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The Dunwarr Dwarves see that history as their birthright. They believe that Dwarven society is among the most noble in the world, and that they deserve the respect and deference they once commanded. Their loftiest goal is to retake the Mol-ten Heath and force the dragons who occupy their lands to accept their right to live there once and for all.

• Starting Skills: Dunwarr Dwarves begin with one rank in Resilience. You still cannot train their Resilience above rank 2 during character creation.

• Dark Vision: When making skill checks, Dunwarr Dwarves remove up to ∫ ∫ imposed due to darkness.

• Tough as Nails: Once per session, a Dwarf may spend a Story Point as an out-of-turn incidental immediately after suffering a Critical Injury and determining the result. If they do so, they count the result rolled as “01.”

FORGE DWARFNot all Dwarves feel that their destiny belongs underground. Like their ancestors of old, some of them wish to spread out under the sky, an aspiration they can largely achieve in Terri-noth. These Forge Dwarves have made their homes in Free Cit-ies and baronial settlements across the Land of Steel, using their distinctive craftsmanship to create their own fate. They wheel and deal alongside other races, content to make their home away from the shadows and fire of the Molten Heath.

• Starting Skills: Forge Dwarves begin with one rank in Negotiation. You still cannot train their Negotiation above rank 2 during character creation.

• Stubborn: Forge Dwarves add ∫ to social skill checks targeting them.

• Tough as Nails: Once per session, a Dwarf may spend a Story Point as an out-of-turn incidental immediately after suffering a Critical Injury and determining the result. If they do so, they count the result rolled as “01.”

RUNEBOUNDTALES OF DARKNESS

THE ART OF DWARVEN CRAFTING

The craft of the Dwarves embodies exceptional metallurgy and stonemasonry married to ancient

traditions, the result of a people seemingly made to cre-ate objects of tremendous beauty and efficacy. The very bodies of Dwarves give them a natural affinity for craft-ing, possessing muscles strong enough to swing ham-mers with perfect control and the manual dexterity to work the most intricate patterns seen in all the world. Where other civilizations use poetry and painting to con-vey their deepest emotions, Dwarves rely on the ancient forge to express themselves and can see emotion placed in a blade, in a hammer, or in a warrior’s talisman.

The work of hundreds of generations of Dwarves adorns most of their cities, and to call these settlements treasure troves would not be much of a stretch. The care they invest in their work stems from more than simple arti-san’s pride. Dwarves see each piece they make as belong-ing to an unbroken chain of the artistry and memories of the Dwarven people as a whole, going back hundreds of generations.

To the Dwarves, craftsmanship is a part of their way of life, but stories are told of a craftsmanship that transcends even this—the creation of a Dwarven masterwork. Such a masterwork might be made but once a generation. This masterwork begins as a vision planted deep within the mind of a Dwarven artisan: a vision of a weapon, an arti-fact, or a suit of armor that is capable of surpassing the limits of its physical form.

A Dwarf might spend decades at their forge crafting bril-liant jewelry, cannons, armor, fixtures, or anything else their people might need, until one day the urge to create a particular work becomes too great, prompting them into seclusion to complete it. More than one Dwarf has departed on a quest to find a singular material needed to bring their vision into existence. Some never return, but those who do become champions of their race.

Such was the story of the outcast smith Gildspar, who forged the Mirror Hammer. Struck by a vision of this weapon and its function, he spent ten long years jour-neying to the heights of a mountain range where a per-petual lightning storm, said to be created by a floating runebound shard, blasted away at the jagged peaks. Gild-spar set metal ingots where lightning could strike them and infuse them with its energies. He then carved runes upon each ingot for every bolt of lightning that found its mark. He finally put the metal, charged with the energies of a thousand bolts of lightning, to the forge.

What emerged was the Mirror Hammer. In accordance with its name, when swung, the Mirror Hammer could reflect any magic and repel any blow. However, it had another power, one that revealed its true nature. When the Mirror Hammer struck the surface of a lake, the water would freeze into a silver pane, and anyone who looked into it could see visions of the distant past, the reflection of the ages.

Mark Slabinski (Order #15122355)

ULTHIK ISLEThe northernmost island of the Torue Albes, Ulthik Isle is an inhospitable marshland barely above sea level. A small volcanic mountain chain rises from the mire, but the rest of the terrain is thoroughly wet and unpleasant, as though the surrounding waters were winning the battle to reclaim the land. Were it not for the purity of the many ores to be found here, it is likely it would have remained uninhabited. Those ores, from rich iron deposits to thick veins of magical minerals, have transformed the island into a hotbed of industry. Furnaces and soot-stained workshops stud the face of Hardell, its primary city, which competes with the volcanoes and their constant fumes to see which can produce more noxious gases.

HARDELL

The city of Hardell saw its beginnings when a wizard tinkerer was banished from his home in Terrinoth for the excessive destruction caused by his inventions. The exiled mage made his lonely way here, expecting nothing but an uneventful life. That was, until he accidentally discovered the plentiful raw materials under his feet. Soon he was smelting and forging items of metal and magic never before imagined. Word spread of his creations, especially to nearby Trelton, and similarly eccentric and outcast inventors eagerly crossed the Winnow-ing Straits to join him.

