Forge Master Lore
Before Time's Beginning, Thurin taught his children the deepest secrets of stone and steel. The Forge Masters of the Dwarves learned the most from the Shaper: their skills can sharpen blades to an uncanny edge, and toughen Iron into Adamant.
Narrative
We are the Children of Thurin the Shaper, his greatest legacy. The Sons of Men call us Dwarves. We have existed since the first Age of the World, and we have always been people of the Forge. Our bodies were wrought in the Shaper's great forge at the heart of the World, before the Sons of Men were crafted, before the Sun was kindled, before the Elves were born, before the Green Mother awakened. Ours eyes were the first to see, our hands were the first hands to work upon the World. In all the time that has passed, from the Age without years through all the four Ages that followed, we have worked at the forge. While the elves built their First Kingdom, we worked at the forge, while the Dragon brooded in darkness, we worked at the forge. While the hordes of Chaos ravaged the World in the War of the Scourge, we worked at the forge. As the Elvish Empire perished in the War of Tears, we worked at the forge. Only when the Great Tree drank the blood of Cambruin and its roots sundered the heart of the World stone from stone, only then did our labors pause. No Human iron or Elvish steel can match the wondrous alloys we work in the deeps, and in all the Ages that we have honed our Craft, we alone have forgotten nothing.
Our greatest works shall never be seen by eyes that live in daylight. Who but the dwarves will ever look upon the braces of steel and truesteel that span great fissures and mend the vast faults in the deeps, or the great dams and dikes of hardest adamant that channel the blood of the wounded Dragon? Who but the Dwarves shall ever see the mighty Chains that span the Void, straining to hold the fragments of this glorious World together? From Dragonblood, the molten stone, come the highest secrets of our art. Ages ago, at the end of the Long Twilight when the Dragon was at last driven back into his lair in the uttermost deeps, Thurin gave us a great mission. "Look ye on the blood of this vile beast, and beware. Trap it and divert it, lest it seep through all the world and destroy it. Great is its power, but as with all things, Craft shall fashion Order even from this Chaos." We listened and obeyed. Then Thurin spoke again. "Arm yourselves and be watchful lest this Terror ever rise again. The Forge Masters shall work with me on arms for the next battle. No weapon forged of normal metals may harm it, but look to the Blood, for within it lies the power to destroy even the Dragon." We listened and obeyed. And so it was that Thurin the Shaper worked with the seven great Forge Masters, and we continued our work, making mighty blades, and arms such as will never be made again in this world.
And as the seven worked, they taught their craft to others, and the number of Master Forgers grew. Six of the first seven died or were lost in the Turning, when the Halls of Haganduur at the world's core were sundered and Thurin's Forge destroyed. We mourn them, but we continue in our labors, and more Masters will be apprenticed and taught. The craft of a Forge Master is so great that they can forge weapons and armor of truesteel and adamant, with edges so keen and metal so strong that the folk of the surface think them magic. There need be no enchantment in their making, just skill. As a forge master works and learns, however, he learns the secrets handed down to the Seven by Thurin, and learns to weave enchantments into the very steel he works. In the wake of the Turning our folk have journeyed up from the deep and into the sun for the first time in our long history, to learn how the World was unmade and how it might be reforged again. But for now that goal must wait.
The Sons of Thurin shall stay at the Forge, crafting weapons to end this Age of Strife, while the Dwarves hold fast the chains which bind the World.
See Also
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