The Disappeared Ancestor-Spawn of the Karaz Ankor
Leandre Agua
There are those--Elf, Man, Dwarf alike--who claim the senescent and senile lizardfolk of Lustria deserve all the credit for facing down in elder days the vast armies of darkness, the vast armies of Chaos, the vast armies of evil. I cannot speak to the contributions of the decrepit and decaying frogs or their slaves; but I may speak, and may Myrmidia guide my tongue well in the speaking, of the deed performed by the Dawi in repudiating the evils that came upon the world in those elder days.
The sacrifices made.
The losses incurred.
Durin did not disappear alone.
Barra Vanyasdottir: Barra was a middle daughter of Thungni, the Ancestor God of Runecraft. She was well-within the skill level expected of the direct child of that particular Ancestor. Politically, she was a Radical of the most innovative and inventive sort, with a particular focus on Runes exploring the natural world: Beasts, the Elements, so on and so forth. Most often this expressed itself with Structural Runes, strengthening the literal foundations of the Karaz Ankor for the future, even as she railed against the blind, obstinate, authoritarian and domineering conservatism of the Runesmith's Guild that she saw as a threat to their intellectual foundations in the future.
A future Barra would never get to see.
Decades-to-centuries before the Great Incursion proper, Barra disappeared. Sources from the time suggest she went east, the last records of her journey in Karak Azul (A mixture of shame and pride for the hold that she should trust, that she should disappear from the records in their watch). There are those who propose she went east to face the nascent Serpent Queens of Khuresh, others to face down a Chaotic army marching from Eastern Steppe, and most blatantly obvious those who believe she was seeking to fight the growing cult of Hashut and tear it out at the source. Whatever the case may be, the Karaz Ankor recorded no great armies marching at them from the east in those dark days.
Alius Smednirsson: Twice shame to the Karaz Ankor: a shame in life, and a shame in death.
He was a son of Smednir, not a great warrior nor blacksmith by any means; not to the public, at least, nor to the Guild. A public, and vocal, critic of the Blacksmith's Guild at that, for all they have ensured his criticism has not survived to the modern day in the public record, little loved by most of his family short of a scarce few cousins that he spoke with often and much. A shame to his ancestors, a shame to the Ancestors.
And then an army of Beastkin, half-daemonic, half-beast abominations, began marching towards Karak Zorn, towards the Karaz Ankor, towards his home. And it was Alius--not his kin, him--who marched south to meet them. Armed with his hammer Earthbreaker and wearing the talisman Brightbane, both runed by his cousin Grunni, he warded them away from the Karaz Ankor with hammer and talisman, blood and filth and destruction following the path he cleaved in to that enemy force like a knife through cooked beef.
Whatever happened to Earthbreaker or Brightbane is unknown. What is known is that the army of abominations was waylaid a month, an extra month's ammunition stored, an extra month's supplies stockpiled, an extra month for outlying settlements to journey to safety, an extra month for reinforcements to arrive.
An extra month for Karak Zorn to prepare.
An extra month's preparation that allowed them to endure the storm that was coming, particularly since so many of the wizards and leaders that would, otherwise, have strengthened the daemonblooded were dead at his hands.
The priests of Smednir and the metal-workers guilds alike do not like to speak of Alius, for there is a divide between those who believe he redeemed himself in death, by foreshadowing his uncle; or that he never needed to redeem himself in the first place, that his worth had been missed.
Dellingra Ydrasdottir: A daughter of Morgrim, a prodigy of siege engines, war-things, cunning contraptions to kill and slay, to break sieges and to bring sieges. The Stone Flinger, a miniature stone-thrower capable of tossing a flaming shot that explodes on impact, disrupting enemy lines; the Ravager, a multi-shot bolt thrower flinging multiple, javelin sized shots; and other such ingenious contraptions for to wage war, though all paled in comparison to the lost Fire Spitter, a cart that spat great bouts of fire that could blow open gates and smash apart walls. The pride of her father's eye, a dissenting voice to the traditionalists in the Engineering Guild.
For reasons only she could tell, as the Great Incursion grew Dellingra took the Fire Spitter, many of her apprentices, and several dozen of the best warriors and journeyed to the west, claiming a great evil awoke in that place. What came of that remains unknown, for not a survivor nor letter ever did reach the Karaz Ankor from her party. As Dwarf explorers journeyed further into the Lustrian depths it became their supposition to believe that the Cave of Bearded Skulls was where her band made its final stand: if it were so, would there not be more proof, more treasures and artifacts there, rather than empty grotto and the constant drip-drip-drip of water into the stagnant pools? Whatever the case may be, hither to nothing is known.
With her disappearance, the most coherent voice arguing against the gerontocrats, conservatives, and hidebound traditionalists of the Guild disappeared as well, allowing them to claim more power and more control over the Guild and complete its transformation into the top-down, stagnant thing it is today. Reclaiming her mantle would be...useful, but by no means mandatory, to shatter that guild and rebuild it, as surely as my King broke the lands and rebuilt them in his image.
