Difference between revisions of "Ironfist's Vengeance"

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Ironfist's Vengeance

Dorin Ironfist was a dwarven captain in the border patrol many, many years ago, before humans settled down in the area that would later be known as Sparrowdale. In this time, ogres were a constant menace, and the border along the dwarven lands had to be constantly patrolled. As it was such an important duty, each patrolling officer was given a warhammer of the finest dwarven craft, and in carrying out his duties, none was more suited to the job than Dorin Ironfist. On several occasions he was offered a promotion, but he refused, since he knew a promotion would only bring him further into the dwarven lands and further away from the ogre threat.

When the dwarven king, Kreldor Aleblade, decided to dispatch several regiments into the mountains where the ogres lived and attempt to take them out once and for all, he knew the best dwarf for the job of leading them, Dorin Ironfist. Up to this point, the dwarves had never carried out a direct assault on the ogres; they had merely shored up their own defenses. So Dorin took his mighty warhammer, which others called Ironfist's Vengeance because of how greatly he wielded it in combat, and led four full regiments of dwarves (two infantry, one cavalry, and one support) into the ogre lands.

The carnage that the dwarves left in their path was legendary. Under Dorin Ironfist's guidance, they expertly decimated the ogres while losing very few of their own forces. Finally, they reached the ogre stronghold in the mountain the dwarves call Ugoras (their word for ogres), and the elves call Belfalas. Ironfist led his men into the caverns of sandstone and granite, and on that day, at the Battle of Belfalas as it was later to be known, the dwarves purged the ogre menace from the land.

Unfortunately, when one enemy is defeated, another may spring up...

The dwarves defeated the ogres, but they did not know of the other denizens of the mountains - hobgoblins. The ogres had kept many hobgoblins as slaves, using them to do work that required fine craftsmanship because the large ogres had large ogre hands and couldn't do fine craftwork. After killing the ogres, the dwarves released their hobgoblin slaves, being content to let them remain in Ugoras since the dwarves already had plenty of their own lands. That first night after the battle, Dorin Ironfist let the apparent leader of the hobgoblins, named Birruk, sleep in his camp, so that they could get to know each other's culture a bit better and start working on some sort of treaty. Birruk was enamored of the dwarven captain's warhammer, though, and desired to take it for his own. While Dorin slept, Birruk crept into his tent, slit his throat, and ran off with Ironfist's Vengeance into some secret cavern. The next day, the dwarves learned of what had happened, and had to once again take up arms, this time against the hobgoblins. While it should have been an easier battle due to the hobgoblins not having many weapons of their own, the hobgoblins were masterful tacticians, and took out almost half of the dwarves before being decimated.

Birruk ran away with Ironfist's Vengeance, and many years later, gave it to his son. So it passed, down the generations, until finally making its way into the hands of a hobgoblin leader in the caverns between the towns of Sparrowdale and Ravenside. After killing the hobgoblin (see the quest MISSING: Ambar Mightylock), the dwarf Astronom now wields Ironfist's Vengeance.