Races

Kaal`Kor (Kaalian Dwarves) - by T.A. Saunders ©1997 v2.2

Racial Articles The Meeting of the Elves and Other Adventures

With the three clans now in relatively peaceful co-existence, Clan Hammerspark gathered at the First Tunnel and began the long and arduous trek to the surface. It had been so long since the Dwarves had been to the surface, there were none alive that remembered what the sunlight of Ka looked like, or what green grass felt like under their feet. After a month of traveling, the Hammerspark clan emerged on the surface of Ishaela to be greeted by their first blizzard of the Yis-Nata season. At least having the entrance to the ancient tunnel as cover, the Hammerspark Dwarves weathered the storm and pushed on across the continent of Mirislyr. As they traveled, they began to discover more and more examples of civilization; markers painted on trees, footprints made by feet not too different from their own, but thinner and signs of old campfires made in clearings in the slowly thickening woods.

Stories differ between cultures, but the Dwarf version of the story is they first encountered the Elves when scouts of Clan Hammerspark found one fast asleep under a tree, caught completely; the Sivanoshei version of the tale is that an Elvish hunter found one of the Hammerspark scouts relieving himself behind a tree and nearly shot him, for mistaking him for a boar. Whatever the case, upon sending word all the way back to Kaalarn about this discovery, negotiations soon began to establish peace between the Kaal`Kor and the Sivanoshei. This treaty would last for several thousand years, when the rise of Khavos would cause great strife between all the peoples of Ishaela.

For a decade, Clan Hammerspark stayed with the Elves in Am-Shei, where the peoples exchanged all manner of secrets involving crafting and brewing (which happened to be a specialty of the Hammerspark Clan). All seemed well in the exchange of knowledge, until the Elves began discussing teaching the Dwarves magic. Renard “Bronze Bones” Hammerspark, High Thane of the Hammerspark Clan would have none of it. He felt that learning and using magic was cheating what the sweat of a honest Dwarf's brow could do just the same; while fine perhaps for the thinner and less sturdy Elves, no self-respecting Dwarf would ever degrade themselves to using sorcery, unless it was the sacred Runes of Forging passed down from Kaal himself or the power of a priest. The Sivanoshei, quite proud of their magic took a mild offense to this attitude and further, felt that Dwarvish engineering raped the land of its natural beauty, rather than compliment it. Of course, the Dwarves found this damned insulting, but as they were guests of the Elves, it was not their place to say as much…unless drunk, then everything is fair game to a Dwarf.

Sensing this fundamental difference in cultures was becoming something of a breaking point between friends, the High Thane decided it was time to move on and continue with their mission as it had been agreed upon decades before. It was clear the Elves would not let them mine the rock under Am-Shei and it was clear the Dwarves would not allow their kinsmen to be exposed to sorcery. With a small diplomatic detachment staying behind in Am-Shei, to further communication with Kaalarn, Clan Hammerspark once more set out to explore the world.

Beyond this point, little known about what happened to Clan Hammerspark. For roughly 7,000 years all record and all contact with their diplomatic detachment in Am-Shei ceased. It had been thought that the Dwarves had encountered the remaining Yirok, a race of large and sentient crustaceans that once had vast numbers across Ishaela, but were very nearly wiped out when a piece of Vocoria landed on Ishaela to form the land masses of Mirislyr, Quivyin and Tyris and subsequently slaughtered for food, or worse.

However, others have postulated that Clan Hammerspark may have actually encountered Asyndi that had sorcerously traveled to Ishaela somehow. While there are no clan scrolls that directly confirm this, evidence in the way of Dwarven-made armor, weapon and siege engines littering ancient battlefields in Miroa, particularly around the fortress, S`Kyrai suggests that they found their way to Imarel, either as allies of a Shar`Vaire faction, or captured against their will and later managed to escape. Further evidence of this theory is supported by the presence of Hammerspark Keep in the very furthest reaches of Zoda. It is likely the truth of such questions is found within the keep itself, which has only been very recently reclaimed by an ancestor of the great Hammerspark legacy, a Dwarven warrior by the name of Kladagen Hammerspark.