Kazadazharr
Fortress of Fire
In the Eastern Holds, where the grim dawi of The Dark Lands hold sway and nearest to Barak Zharr, though far enough that in truth it acts more akin to its own settlement, there is a temple of sorts, a place sacred to Gazul of the Flame, who wages an eternal battle against Hashut, god of tyranny, dominance, and fire, ever breaking and yet never quite broken. A small ziggurat of black and red stone one-hundred meters in perimeter and eighty meters tall rising on the plains near the mountain. Sacred stories of Gazul are carved into the stone and inset with blackened iron from the pit where Gazul shattered the dark god Hashut with His mighty blade Zharrvengryn, culminating in the top most altar. Statues depicting Gazul and his most famous followers, sculpted from onyx black and reddest of rubies, have been erected around the walls, practically acting as crenelations and hiding a brazier where one may light their weapon ablaze, fed by hearthstones imported from frozen Norsca and Kraka Drak.
At the top of the ziggurat, there is an ever burning fire housed inside a chamber that is decorated only with a statue of Gazul that seems to spite magic, where suspected servants of Hashut are tried and tested.
It is...unseemly.
It is marked by the Master Rune of Purifying Radiance, given the Blood of an Ancient Ice Dragon; the Rune of Spellburning, fed a Hearthstone; and the Rune of Valaya, sister of Gazul, fed the stomach of a truly antediluvian Cygor to give it an endless hunger for magic. No secret sorcerer of the Bull God may long endure within that place, for their magic itself is burned, lit aflame within their very flesh, as though they've been trapped inside the hottest, fiercest furnace. To be tested there, and found unwanting is the surest sign of purity; to fail, the surest sign of corruption.
Within, a number of chambers house artifacts from the forever-war against the Frundar, things of dark will and black purpose that have not yet or cannot be destroyed or purified by Runesmiths: broken sets of armor, shattered by the blades of priests; scrolls and texts of dark lore of the Bull's cult; and perhaps most damning of all, the work of Grunni Thungnisson, The Wanderer. Among them Zharrgor, the Great Bull of Fire, a bullish Gronti of fire and black gromril that exults in the presence of Chaos; The White Troll Aldurki, a Gronti shaped like a troll; the Chimera abomination Dari, a gronti with the head of a bear, a wolf, and a lion; the wings of a phoenix; and a tail ending in the screaming visage of an eagle; Drengak, a spider gronti made of the hardest steel; The Hunter, an homage to Gazul shaped like that patron made of black granite; among other creations that most infamous son of Thungni sculpted, though we shall return to the nearly-censured in due time.
The chambers of the inner ziggurat are made of blackest stone, insets of rubies of a particularly glimmering red etched into them as prayers to Gazul and as invocations that seek to burn away the darkness, to repel magic and corruption: It was far from Kazaghar but nearer to that place than any other test I have so endured. It bears the Master Rune of Expurgation (Or a near-enough facsimile independently invented anyway) fed the broken remnants of The Bloodstone; The Rune of Valaya given the blood of a Stone Troll, ancient beyond ancient; and the Rune of Enchantment, given the spines of Zanhangron Gor Hierarchs (Aesvarinor to most of the rest of the world), harvested from sheddings rather than gained from their broken bodies. A place designed to spite creatures of magic, a place designed to break the spells of wizards, a place designed to be a fasthold in the perennial war against what remains of the cult of Hashut.
A coterie of Witch Hunters and priests of Gazul lurk in that place, soldiers of The Order of the Flame, the order of Dawi dedicated to rooting out corruption whether spiritual or physical. As the epicenter of the original Hashut incursion, which only the intervention of the Ancestor Gods averted, both metaphysically and in the bluntest possible method, though there are cells throughout the Karaz Ankor, not as subtle as they think from a bird's eye view but subtle enough for their work, those of Kazadazharr are a particular breed. They are capable, of that there can be no doubt, well-armed, doughty, unafraid and experienced; but they are also arrogant, in the manner of all the old, not prone to error but deeply prone to doubling down when they are incorrect.
Still more tolerable than the average Imperial Witch Hunter, of course.
Perhaps the matter most of interest to historians would be that so many artifacts of Grunni Thungnisson, one of the most controversial Runesmiths of the Golden Age, not entirely unlike the mythical Snorri Gift-Giver and his many tall tales, are kept in the fortress, and none can tell whether as trophies of victory or as weapons to be wielded or as yet more corrupt artifacts waiting only for the one that can destroy them. As the name would imply he was a son of Thungni and Vanya, one of the younger of their children (A very relative term given the lifespans placed on the fable of Alric Thungnisson). He was a master of Chaos' esoterica, knowing the signs and symbols, strengths and weaknesses, and facets of the Great Enemy in a way that other members of the Guild did not, to an extent that some considered troubling. This was only further exacerbated by his love of shaping Gronti, which could range from the odd (Who would craft a Giant Spider, never mind a damned troll) to the downright sinister given future events (His masterwork was Zharrgor, the Great Bull of Fire, a Gronti of black Pure Gromril wreathed in flames which given the events that would befall the East, and Gazul's campaigns there, is a positively terrible look). Unkind whispers swirled, even in his own lifetime, about this son of Thungni, and when he disappeared into the east nearing the end of the Great Incursion, those implications became all-but-accusations.
In life and with what scarce writings have been passed to posterity he was, ironically it seems, a staunch conservative of the Runesmith's Guild, deeply holding to the Rule of Pride in particular, if only as means to force himself to discover new, bespoke forms of the Master Rune of Animation to serve his many purposes, a factor his students continue to hold even today.
