Lore: The Titan Dwarves

The information below is formed from the history of the Titan Dwarves as told to Representative Ker’Velik of the Arak’Fay Library of Arakaren by the Dwarven Titaness Moja.

Soon after they came to be, one tribe of Dwarves left the mountains of their birthplace and ventured farther down into the bowels of the earth, where the other tribes dared not go, led by a large dwarf named Warren the Walker. There they found a huge network of caverns and tunnels, seemingly empty and abandoned but for the usual denizens of dark places.

In these caverns and caves they began to settle down, shoring and clearing tunnels and caverns, making new ones where necessary, and fighting the creatures of the deep for space and recreation.

Where their cousins the Mountain and Gully dwarves developed compact bodies with short, powerful limbs for climbing through their small tunnels and passageways, the Titan Dwarves grew up, filling the space of the tunnels and caverns they lived in. Still with powerful but slightly longer torsos, they developed much longer arms and legs, ones for swinging, springing and clinging around and between walls, rather than crawling, or pushing and shaping heavy stone and metals.

Then the day came, about two hundred years after they arrived, when the original creators and inhabitants of those caverns and caves returned; the Magmalisks, or magma worms. Immense lengths of tough, rubbery flesh dripping with molten earth from their usual home in the Core, the old and wounded return to the caves every three hundred and fifty years to die, their slowly cooling bodies acting as incubators for the eggs inside them.

In standard dwarvish fashion, the Titan Dwarves defended their new homes as well as driving the worms into empty caverns, preserving the cycle at the same time as allowing for sport. They were not without losses, losing the chieftain Warren the Walker who had led them down there in the first place among many other warriors, but to the dwarves even then, death in battle against such powerful creatures was a glory unsurpassed.

After this encounter, the title of chieftain was taken by the youngest son of the tribal smith, a young male named Gavel the Grave and the first true Titan of the race, standing at about the height of a tall human when he took the position (approximately 6’8). His first act as chieftain was to name their home the Warren, in honour of the one who brought them to their new home.

Being more a thinker than a fighter, and a craft master to boot, Gavel was curious about the worms and how they survived in the magma of the Core. After much experimentation, and even more disbelief, it was found that the flesh of the magma worms was actually an organic bedrock, the strongest, most powerful and most mysterious organic material available on, or in, Earth. The worms weren’t just able to survive in the magma of the Core, they actually needed to, because without the constant and immeasurable heat they solidified into a solid, semi-organic bedrock.

Using this knowledge, Gavel and his people began to take as much flesh as they could from the dying worms every 350 years while leaving the eggs totally covered, and while it was still malleable and cooling, made weapons, armour and tools out of it. These items made from the flesh of the worms was nearly indestructible, and more often than not possessed qualities and powers akin to the most powerful enchantments known to dwarf kind, and so were treasured and even revered by Gavel and his folk.

When Gavel the Grave finally fell in battle against a worm of unparalleled proportions, slaying the beast before falling to his knees, his last request to his sons was that his bones should be added to the next batch of wormstone and made into a suit of weapons and armour, to be passed down to the most deserving of his descendants for each generation as judged by his spirit, residing within the armour.

After the ritual mourning, his wish was carried out, and although not all of his skeleton was successfully made into armour, enough pieces were; His skull, spine, right hand, right foot, left middle finger, left shoulder, and ribcage.

All the information stated above was beyond the eyes of all other entities, except perhaps the World Tree itself, and it does not share such information often. Even the gods of the dwarves could not see what had happened to their wandering children, the magical, metaphysical and physical interference from the worms and the Core being too great, and they were presumed lost.

Until, that is, they resurfaced, during the First Apocalypse of Earth.

The following information is put together by the Representative Ker’Velik of the Arak’Fay, in collaboration with the Dwarven Titaness, Moja, and with aid from the Middle Earth Records Division: First Apocolypse Section (MERD:FAS) of the Library of Arakaren, here transcribed into the original language of Earth as communicated by the First Horsemen.

Author's Note

Just a story theme that I have linked to some of my Character Concept series in order to provide a possible explanation of what the Titan Dwarves are and why they are like that.
This is not a backstory or a story concept, just a piece of writing.