: That sounds like a dorf who has had a few cocktails to
: many.
: I remember that, it turned into a big discussion over if
: the dwarves could surrvive traped in a cave for any
: amount of time. I dont think it was ever resolved.
: Another point. Back when Balins Bar was still up and
: runing there was a story posted that preposed an
: intreaging idea. The story had a group of adventers
: get into a keep using a underground network bult by
: the dwarves called "the underway". I have
: always thought the dorfs had a similer network in
: their kingdomes, at least conecting Myrgard and
: Stoneheim. That would explain why the dwarves at
: stoneheim knew of the fall of myrgard just hours after
: the event.
: "...collaped the barbacan, entombing ten thousand of
: their number under as many tons of rock." I think
: we can assume that this refers to the number of
: Dwarves traped in the battle, but I would also assume
: they fixed it to were they could take a lot of ghols
: with them.
Yeah, Ghôls aren't actually mentioned in the flavor text, so the folks entombed must have been Dwarves.
: Stoneheim was never retaken, and apperently the Ghols
: have managed to unearth some of it because GURPS says
: the ghols liveing there have taken on "civilising
: attributes".
: The Dwarves are currently arming for a massave campain to
: retake the city.
: As for the dwarven losses. They certenly took a beating
: in the Great war. But I think they were able to defend
: Myrgard during Soulblighters attacks, so their losses
: then were probably limeted to the solders that died.
: Thats it for now.
: Drunken Ghol
Yeah, I think that "underground network" idea raises an interesting possibility. How do we know that that flavor refers to the loss of Stoneheim in the *most recent* Great War? Most of the Human cities get smashed and overrun in *every* millenial war (and a lot of times in between); it's reasonable to assume that Stoneheim and Myrgard have been taken before.
Furthermore, there are some not-quite-inconsistencies between Stoneheim's fate in the flavor text and its current status. In the flavor text, Stoneheim, with its defenders, was buried under ten thousand tons of rock; even with Dwarven tech it would have taken several decades to dig it back out again, and there wouldn't have been a whole lot of stuff intact under there. The Ghôls probably wouldn't have bothered to spend the centuries needed to uncover Stoneheim by hand; they'd just move on and leave the suriviving Dwarves to recover the city once the tide started to turn in favor of the Light.
On the other hand, from GURPS it seems that the Ghols overran Stoneheim very swiftly, driving the defenders out, and occupied a largely intact city almost immediately--so fast, in fact, that most of the sensitive explosives and weaponry hadn't yet been destroyed either by weather or by the fleeing Dwarves. These two scenarios of Stoneheim's fall are pretty hard to reconcile, it seems to me.
So suppose the flavor text refers to an earlier overrunning of Stoneheim and Myrgard, say by Moagim or one of the other ancient Dark lords? Then, adding in the underground network idea, we have a semi-plausible origin for the Smiths of Muirthemne. We know, after all, that there's *some* sort of route from the Dwarven lands to the Tain. There seem to be conduits from the Tain to regions deep underground, along which the great spiders travel. And since these spiders are known to the Dwarves at least through their legends, it's reasonable to assume that either spiders had found ways to come up to the surface of the Dwarven demesnes, or that Dwarven explorers had found ways down.
The entombed defenders of Stoneheim would be prime candidates to discover these regions. If they wanted to escape, there would be nowhere to go but down; even if they could clear away the rubble above them they'd just find that Dark army waiting. So they'd naturally try to tunnel to the sides or downward, and at some point they might break through into the spider-haunted maze of tunnels that connects with the Tain. Ending up there, they'd pretty much have to become worshippers of the spider-gods to have any chance of survival or escape--any Dwarves with sufficient ethical backbone to refuse would be annihilated. And thus you have the inception of the Spider-Cult.
Excessively speculative, I know...but we don't have many theories of the cult's origin, and this seems as reasonable to me as any other.
--SiliconDream
