Nature: Country
Continent: Khorvaire
Before the War: Karrnath
Capital: Krona Peak
Population: 700'000
(65% dwarf, 12% human, 10% orc, 8% gnome, 5% other)
Languages: Dwarven, Common, Gnomen, Orcish
Exports: Banking, precious and nonprecious metals
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Description
Ancient homeland of the dwarf race, the Mror Holds stretch throughout the Ironroot Mountains, a dangerous and forbidding range at the northeastern edge of Khorvaire. The dwarves live in a hard and hostile climate. Over the last 900 years the clans of the Mror Holds have used the incredible riches of their homeland to build themselves into an economic powerhouse. Still, in their own lands they are faced with ever-present danger, not just from orcs, trolls, and other monsters, but from the cold, barren land itself.
The Ironroot Mountains are harsh and unforgiving. Nature can kill with ice or stone, and even when nature does not threaten, the orcs and monsters lie in wait. As a result the people of the Mror Holds tend to be grim folk, dedicated to their work and their clans. The cities and villages located on the mountainsides and in protected valleys combine form with function and style, but deep within the Ironroot Mountains lie hidden cities of majesty and beauty.
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Government
The dwarf clans of the Mror Holds have never had the strong national identity typical of other races. As the great clans strive to unite the holdings into a secure empire based on finance, they continue to fight this legacy. The Mror Holds consist of a loose confederation of 12 clans, each of which lays claim to a territory, or hold, within the Ironroot Mountains. Issues that concern the entire nation go before the conclave known as the Iron Council.
Currently Torlan Mroranon serves as the arbiter of the Iron Council, but each clan governs its own hold and forms its own alliances with the nations of Khorvaire. The various dwarf clans have differing levels of influence in the Holds, though House Kundarak wields more power than a neutral party has any right to.
The Twelve Clans: .
●Doldarun
●Droranath
●Kolkarun
●d'Kundarak
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●Laranak
●Londurak
●Mroranon
●Narathun . .
●Soldorak
●Soranath
●Toldorath
●Tordannon
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(plus ●Noldrun, the vanished 13th clan)
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History
For thousands of years, blood ran like water through the cracks and crevices of the Ironroot Mountains. When the barbaric dwarves weren’t killing one another, they struggled against the Jhorash'tar orcs and other vicious creatures that lurked in the depths of the great mountains.
Then, in the early days of the kingdom of Galifar, the great king gave his son Karrn the lands east of Scions Sound to govern and tame. A united dwarf nation might have resisted the Galifar expansion, but the feuding clans were too weak to challenge Karrn and his forces.
The dwarves reluctantly acquiesced and became subjects of Karrnath, one of the Five Nations of Galifar. The clans ceased fighting among themselves and slowly began to build a civilization. With a vast fortune of mineral wealth and the discovery of the Mark of Warding among one of the dwarf clans, the clans became an economic force within the kingdom.
In 106 YK, House Kundarak was admitted into the exclusive membership of the dragonmarked houses, and by the end of the century it controlled banking and financial concerns across the continent. By the start of the Last War, the barbarians had transformed into thriving mercantile clans. The old feuds still simmer beneath the surface, but the clans recognize the value of peace and cooperation.
The dwarf lords declared their independence from Karrnath at the first Iron Council in the year 914 YK. The gathered dwarf lords created a formal alliance of the dwarf clans and proclaimed the birth of a new nation, the Mror Holds. (Kundarak officially remains neutral, staying true to the tenets of the dragonmarked houses, and thus is technically not part of the formal alliance.)
The smiths and masons of the dwarves have learned much over the last thousand years, and the mountain fortresses of the Mror Lords are said to be impregnable. The dwarves, however, have little interest in conquest. The power of the Holds is iron and gold — and on this field they have few competitors.
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