Infernal Dwarves of the Barren Mountains
Ladies and gentlemen, can you sense the smell of the Inferno in the air? What weird, wonderful and horrible realms and peoples could be found in the benighted east? Enter, if you dare trek across the Barren Mountains on your way to reach the infamous city of Zalaman Tekash...
Let's give spice to the setting with a reverse image of the Nekoshim Dwarven Holds of the Copper Mountains: Where the Nekoshim are descended from the same stock as the benighted Infernal Dwarves in the east, and speak a cousin of the same language, they are uncorrupted, or so they claim.
As such, in the Barren Mountains could be found Dwarves of the same language family as those of Vetia, but corrupted to the core. These highland Infernal Dwarves would be a reference to the ancient Hittites of Anatolia, famous for their monolithic stone architecture, early smithing of iron, larger chariots, and being the Egyptian's great imperial enemy in the Battle of Kadesh. The Vetian Dwarf language of these Infernal Dwarves of the Barren Mountains would be a reference to the Hittites speaking an Indoeuropean language.
The cursed Dwarrows of the Barren Mountains could have had a golden age of mighty empire long ago, which they remember with longing and festering hunger for power. Yet this Infernal Dwarf people of the highlands and their distinct culture remain for all their losses and and disasters, while the bite of their steel weapons tend to be directed by their suzerain overlords in Zalaman Tekash. They have sworn to reconquer the entire Barren Mountains range, which is now largely infested with barbarian Orc and Goblin tribes. While peripheral to the juggernaut power centre and hub of invention that is Zalaman Tekash, the benighted Dwarrows of the Barren Mountains still partake fully in the shared technology, science and forbidden lores of the Infernal Dwarves; sporting essentially the same arsenal and much the same ways of war. The Infernal Dwarves of the Barren Mountains still build in an archaic style of monolithic stones true to their ancestors of dark glory, and they have likewise preserved bull chariots for more than just ceremonial and luxury usage. For occasionally their hosts will field mighty trundling bull chariots, side by side with smoke-belching Infernal Engines and other modern mechanical contraptions.
It has been remarked, by nasty people, that Dwarves are a pest impossible to exterminate. And so the world of the Ninth Age sport an intoxicating myriad of wildly different Dwarf cultures, whose penchant for preserving ancient traditions is only matched by their innovative craftsman minds and hands. The hard-bitten Infernal Dwarves of the Barren Mountains are living proof of this.
Please share your ideas, comments and criticism for this quick background proposal, folks.
Reference images:
See also:
Dwarven Holds of the Maidens (T9A Celts)
Dwarven Holds of the Crimson Peaks (T9A Celtiberians)
Nekoshim: Dwarven Holds of the Copper Mountains (T9A Nabateans)
Dwarven Holds of the Sky Foothills (T9A Akha)
Dwarven Holds of Aseadal Peaks (T9A Gaya Confederacy)
Dwarven Holds of the Wrathful Mountains (T9A Inca)
Lost Islander Dwarves (T9A Rapa Nui)
Karuits: Polar Dwarves of Remotest Silexia (T9A Inuits)
Cave Dwarves of the Mountains of Gold (T9A Prehistorical)
Infernal Dwarves of the Torture Valleys (T9A Moche)
Borean Elves (T9A Finno-Ugrians)
Saurian Ancients of Aotarakoa (T9A Indonesia)
