WARLORDS IV – STORY

Prologue: Halls of Stone

From the plains of Ar rise mountains cold, hard, and gray, inhospitable to travelers and lethal to the unwary. They say that we are shaped by the lands we call home; but so too is Etheria itself shaped by those who move across it. Trapped between the cruel lands of Lord Sartek, Harbinger of Strife, and the wild home of the Arioc barbarians, the mountains had no choice in their nature. More timid peaks would long ago have given way.

Delved deep in those mountains lies the great citadel of Duernoth, and its people are like the stone in which they made their home. For Duernoth is where the plague first reaved, consuming not only the lives of the Dwarves but also their joy; and from Duernoth it was that great armies marched to die in the halls of Drak-Dum, slain by Gnollish flame and iron. In Duernoth, where once the children worked their whimsy on ancient gems and shining ores, now no laughter sounds. And where once only stone was broken and tools cut only tunnels, now chisel and hammer and Dwarven ingenuity are set to darker tasks. And where one winding tunnel ends, deep in the roots of mountains old and merciless, there is a secret room with doors of stone, where screams now resound with growing force. . .

For what was hurt must hurt in turn, and evil deserves no less.

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