The Autumnal Bastion

From around 700-100 Prior, Clan Kavidar was one of the largest dwarven clans across the globe, and while several well-studied relics have been found from their reign, The Autumnal Bastion is perhaps the most widely known. The journal was discovered at the base of Mount Lune, and tells of the Kavidars' pilgrimage from their home on the Desdin coast to Clan Taepher's stronghold at Mount Lune.

Supposedly, the 'Autumnal Bastion' that the book refers to was a vast stone wall blocking off the interior of the mountain that the two clans annually built before the full moons on Auraet 1^st. The faces of the wall were carved with depictions of the pantheon, and once it was complete the two clans held a large feast and camped just outside. They spent the next three days drinking and revelling together, and then once the full moons 'broke,' they smashed the wall down and went back to their homes.

The Journal

The journal itself specifically tells of the journey to Mount Lune, and was written in a dwarven variation of Old Cravven. While the journal was mostly preserved with several other belongings from the pilgrimage in a metal box buried near Lune's base, some of the writing was downright illegible, and the language itself has proven difficult to decipher.

Currently, there are two translations of the journal: Petrev Auraelan provided the first translation in 829, and Essina Pastigarde published another translation in 1463.

Reasoning

The journal never fully explains why the wall was built each year apart from a vague explanation of 'the prosperity of the Taephers,' and historians have long speculated on why this would be important to the Kavidars. The pilgrimage, which takes up approximately eighty percent of the text, took the Kavidars a month there and a month back; historians estimate about six hundred clan members went each year.

You read the Auraelan translation for the sweeping descriptions and imagery, and you read the Pastigarde translation for the . . . well, the other imagery.

— Latven, 1464

Auraelan Translation

Auraelan's translation was groundbreaking at the time of its publication, however it took several centuries to gain any academic interest outside of the Aveaan Empire. This was mainly due to the journal itself, which is meandering at best and oftentimes full of lengthy, tangential prose, but also because Auraelan himself wasn't a prolific scholar at the time and was mostly dismissed by those outside his immediate scholarly house. Auraelan was primarily a writer and linguist, not a historian, so many of his contemporaries assumed that his translation would be restricted.

Pastigarde Translation

Pastigarde's translation was highly criticized upon its publication for several reasons. For one, there were several implications and euphemisms that simply weren't in Auraelan's translation and many were taken aback that some of Pastigarde's decisions regarding word choice were so 'informal.' Additionally, Pastigarde recieved assistance in translating the language from her husband, Warlord Ylsev Daerevitch, which invited suspicion of her translation being a product of orvon influences.