The Green-Skin Wars

In the wake of the The War of the Undying the dwarves were left vulnerable to the predations of marauding green-skins and ogres. The many invasions that followed began a disjointed series of battles that the dwarves call the Green-Skin Wars. While ogres were present, the vast majority of foes were green-skins.

Enemies infiltrated through the unguarded Mountainpass and focused on the territories of the Silver Kingdom. They overwhelmed outposts with surprise attacks and swept out of dark valley forests in numbers untold. Previously, the mountain fortresses of the dwarves had proven impervious, regardless of an invader’s numbers, but that was no longer the case in all but the fortress citadel of Duunhollow.

Defensive walls had toppled and lower levels hopelessly compromised by the undead throngs that had risen during the War of the Undying. Routes into the mountain kingdom now lay unguarded, and rune-covered gates that could withstand the titanic blows of Giants laid battered and weakened. Upon scenting weakness, green-skin armies hungry for plunder appeared like wolves at the door.

Across the Silver Kingdom and even Meyland, the attacks were so numerous that the meticulous record-keeping of the dwarves could not keep up. Columns of smoke rose high above snow-covered peaks, each marking the destruction of a small settlement or mine. Desperate refugees, escaping from lost strongholds and shattered mines, attempted to cross through winding mountain passes. Further tragedies befell the dwarves on the road; hunting packs of worg-riding green-skins were drawn to promise of bloodshed. Dwarves that attempted to traverse the remains of the Mountainpass found them, too, full of marauding goblins.

During these dark times, the green-skins set their sights upon the desecration of sacred burial tombs, holy temples to Duun and the ancestor gods, and the complete eradication of ancient clans all to impose the will of their own deific figure: the Goblin King. The legions of green-skins were commanded by one of the greatest hobgoblin warlords to have ever risen the ranks of the Goblin King's host: Warlord Gargott.

Leading the largest host of warring green-skins ever seen, Warlord Gargott saw to the felling of many strongholds across the Garand's Ridge Mountains, including Druvenholme. Under his command, the horde brought Dunmeril, Lakesvale, and Port Morkney to their knees, conquering most of southern Meyland.

During the later years of the Green-Skin Wars, as the Silver Kingdom attempted to reclaim its southern territories, Gargott's host used the Mountainpass to sneak behind dwarven enemy lines and conquer Mountainholme and Karin Muur for themselves, dealing a heavy blow to the dwarven military.

The green-skins emerged out of the deepest mine works, appearing suddenly in the very center of the dwarven cities. By the time the dwarves were alerted to the attack, it was already too late. The green-skins rampaged through the strategic strongholds There was little in the way of organized resistance to stop the tide, but the dwarves fought tooth, beard, and nail to hold back the tide.

Warriors stood back to back and attempted to hold off the attack, but one by one, even these defended tunnels were taken. Hoping to save the women and children, King Ulfgar Firebelly, of the Silverhearth Clan, gave the order to abandon Mountainholme. To allow time for the refugees to escape, King Ulfgar himself led a hopeless counter-attack, holding the foe at bay. Knowing it was the only way, he ordered the secret tunnels to be collapsed behind the last of the retreating dwarves, sealing himself and his bodyguard in with the foe. The last sight the refugees ever had of King Ulfgar was his jovial death-song as he swung his fabled rune axe.

With no warning, one week after the fall of Mountainholme the green-skins attacked Karin Muur from below and ogres assailed the outer defenses. Trapped between these two merciless foes, the dwarves had little chance. Despite mounting a tenacious defense as the military capital of the Silver Kingdom, within a year of the initial onslaught, Karin Muur had fallen. Most of its populace died in the bitter underground warfare, although a few clans managed to fight their way to freedom, some of them making their way to Duunhollow where they came to aid in its defense.

Gargott's quest to sunder all visages of Duun throughout Meyland and replace them with shrines to the Goblin King had largely been a success, but Duunhollow, the holiest city to all dwarven people, remained the bastion it had always been. Never had the great citadel fallen to giant-kin during the War of Broken Chains, and the dwarves were determined not to let it fall now.

Ogre tribes laid siege on all sides while from numberless tunnels below came Gargott's hordes, as well as the royal regiment of the Goblin King himself, Gangar the Magnanimous.

Fighting valiantly, the dwarven defenders were driven back into their halls, before they stubbornly advanced to cast many foes down into the citadel's rivers of lava used to fuel the ancient Duunheart Forge.

To their surprise, their bodies invigorated the forge with renewed power, and the forge was quickly put to use. In desperation, the dwarves rapidly and industriously forged weapons of runic power bent on the destruction of the green-skins. These weapons seared goblin and hobgoblin flesh upon contact.

In a staggering turn of the tide, a lone dwarven warrior called Mordra Strongbough took up one of the first greenbane axes and charged headfirst into the green tide with her dwarven brothers and sisters at her back, killing Gargott and dealing a deeply wounding blow to the Goblin King himself, blinding him in one eye forever.

The dwarves fought back the green-skins and the ogres using their newly forged greens-bane weaponry, driving them from the capital. Gargott's hordes collapsed under fear and infighting at the dwarves' new armaments and many legions, banners, and tribes fled for the forests of Meyland, and Gangar fled back into the depths, gravely wounded and on the edge of death.

It took ten years to reclaim the territories once lost to the green-skins, and took decades more to rebuild the Silver Kingdom's shattered holds and cities.

The Green-Skin Wars sparked the legendary blood feud between green-skins and dwarves, which has lasted for centuries ever since.