Lore: War of the Burning Hills

 War of the Burning Hills

From the year 844 to 855, S.R., a grinding war was fought between the dwarven Clan Hill-Breaker and the largely human Kingdom of Periandor.

This followed an earlier episode during the 820s, during which Periandor and Clan Hill-Breaker both lay claim to the northern Dimweald, escalating briefly to open conflict. That nascent war was halted abruptly, however, when the Thulgrähbar flooded the dwarven Deepings, and their abominable allies rose from the sea to harass the surface world. This struggle would later become known as The Silent Tide. Its advent forced the Perianders and Hill-breakers, for the time being, to set aside their territorial disputes and defend themselves from the greater threat.

In the early 840s, however, a new Thane came to rule the Hill-Breaker dwarves, and for reasons that remain unclear he descended quickly into xenophobia, paranoia, and madness. The Thane suddenly closed his borders with Periandor, effectively cutting the human kingdom off from the most well-trod routes to their farther flung trading partners.

The Thane, Hargreld Hill-Breaker, was soon assassinated by parties unknown. His heir, Guddren, blamed Periandor for the murder, and he set into motion an invasion that very nearly succeeded. His armies ambushed the host of the human King Andro IV and gained a decisive victory, killing Andro's heirs and driving the king back to his citadel at Angarom.

All would have been lost, then, if not for the arrival of the king's Vassals from the Dragon Roost and Brimstock. Enraged, Andro pushed back into dwarven territory.

Ever proud and stubborn, although the odds had tipped overwhelmingly against him, Thane Guddren refused to yield. What followed was a brutal war of scorched earth. The human armies, backed by Andro's undead servants and the wrath of Lady Ysandir's dragonfire, one by one lay waste to the settlements of the Broken Hills. Late in 854, they finally surrounded the capital at Immerdwelm.

Unprepared for a long siege through the winter, and unable to storm Immerdwelm by force, King Andro commanded tunnels to be dug from the ocean to the undercity. He ordered it flooded, as so many dwarven and gnomish cities had been during the horrors of the Silent Tide.

This brought an end to the war, as well as to Clan Hill-Breaker. King Andro awarded the conquered territories to his favored cousins, forming new duchies around the cities of Immerdwelm and Beron's Crossing. He took for himself, as a royal fief, the Hill-Breaker's northmost lands, which he renamed The New Heath. Fearing retribution from the bordering dwarven clans, he built there an overawing fastness, the Vale Gate.

The victory, however, was as hollow as it had been brutal. Andro was old then, and his heirs had been slain. Rather than risk a war of succession, Andro IV found some unnatural means to prolong his life, and he still rules today from his seat at Angarom.