tempered above all others to this day. While successful, they believe the plan of their forefathers to have been ultimately flawed by the very essence of War that rages within them, denying them mastery over their own elemental powers and thus their destiny.

In the Tempered’s opinion, the warmongering of the Ardent is evidence enough of this, as is the fate of their Gifted. Unless they control War and the destructive impulses it infused them with the Dweghom are doomed, so it is control they seek. Their powers are bound by elemental grafts, powerful creations especially designed to endure the strain of their raw Elemental might and War’s chaotic influence. The limited control their Gifted possess is magnified by these devices, allowing them to unleash their immense destructive powers on the field of battle. For all their effectiveness and awesome power, however, the Tempered consider these machines a crutch to their flawed nature. Their true agenda lies deeper; the reforging of the Dweghom race, building upon the imperfect efforts of their forefathers.

Metal Mages are considered by the Tempered to be the pinnacle of the Dweghom race, as well as its salvation. Gifted equally in Fire and Earth, Metal Mages display a level of control that transcends the simple, if powerful, elemental workings of their less gifted brethren. With their superior control, they meld both powers to create a new one which allows them to treat metals as a separate element. While a Dweghom Pyromancer or Geomancer might accomplish similar feats by exerting force or heat upon a piece of metal, Metal Mages transcend this limitation and simply will it into its new form, allowing them to alter metals directly, shaping them into impossibly fine and precise forms. It is only through this gift that the craft-sorcery of the Dweghom is possible. Metal Mages are the only who possess the precision and control needed to create the grafts that allow Gifted Dweghom to connect to and power the elemental devices that have become ubiquitous throughout their society.

Forces

Characters

Ardent Kerawegh
Hold Raegh
Tempered Sorcerer
Tempered Steelshaper

Infantry

Dragonslayers
Fireforged
Flame Berserkers
Hold Ballistae
Hold Thanes
Hold Warriors
Initiates
Magmaforged
Wardens

Brutes

Inferno Automata
Steelforged

Monsters

Hellbringer Drake
Ironclad Drake
Stoneforged

Historical Events

The Stone Face Campaign – The Hundred Kingdoms are Victorious!
No End to their Memories
The Chamber of War
Chamber of War
Fall of Dragons
Fall of Dragons

Locations

The Mysteries of Ognisros
The Hold of Orobduho
Ghe'Domn
The Hold of Ghe’Domn

Persons of Interest

The Rise of Ragodosh, The Stone Face King
Adhya, Ruin of Strangers
Raegh Theurodhin of Ghleulgas
Alekhaneros, the Fire Thane

Other

A Worthy Education
Is the Dheukorro a Dead End?
The Memory Hold of Ghe’Domn
On the Location and Hospitality of Dweghom Holds
The Forge Halls