The Great Mound of Karak Zorn
A great temple, shrine, and monument all at once lies within the supposed realm of Karak Zorn, placed within the deeps of the jungle vast, somehow defiant of the weight of age, standing resolutely over the roads thousands upon thousands of years before us, here standing in the present day. A first layer of earthen turf rises up, gently sloping seventy feet, formed into an altogether perfect circle, all of this reinforced and contained by long planks of wutroth, each plank stained a delicate teal--the same color as Runes. Each of these planks is decorated with the mundane shape of various Runes then filled in purified gromril, the silvery metal gleaming in the light of sun and moon alike. The gaps are so narrow that water cannot get through. The only gap is a staircase, lined with wooden statues of the Children of Thungni--His direct children, that is. They eschew realism to emphasize the character of the figure so represented, the statue of Angkara Amberplaits, for instance, form a rope forty-nine times around her waist. The mundane shapes of Runes they discover offer their name to the wise, placed on the statue's base.
A second, straight walled, layer of turf eventually rises up from the center of the original sloping mound, the turf once again reinforced with the tealed wutroth, the wutroth itself once again carved with the mundane shapes of Runes. A floor wide enough to allow six dwarfs to travel shoulder-to-shoulder is lined with a soft golden wutroth, yet again carved with the shapes of Runes, and none of them repeats. This floor eventually terminates in a second mound, again gently, softly sloping, until it reaches another straight-walled mound, and on the pattern goes. Statues of the greatest of Runesmiths and Runelords line the straight walls.
This continues, forming six levels in precisely this pattern. The seventh, however, is something very different indeed. The seventh is a plateau, topped by a great forge, domed, the walls made of the teal-stained wutroth, the ceiling and dome made of purest Barazgal. On the inside the walls are decorated, painted in the intricately colorful if deeply stylized fashion, with the story of Thungni--not of His Journey to the Glittering Realm, or His battles, or His great feats of craftsmanship, but rather His Courting of Vanya Skellasdottir; not unimportant, to be sure, but compared to the great feats of mighty Thungni, an odd choice for certain.
All told it forms a great, perfect mound of circle building on circles, rising up thirty-five meters into the air, with a circumference of two-hundred-and-ten-meters. Levels one to three are protected by the Master Rune of Mystifying Stone, the Rune of Discord, and the Rune of Fogginess, ensuring unwanted intruders are never allowed to assault the sacred place for they can barely comprehend it. Levels four-to-six, meanwhile, bear the Master Rune of Sky's Hate, pouring hot, arcing lightning against the enemy. The empty fields around the temple are scarred black with the remnants of some enemy learning to fear the true lightning. The seventh level, meanwhile--that is to say, the Forge-- holds the Master Rune of Thungni's Wisdom, the Rune of Grungni, and the Rune of Valaya, improving the creations forged there ten-fold. A mighty statue of Thungni, with His Rune and the Runes of His Parents at His feet, overlooks the anvil, easily twice as tall as He was in life--but not clad in armor and bearing Karaz-Kazak-Rune, nor in the soft, slate gray robes of His priesthood bearing Gormwand, but in tunic and trouser, simple workman's hammer in one hand and chisel in the other. His lips softly quirked to suggest a smile.
Though predating Khazagar, the Citadel of Creation, and the facilities at Brynduraz and Izril, and seeming in a certain sense to be related to their function, the great mound, Azgala Aldrhun--Treasure Hoard of the Old Runes-- as it is known in Khazalid, is not included in their number for a bevy of reasons. For one, oversized it might be but it lacks the space to teach more than a large-but-traditional amount of apprentices, perhaps five at most fitting into the top forge, and while there are those who will visit the lower levels to think and seek inspiration, that is not particularly different than any other Runesmith taking a gander at the works of others for inspiration. One could no more use it as one would the Aquila Academies, the White Tower, or the Dark Convent.
Perhaps most importantly, because it is not a shrine to a distant ancestral spirit but instead, a familial shrine.
One from a daughter seeking to honor a father, one who raised her; and her grandparents, who raised him.
For Azgala Aldrhun was designed, constructed, and Runed by Barra Vanyasdottir. One of the direct children of Thungni, directly instructed by Him in the arts of a Runesmith.
And there is dishearteningly little of her to be known, of this figure who by rights should stand proudly defiant with the many other among His children.
It is known she was a middle child. We know that her main abode was supposedly within mythical Karak Zorn, a proposition that seems much the liklier having discovered this shrine when otherwise the Lost Karak could be resolutely considered a mere legend. We know from the letters of various suitors that she was a nature enthusiast, a wanderer and a traveler, preferring to spend weeks, months even, above ground under the touch of the sun, speaking with the animals, the trees, the mountain peaks and the streams, to an extent that was considered borderline irresponsible. We know that there were those who considered her presence in Zorn either a sort of prank, or outright punishment, of the realm by Thungni for any number of insults laid upon Him, putting one of His most Radical children into a realm ossified in gerontocratic conservatism even by the standards of the Dawi.
We know, from the scarce--scarce--scarce artifacts left to us that she was, as expected of a Runesmith, able in the construction of many beautiful things, though by numerical supposition it might be conjectured that she preferred working with structures, ironically enough, having left several fabulous architectural achievements throughout the Old Holds of the World's Edge Mountains, more structures, in fact, than any other sort of artifacts.
We know from these Runes that Barra, ironically considering her political affiliation, particularly delved into the esoteric connections between nature and the Runes in her work. Runes of beasts, monsters, and wild things seemed to flow from her workshop as she hunted for inspiration, looking for the best of Reagents and the most obscure of Runes.
It can be considered that she took on many apprentices, hence the manpower for Azgala Aldrhun, for the perennial antagonist of Kraka Drak's Klausson Myths or Kraka Ravnsvake's Folk Hero, Vragni Silverbrand1, is said to take on "Barra's Work" in metaphors presented by later writers, either as an admission from the writers who back Snorri and Kraka Drak or else as a sign of the esteem of Kraka Ravnsvake.
Scattered praise poetry, orders from kings signed and documented to the correct dates, there is reality here, a figure of great historical interest--
And yet we cannot even say how she died, or disappeared, or her broader fate. All we know is that at the least decades, quite possibly centuries, before the Great Incursion, writing about her disappears all at once. All we have left to go on are the scattered fragment in papyrus from, of all places, Athel Loren, having been preserved by the Hardstone Kindred, a band of Spellweavers whose distant, distant ancestors were once friends with her descendants:
That call of snakes echoes to her,
And she, the fairest voyager,
She prepared all things,
Suppos'd honor of kings,
That gave rings
Less than her.
Given the poem itself holds the title journey to the east, it seems the best supposition to be made is that she journeyed to the east to face the call of snakes, though that leaves us with the obvious, burning question--what snakes?
1. Vragni Svaltisson may not have been mangled to fit the image of Vragni Silverbrand quite so much as Snorri Klausson was mangled to fit the figure of Snorri Gift-Giver, but it boggles the mind to imagine any dwarf willingly tolerating as many young people as would be required for legends of his "Apprentice Swarm" to have truly existed. Mindlessly holding both the big Grudge and the little Grudge against Snorri Klausson, on the other hand, is well within parameters for a longbeard with an agenda.
-Leandre Agua, Temples and Monuments of the World Entire (Revised 6th Edition)
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