Charting the Nogthrong

Of Kazad Nogthrong, City-state of the Gorm Range Dawi 

Eorlcyng Nialon the Disapproving, and Snorri Spilaf, Thegn of Nog

Deep in the Gorm Ranges – known to the dwarfs as Migdahlgorm – sits the great city-state of Kazad Nogthrong. This is the ancestral seat of the Dawi Cyng Nog, to whom most of the western dwarfs of Rhô pay allegiance. 

The greatest, though not the highest, peak is threaded through with the Seat of First; a mighty fortress occupied by the first dwarfish settlers of the region long ago in the Age of Myth. The tale of the construction of the first keep – now the core of a sprawling fortified complex – is written, on an entire panel of the great Avenue of Stone that runs to the throneroom. 

Thereon is carved the Fourth Feat of Nog, a tale in which the Cyng-before-all managed to bribe the gods themselves to assist in constructing his fortress. Over the course of three moons, he used his great cunning and craftsmanship to sow seeds of jealousy amongst the gods; gifting first one, then the next with ever more wondrous dawi-made armaments, ornaments and trinkets. 

Through the demonstration of each, Nog tricked the gods into carving and shaping the mountain into a sky-scraping hold fit for the deities themselves – and then, once it was complete, used the last gift to shrink it to a size fit only for the dawi-folk. The rage and anger of the gods were unleashed upon the fortress, and the deities battered themselves against the impregnable fortress they themselves had created. At last, anger turned to exhaustion, then amusement, and at last respect for the cunning of Nog.

It is written that this is not myth, but history; and the dawi have sought the treasures of Nog ever since the elves displaced the gods. 

***

The Seat of First broods at the northern tip of the Great Scar, a massive canyon torn through the mountain range by some long-forgotten firce. The fortress stands tall, but its roots descend many fathoms, running down the whole depth of the Scar itself, and back into the mountains. The fortress is thus far taller than it is broad, and is home to many thousands of dawi-folk who make a living from mining the ore and precious minerals revealed by the scar.

Nogthrong is built along a great scar that runs through the Gorm Ranges.

Along the rest of the scar are dotted watchposts, thrall-villages and mountain towns, where dwarven merchants, craftsmen and farmers make their living. The outermost are open to other folk who come to trade or seek an audience with the Cyng. Over the centuries different Cyngs have stamped their identity on the region; some fond of visiting elven bards and human merchants, others jealously inward-looking who closed the whole kingdom to non-dawi. It remains to be seen how the recently crowned Cyng will treat his people, and those beyond. Those who have met him speak of a flint-eyed and hard-voiced dwarf, a Cyng like those of old.

***

Allies of Nogthrong

To the north of the Grom Ranges lie the Middle Kingdoms. This region was historically home to dwarfs, men, elves and other civilised peoples, though today the remaining towns and villages are fortified against the roaming hordes of greenskins, nomadic beastmen and similar villains.

Travelling further north will reveal the imposing silhouette of the Dar'Koath Highlands, a still harder and more bitter mountain range than the imposing Gorm Ranges. In this bleak region are warring barbaric tribes of orcs, humans, and stranger things besides. On the Easternmost peak stands Durak Undi, an outpost and remnant of a once-great dawi kingdom, long since fallen to ruin. None today remember the fall of the kingdom, but it was said by the wise and learned to have been a lesson sorely forgotten – for the fall of the dwarfs here proved to be a foretelling of the fate of the Sinian Empire.

Annotated map of the Dwarfs of Migdahlgorm and the surroundings

Eorlcyng Nialon, living in exile in Kazad Nogthrong, believes his line to be the last scions of the lost dawi kingdom. He has petitioned the new Cyng to lead an expedition to Durak Undi, there to discover whether dwarf-folk remain, and to resettle the lands of his ancestors. The distance is great, and a host of rare power must be drawn up to ensure such an expedition's success; so it remains to be seen whether the new Cyng of Nog will grant his request...

***

The peace and quiet of painting usually allows my mind to wander a bit, and I tend to find it a good time for developing a bit of back story for the figures I'm working on. I wanted to make sure that the Nogthrong (my army) had a place in the Tallowlands, but not to make it so isolated that there's not really any reason to fight battles. After all, Warhammer Fantasy Trade Negotiation doesn't have quite the same ring, nor need of chainmail-clad warriors.