Soon, a series of forges and smelters rose up, and the city of Hardell (named to honor the wizard) was born. It is a place of destructive wonders, where the wizard’s genius is now rec-ognized in full. His masterpiece is perhaps the Rune Cannon, an arcane weapon that magnified the strength of runic bolts a hundredfold, capable of blasting apart rock and heavy forti-fications with ease. In addition to the Rune Cannon, an end-less number of devices and mechanical contraptions can be found here, many singular creations awaiting someone to fully appreciate their potential (or figure out how to use them). Adventurers seeking specific items or modifications to existing ones for their latest quest are always welcome in Hardell, for its inhabitants always appreciate a good challenge.

LIFE IN THE WESTThe Lorimor Empire has thrived for ages through the cour-age and skill of its citizenry, especially its maritime forces. Its power scoured threats throughout the peninsula (or so it is believed), and centuries of stability has resulted in cultural richness rarely seen anywhere else in Mennara.

REALMS OF TERRINOTHCHAPTER III: LANDS OF MAGIC

Mark Slabinski (Order #15122355)

As such, his estate is filled with all manner of unnatural creatures. The forests around Castle Dalibor are choked with roving packs of barghests, while bone horrors and flesh con-structs shamble aimlessly in search of prey. The favorite saying of Kyndrithul, ever the pragmatist, is that all things have their use. Any heroes unfortunate enough to be taken prisoner in Castle Dalibor soon find themselves in Kyndrithul’s labora-tory, and the vampire exults in figuring out new ways to mold living flesh with necromancy. His most recent experiments might be his boldest yet, infusing living flesh with the dust of Waiqar’s own Deathborn Legion. Such a crime is punishable with a fate beyond death, something terrible enough to make even Kyndrithul tremble at the thought of discovery.

Despite the immense risk associated with these experi-ments, he nonetheless offers Waiqar aided passage through his lands and space to establish staging points for raids into Terrinoth. While Waiqar’s Deathborn generals look upon the vampire with disgust and suspicion, Kyndrithul knows that as long as he plays the part of a humble servant, he may yet reap the rewards of his secret work.

THE MISTY HILLSThe Misty Hills have been steeped in evil since the time a sadistic Penacor Prince and his followers were executed for unspeakable crimes. Death was not the end of them, for the dark oaths they had sworn the night before their hangings allowed them to rise again.

Taking the name Farrenghast, the prince moved to a tower-ing, abandoned keep in the Misty Hills with his fellow rev-enants. While Mennara always had undead spirits, this was perhaps the first time such fell creatures had banded together in a mass of evil. Over time, their foul essence seeped into the earth itself, and made it as vile as they. It was perhaps this darkness that called to the Mistlands, which absorbed the region into itself.

Despite the horrific nature of the Misty Hills, some still travel here in search of ancient relics and older knowledge. Like their undead inhabitants, the Misty Hills have changed little since the time Farrenghast took the keep and the sur-rounding lands for his own. The opportunities there are many for the brave and clever.

Within the keep, necromantic tomes of tremendous power rest on shelves of decaying wood, their leather bindings and blood-marked pages still fresh despite the centuries. Weapon stores from Farrenghast’s many campaigns are said to lie inside the lesser fastnesses within the Hills. These include items from across Mennara—for his foes have come from far and wide to thwart him, and after failing left their possessions along with their corpses. Rumors have spread that unbound Stars of Timmorran seeded away within unmarked chests, drawing the attention of those mages hungry for power or eager to study such priceless rarities.

ROTH�S VALE Having no true borders itself, Roth’s Vale is the nebulous bor-der territory between the rest of the baronies and the Mis-tlands. Though it is in many ways a cursed land, it was not always so. Before Waiqar’s betrayal, Roth’s Vale was a flourish-ing territory, protected by great magics and glorious treasures from the golden age of the Elder Kings. When the last baron of Roth’s Vale died without an heir, it became a no-man’s land, and the debate over who shall become its warden has only intensified in recent years.

Young Gaspard Bay, a rising hero ennobled for his efforts fighting with the eastern Hernfar garrison, desperately wishes to be given lordship over this territory, not just for himself, but to fulfill a promise made to his ancestors. Baron Zachareth of Carthridge—a capable and intense lord who, it is whispered, has fallen to the lure of sorcerous power—covets the hundreds of artifacts lost in the land’s abandoned temples and castles. Such items could be used to defeat the undead—or to raise and command them.

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REALMS OF TERRINOTHCHAPTER III: LANDS OF MAGIC

THE EVERLIVING ENGINE

Waiqar’s most heinous vehicle of destruction, the Everliving Engine, is a machine most

foul. Deep below the volcanic caves under the ru-ins of Kelipa, its bone gears grind endlessly with a sound that reverberates across the Mistlands. So great is its mechanical noise that, on still nights, the sound can be heard dozens of leagues away, as far as the border of the Barony of Carthridge. Its true purpose is known only to Waiqar and the archlich Revik, who oversees its operation, but with every tick, the barrier between the world of the liv-ing and the dead weakens. The undead everywhere feel themselves empowered, if only by the faintest margin, and new, unimagined horrors manifest to plague the world of the living.

Those who displease Waiqar are fed to this terrible machine, and their screams mingle with each tick until they are subsumed entirely. No mortal can say exactly what it means to be consumed by the Everliving Engine, but it is a fate dire enough to strike fear into the hearts of those who serve the Undying One.

Mark Slabinski (Order #15122355)