Home of Daggers
Karrick-Har is the northern mountain realm known as the Home of Daggers and the ancestral homeland of Auldwyn’s dwarves. Its coast is a brutal line of black stone, reefs, cliffs, and cruel surf, while inland ridges, cold passes, deep roads, old mines, and fortress-halls cut through the mountains.
Snow clings to the northern reaches, while the southern slopes descend toward forests, valleys, trade roads, and neighbouring lands. The region is beautiful with the severity of a forged blade: purposeful, dangerous, and unwilling to soften itself for strangers.
The Holds and Their Oaths
Karrick-Har is not ruled by a single crown. Its holds are joined through councils, trade agreements, ancestral claims, temple obligations, dynastic marriages, old rivalries, and practical necessity.
A Tor is more than a fortress. It is a home under oath, a place of stone and inheritance, and often a sacred work dedicated in some fashion to Torin. One hold may be famed for shield-lines, another for rune-wrights, another for masons, armourers, miners, gemcutters, or siege engineers.
Roads Above and Below
The surface passes are steep, narrow, and vulnerable to sudden weather. Snow, rockfall, fog, and high winds can turn a known road into a deathtrap. Beneath the mountains, dwarven roads are safer only for those with permission and the knowledge to avoid military routes, sealed tunnels, and places not discussed with outsiders.
The range has yielded iron, copper, tin, precious metals, gemstones, rare ores, and stranger things brought up from depths where torchlight feels unwelcome.
Harûnd-Tor and Fyröd-Tor
Harûnd-Tor stands near the heart of the region, where roads meet, trade is weighed, and oaths are witnessed. Its position between Aucklorn Vale, Arrith, elven lands, and the deeper dwarven roads makes it one of the most outward-looking holds in the range.
Fyröd-Tor lies in colder country to the north-west, a furnace in the snow known for deep forges, hard metal, winter-tested armour, and crafts made for endurance rather than ornament. Visitors should expect stricter customs, colder welcomes, and fewer second chances.
Trade and Travellers
Dwarven weapons, armour, tools, worked stone, gems, and engineering contracts move outward from Karrick-Har, while grain, timber, cloth, livestock, wine, medicines, and surface-grown foods move inward. Humans, elves, halflings, and gnomes all maintain important ties with the holds.
Travellers come seeking rare ores, lost roads, old maps, guarded histories, trade contracts, or the patronage of craft guilds. Others arrive to clear passes, escort caravans, investigate missing miners, negotiate between holds, or explore ruins whose ownership remains disputed. Karrick-Har rewards patience, discipline, and respect. It does not reward arrogance.