With that in mind, I decided that Kazad Nogthrong would be my dwarf's 'main base'; a combination of surface stronghold, underground city and a surrounding area of farms, orchards and similar above-ground necessities. Located in the range of mountains between the cities of Jeldenburg and Eo, this is a fairly central location.

Dwarfs from the World That Was (the Old World of older editions of Warhammer) have a very fixed background. While that was wonderfully rich, I want to have some freedom to develop away from it. so the Nogthrong will – hopefully – have a mix of familiar and innovative concepts.

One of these is the concept of thrall settlements. Not all dwarfs in the Tallowlands live huddled in keeps or underground. Dwarf country includes thriving villages, towns and even cities that take care of things like growing barley for bread and beer, managing livestock and so forth. While some of these are wealthy enough to afford mercenaries to defend themselves, most owe allegiance to an eorlcyng – a sort of local independent chieftain that oversees an area of a few villages and a town or two. In turn, these eorlcyngs owe allegiance through a complex and ancient series of oaths to the Cyngs, the most powerful of all the dwarfs of the region.

Snorri Spilaf (right), is an example of a Thegn – an important rank in the court of Nog. He bears the Throng's banner.

In times of war, famine or plague, thrall settlements will look to the wealth and military strength of the eorlcyng; who in turn can turn to the Cyng himself to summon further aid. In return, the settlements pay a tithe to the eorlcyng, part of which is paid to the Cyng. Thus the dwarfs have a feudal system of mutual support.

Nialon (pictured above) is an example of one such Eorlcyng, who will be used as a Warden King in-game. This was one way I found to square the circle of having multiple Kings in an army – some are nominally independent (as suits a proud dwarf), but with a measure of subservience. Nialon doesn't have to support Cyng Nog, but he'll generally find he – or his descendants – benefit if he joins in.

***

So far, the Tallowlands only has one Cyng – that of Nogthrong, but I wanted to leave the concept open in case other Cyngs need to be created, or one of the PCRC decide they want to paint up some dwarfs. Might make for some nice mercenaries, for example – or even a whole new army. 

***

The Dwarfish history of the Tallowlands

Draw close, manling, and pass that well-water your brewer flatters with the name of ale.

Hm. 

Passable, after all. Perhaps I misjudge the children of Sigmar.

At the least, my throat is not so dry as it was. While the fire burns still, let me tell you a little. You have been hospitable to my sister in her illness, and my kin do not soon forget kindness. 

Of the Tallowlands, it is said the Star Giants drew their plough across these lands – long ago; before the raising of the Hold, before the coming of Man; before the kingdoms that now flourish. The land buckled and melted in the heat, and the bones of the earth themselves grew soft and flowing. For two wholemoons the skies rained ash and fire as the plough drew slowly through the groaning ground. All who stayed on the surface perished. As the Giants passed, the land grew cold once more, and the mountains set into the soft rolling hills you see now.

Ages passed – ages of war and terror; long since passed into the myth of man. Then it was that the great King-before-Kings came to explore the furrow they had ploughed. As Nog reached the edge of the blackened land, he saw a long scar in the earth. It sank deep – deep beyond his sight – and was seeded with gems and ore to delight a thousand lifetimes.

It was hard, then, and bare: naught but thin grasses and heathers stretched across the moorlands, and the wind was chill. The Old gods, the hungry gods, were abroad in those days. Nog bought his safety through cunning pacts and bargains with Caer-Nadhg; and with wondrous gifts to He-that-is-named-Tidh.

Nog knew then that he would raise a hold. A Hold of a thousand – ten thousand! – families. He and his kin would steward these new Tallowlands. And so it became. A fort was raised; and then a keep. Over five manling lifetimes Nog laboured and sweated to bring his hold to reality; while drawing the richness of the furrow to himself. 

Then came the greenskin nomads, and the silver-tongued infidious elves – and with them they brought their war... 

***

Hm. Elves. They inveigled their way into the holds of the dawi-folk with flattery and bluster. At first, we were glad to have company, for the winters were long then, the wild things of the world fiercer, and elves – for all their failings – are always beautiful, always quick to laugh, always with the brightest stories and the finest riddles. 

