Dorflog 1 - The Universe of Souls

The troubled north

On the main continent of The Universe of Souls, there lies a lake so huge it’s called “The Teal Ocean”. Magnificent and unchanging, it lies in contrast to its surroundings like an island of peace in the midst of a raging sea of chaos.

From the early decades of recorded history, the civilizations surrounding The Teal Ocean were embroiled in an endless struggle against each other. The vast steppe to the east has been populated with numerous sites of those civilizations over the past 550 years. Those centuries have very complicated histories of wars, raids, governments, and groups of outcasts large enough to challenge civilizations. Many sites have lost their original identity, and many have been abandoned to ruin.

A declining civilization

On the edge of The Crest of Praising, a mountain range to the southeast of The Teal Ocean, lies the ancient city of Plaitochre. This fortress was the original home of The Anvil of Carnality, a particularly unlucky dwarven civilization. Their homeland on the vast mountain range has been invaded over and over again by neighboring elves, humans, goblins and other dwarves, and now it has been overrun by a group of necromancers. Shame!

From the very beginning, this civilization has been attacked by forgotten beasts, hydras, dragons and all sorts of wild creatures. And from the very beginning, it has been infiltrated by necromancers. Later, invasions took their settlements one after the other. Going through the history archives digging up information is no easy task, but I will try to give a summary of what happened to the first capital Plaitochre. The fortress managed to maintain native rule until the year 359 when it was defeated by a group of necromancers who established a new human government, and everything went downhill from there.

In the same year, an elven invasion took over and established its own government, which got overthrown in 365 by a bandit gang (a gang!) of humans who, in turn, were defeated in 370 by a dwarven necromancer group who couldn’t keep the place for one year before it was invaded by another dwarven civilization called The Virtuous Bust (:D). Then the human bandit gang (that’s some tough gang) returned in 373 and held the city until it was overrun by a group of human necromancers in 379 who are still in control to this day in 550. Many other cities had a similarly tumultuous history. Strangely, Plaitochre remained the seat of government of The Anvil of Carnality even when it was occupied by foreign powers.

False gods

A total of 10 monarchs ruled The Anvil of Carnality from year 1 up to the present year of 550 in the age of myth. The first dynasty started with the queen dwarf Rakust Swordriddle in the year 1, the same year Plaitochre was founded, and ended with king Goden Brightnessrock who died in 259. With the exception of Rakust, who was killed fighting a forgotten beast, all her lineage of kings died of old age. All the monarchs of the first dynasty worshipped mainly and almost exclusively dwarven gods.

The second dynasty started with king Minkot Steelcaves in 259. Little is documented in the archives about the circumstances that led to him becoming the new king of The Anvil of Carnality. All that is written about him before his ascension is that he fought alongside the elves who were besieging a necromancer settlement as a part of a very large war that started with the necromancer group attacking some human civilization. Sounds complicated? I know! What was Minkot doing there? No idea. At least he wasn’t on the necromancer side of this battle. Anyway, he died in 299 of old age and was succeeded by his son, king Doren Paddledright.

Doren, unlike all the monarchs before him, worshipped a foreign god of the elves. They would call it a “force of nature” or whatever, but if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, then it must be a foreign god. Doren was killed in the necromancer invasion of Plaitochre in 359. His son, Edem Mirroredcoastal was a poem-writing, human-god-worshiping idiot of a king, he was killed in the 365 bandit invasion. His daughter, queen Zasit Whipluster, was a pious dwarf, but she was killed only four years later in the 370 necromancer invasion, marking the end of the second dynasty. Almost the opposite to the first dynasty, except for the the first king, all the rest were killed by foreign invaders.

After Zasit, some total rando became king and ruled from a human city! We are deep into the dark age here, you see. He got killed fourteen years later by some necromancer. And finally, from 385 to 550, The Anvil of Carnality has been ruled by king Ushrir Urnhandled…who is a goblin. He worships human gods next to dwarven gods and I don’t even know where his government is exactly.

This nation is dying. Weak, defeated and surrounded by powerful enemies. Most importantly, it strayed too far from its roots. There is only one way to save it.

Dwarf Fortress

All of the above is, believe it or not, procedurally generated by the amazing game that is Dwarf Fortress. Look it up.

My plan is to role-play this as a group of dwarves escaping the chaos of the region (especially the mountains of The Crest of Praising), looking to carve a home for themselves in the mountain range of The Horn of Man, to the south west of Teal Ocean. This new settlement would be a place for the conservative, pious dwarves of The Anvil of Carnality. Who knows, maybe they can restore the nation and make the Anvils great again.

I don’t have control over the personalities and preferences of the dwarves in the settlement though, so we’ll see how this goes. I should document things into this “dorflog”.

And so it begins.