Stoneheart City

Stoneheart was built by the Dutenhammer clan in years past, to defend against the chaos the dwarves saw coming after the collapse of the Rainbow Empire. It has deep roots and many entrances to the Underdark are rumoured to exist in its lower levels. There are a few balconies where passages thrust out of the mountainside but these are extremely hard to reach from the outside. Many of these overlook the huge main gate which straddles the road up from the low lands and enters the city proper.

The city was built shortly after the great catastrope of the Writhing Death and the collapse of the Rainbow Empire. Lord Durgham Dutenhammer, first Lord of Stoneheart, oversaw the founding of the city. His vision was of an impregnable fortress which would stand forever. His vision still seems to be holding true. A thousand dwarves of the Dutenhammer clan and their vassals laboured for many years to build the corridors, vaulted halls and catacombs of Stoneheart. There is no place like it in the whole of Rodinia.
The Dutenhammers lived in, owned and ruled over this city for hundreds of years. Their reign was a prosperous one. The orcs and goblinoids of the Stoneheart mountains were fought and defeated at every turn. Durgham Dutenhammer ruled the city and surrounding lands fairly and honestly. Trade with the fey of far off Dun Alder in the south west was good. An alliance between the dwarves and fey of the island was forged and grew strong.
One day Durgham Dutenhammer disappeared. To this day no one knows what happened to the old dwarf but rumours are many fold. Interclan fighting errupted as factions argued over who would become clan chief and rule Stoneheart. The battles were bloody and many dwarves lost their lives. The Dutenhammer clan never really recovered.
Around this time humans from House Snow, the ruling house on the island of Manabas, saw the carnage that was happening inside Clan Dutenhammer and acted. They invaded Stoneheart. But not with force, rather with money. They bought Stoneheart city from the dwarves. The then acting head of clan Dutenhammer saw an opportunity to raise cash for his faction's campaign against the other Dutenhammer factions and sold the city to House Snow. Soldiers from House Snow marched, unopposed into the halls of Stoneheart and took over the city.
This made the dwarves sit up and take note. Stoneheart had fallen, and not to marauding orc tribes but to the greed of the dwarves and the civil war inside their clan. Hostilities ceased immediately, but it was too late. The humans were inside the city, legally and above board. And they were not intending to leave. By now there were so few Dutenhammer dwarves left (the dwarves being slow to reproduce and many of them having been killed in the civil war) that there was no way they could retake the city by force. So it has stayed under human control ever since.
Now the dwarves of clan Dutenhammer have returned to the city they built, but not as owners, merely as residents. Lord Agamedes Snow rules the city and they owe him fealty. They live in small numbers in the bowels of the city. Clan Dutenhammer has recovered. All differences have been put aside. The clan is still without a chieftan, and is now ruled by a council. They have vowed that no chieftan will rule the clan until the city of Stoneheart is returned to dwarven rule. But the humans of House Snow are not about to let that happen easily. But if Durgham Dutenhammer were to be found alive the dwarves would rally around this ancient symbol of their clan and who knows what might happen...

Type

Capital

Population

25,000

Location under

Manabas

Owner/Ruler

Agamedes Snow

Characters in Location

• Agamedes Snow