Drorn’Duur ¶
The Forgotten Founders: The Tragedy and Legacy of the Drorn’Duur ¶
Long before the founding of Aru’Mas — before the palaces, the harbor, and the golden age of exploration — the land of Ahvantir was not wild, nor unclaimed. Beneath the mountain roots and forested valleys of what is now called the Fend lived a proud and ancient people known as the Drorn’Duur, a dwarven civilization whose name meant Keepers of the Deep Stone.
Their dynasty endured for roughly two and a half centuries, from approximately -275 MC to -15 MC. The Drorn’Duur were a subterranean people, but not isolated. Their halls rose to meet the surface in fortified terraces and stone-woven sanctuaries where they traded with passing spirits, worshipped with open flame under the stars, and tended to the harmony of Ahvantir’s old pacts. For generations they flourished — not through dominance over the land, but through stewardship. Their stone-priests translated the shifting moods of the land’s ancient guardians. They had cultivated deep and lasting relationships with the native spirits of the archipelago, relationships codified into pacts that gave structure to the spiritual life of the Fend.
When Marduk Sunspear and his exiled followers first arrived on Ahvantir’s shores, weary and desperate, the Drorn’Duur met them with open arms. They offered food, shelter, and guidance through the treacherous channels of spirit diplomacy. They asked for nothing in return but peace.
The Betrayal of Marduk Sunspear ¶
What happened next is a wound carved into the soul of the Drorn’Duur — a wound the surface world has long since chosen to forget. For reasons debated among the few scholars who know of them at all — be it ambition, paranoia, or the influence of darker forces — Marduk Sunspear turned on his hosts. The settlers launched a sudden, brutal assault on the Drorn’Duur during the Days of Encroachment (-16 to -13 MC). Their aboveground sanctuaries were razed, their spirit-temples defiled, and entire clans eradicated. Some say Marduk feared their deep connection to Ahvantir and sought to secure dominion over the land without their interference. Others whisper of bargains with rival spirits or powers from beyond the veil of the known planes.
The Drorn’Duur attempted to reclaim their lost settlements. They failed. By approximately -15 MC, their above-ground civilization had collapsed — the fortified terraces abandoned, the stone sanctuaries destroyed or occupied, the surface chapters of their culture obliterated. Their legacy was buried in silence before anyone had thought to record it.
What happened next has been entirely erased from the public memory of Aru’Mas.
The Landing War: Fighting Back ¶
The destruction of the Drorn’Duur did not go unwitnessed. The native spirits of the archipelago had long-standing relationships with them — pacts of mutual obligation, some stretching back further than mortal record. The desecration of Drorn’Duur spirit-temples and the breach of the old pacts they maintained were not merely offenses. They were violations that the spirits were bound by those same pacts to answer.
When the Landing War began in -13 MC, the Drorn’Duur were not simply bystanders. Surviving clans fought alongside the spirit coalition against the settlers. Their knowledge of the land’s underground geography, their familiarity with the archipelago’s spiritual fault lines, and the raw legitimacy of their grievance made them natural allies. They were not a spent force — they were the reason the force had gathered at all.
The Landing War, as recorded in Aru’Mas’s official histories, is described as a conflict between settlers and the spirits of Ahvantir. This is not false. It is incomplete. The coalition that resisted the settlers for thirteen years included people whose homes had already been burned.
The First Pact and the Second Erasure ¶
When the First Pact was finally negotiated in Year 0 MC, ending the Landing War, the Drorn’Duur were not at the table. The settlement was reached between the settler leadership and the spirit delegation. Whatever the spirits agreed to, they agreed to it without the Drorn’Duur’s consent and without acknowledgment of what had been done to them.
The Drorn’Duur’s response to this was not negotiated. They withdrew. In the years immediately following Year 0, the remaining above-ground communities that had sustained themselves through the war collapsed or retreated. Tunnels were sealed. The Drorn’Duur went deep.
The architects of early Aru’Mas, who had committed the original crime, were now in a position to write the history. They did not write the Drorn’Duur into it. The official account of the founding describes Ahvantir as untamed wilderness — spirits won over by Marduk’s courage and vision, land waiting to be shaped. The Drorn’Duur are absent from it entirely.
The Hidden Remnant ¶
For more than four centuries, the Drorn’Duur have endured in the deep, building a hidden civilization in volcanic rifts and glowing caverns far beneath the mountains of Ahvantir. They have reshaped themselves for survival in a life of fear and isolation. No longer the open-hearted stewards of the land, the modern Drorn’Duur are a people formed by trauma and secrecy.
They teach their children that the surface is death. That the sun burns. That the world above is filled with monsters wearing the faces of kin. Any surface-dweller who enters their territory is killed on sight — not from hatred, but from desperation. The Drorn’Duur live in fear that discovery will bring annihilation a second time.
Some among them carry the old histories — fragmented memories of the betrayal, passed down in hushed chants and encoded mosaics. Others no longer fully believe the stories, treating them as myth or moral instruction rather than fact. But all know the governing truth of their existence: to be seen is to risk extinction.
The Silence Above ¶
The people of Aru’Mas walk a city built on bones and do not know it. The official histories speak of Ahvantir as untamed wilderness encountered by brave settlers. The Drorn’Duur are absent from them, surviving only in distorted echoes — warnings of “deep dwarves” used to scare children, rare folktales of pale-eyed things in the stone.
There are no monuments. No apologies. Only silence.
And yet the land remembers. The spirits who once held pacts with the Drorn’Duur have not forgotten those obligations. The pacts did not expire when the Drorn’Duur retreated — the withdrawal was one-directional. Across the Fend, ancient agreements persist in the spiritual landscape: local pacts that give spirits power and motivation, binding arrangements whose origins are obscure or unknown even to the scholars who have catalogued them. Many of these trace back to Drorn’Duur cultural practices. The Fendfolk who live in and around these agreements have no idea whose hands first made them.
A handful of scholars, historians, and spirit-binders have begun to suspect that something deeper lies beneath the founding myth of Aru’Mas. Those who press the question too hard tend to find their inquiries discouraged by institutions with reasons to keep the founding story intact.
A Future in the Shadows ¶
The Drorn’Duur do not seek revenge. They seek to remain unseen. But as Aru’Mas expands — digging deeper, growing hungrier, stretching its ambitions into the foundations of the archipelago — the two worlds will eventually meet again. The Drorn’Duur know this. It is the fear that structures their existence.
When that meeting comes, the question will not only be what the Drorn’Duur choose to do. It will be what the spirits who still hold their pacts choose to do. And whether anyone on the surface will have thought to ask whose name is on those agreements.
Only the stone remembers — and it does not speak easily.
Connections ¶
- Territory: Fend and the Fendfolk — the Fend was the Drorn’Duur’s surface domain; the Fendfolk occupy it today without knowledge of its original stewards
- Conflict: Founding of Aru’Mas — Marduk Sunspear’s betrayal during the Days of Encroachment
- War: The Primordem — Drorn’Duur fought alongside the spirit coalition in the Landing War
- Treaty that excluded them: First Pact
- See also: He Who Was Forgotten — led the spirit forces in the Landing War in which Drorn’Duur fought
Source Notes ¶
Source Original article:
world-anvil— imported fromwa_articles_structured.json. Significantly expanded with DM canon: dynasty dates (-275 to -15 MC), Fend as their territory, Landing War participation as co-belligerents, First Pact exclusion, and Fend pact legacy — confirmed 2026-05-13.