Safely ensconsed within stout dwarf-built walls, they built their damnable towers; and spied on the heavens. They peered too far. 

In his arrogance, their Princeling Lauim declared he had found the first Great Lesson: that gods and mortals were not meant to stand alongside each other. The elves cast the ancient Pacts of the gods and Nog asunder, and used their witch-ways and towers to shift Caer-Nadhg and He-that-is-named-Tidh and Listan and Dairayan and the rest. No longer were they seen plainly, as in the Time of Ancestors; and nor could they be treated with by the words of honest dawi-folk – for the Old gods had moved beyond where the wind of breath could reach them.

It was an ill place, then; and without their presence the balance of the Wilds was broken. Tangled forests erupted with half-beasts and the mountains became treacherous with ogres and giants and trolls. Greenskins boiled forth from their hideouts and lairs, and the Wars of Sorrows began. Many towns were lost, and the dawi-folk were driven from the lowlands to their great holds. Beyond the hillside farms, we have never hence returned.

The elves were ejected, then, and have never since been welcome; but that did not save our underhalls, for the greenskins and beastmen and crawlers are braver now than once they were; as they have no gods to fear.

The Throng of Nog, as it stands in these benighted times.

***

Ask them, now, in the towns of Man, where the lands they dwell in began, and they will not know. Only the dawi remember, for we have rune-cunning; and carve our memories in stone. Aye, us, and perhaps the elves; though well it is said that it is better to trust a knife in the dark than an elf. 

The Sin and the Gorach were the first of the Men to settle, the first to trade, and the first to build cities. Where the dawi-folk had bargained with the gods, knowing them to be part of a great balance, Man brought their own gods with them – Khând, Hain-Amur, Mithrest – and grew strong. Their temples displaced those of the wild gods; and 

Those first kingdoms are now lost, long lost, and lamentably lost. The Southern fiefdoms – the latecoming Rhôvers  – are a dreary place in comparison with the glories of the Twin Empires. But such is the way of Man. Far-reaching, and short-sighted, the Sinian and Nygorach strove ever onwards.

At first, so the ancestors have it, there was a spirit of friendly competition, the two cities growing to become kingdoms, then empires... As the strength of each waxed, so they strove not merely to out-do one another, but to eclipse the other. After centuries, the Sinians, it seemed, had won – and bloodlessly, too – for their rich lands bordered much to the south, providing them with space to grow; while the thin soils of Nygorach grew stripped-back and starved as the people of the peninsula cannibalised what land they had in raising increasingly impressive monuments, their grandeur giving the proud rulers an inadvertently desperate air, that made visiting dignitaries' wine sour.

The Gorach would, eventually, fall to the temptations of powers that even the blade-ears avoid, and by the beard of Gazul, their new-found power would consume them.

The Tallowlands; a map charted by the umgi Warmtamale and Omricon.

It was not long since – within my lifetime, and I am no great age for a dawi  – that Sinian fell. In two-score years, its garrisons and towns and castles were eaten from within. The Sinian Emperor, and then his line, were lost, and the lands themselves seemed sickened. 

Trains of refugees and exiles swept down the mountain roads, seeking sanctuary. Armies of monsters trailed them, and as our holds became besieged, we learned then how it was that the Great Sinian Empire had fallen so quickly – for Nygorach had traded with dark places, and learned how to draw life away. So Sinian soldiers fell, unblemished; and even their firearms and gunpowder failed to light, as the spark of fire lost its life. It was then we learned once more the value of steel and sinew over the alchemy increasingly favoured by our cousins and by the youngling races. 

Turning to the ancestors, we found ancient tomes from the time the elves lived alongside us, and our runesmiths learned to yoke their sorcery; breaking its will and writing it into our runes, and thence to beat them into our steel. Thus strengthened by good dwarfish craft, were our holds able to withstand  the tide.

The conflict became known as the Ghoul Wars, and it continues to this day. It is our great sorrow to bear witness to the weakness of Man. With the strong arm of the Sinian Empire lost, the wild things of the Tallowlands grow bold once more. The mould-hearted children of the Nygorach are triumphant – though their mad king rules naught but charred wasteland. Pain, despair and hunger, the three children of  war, stalk the Tallowlands... 

***