Stone, steel, and blood. Trømgar rises from the Thunderdark Peaks like a clenched fist: a nation of fortress-cities carved into mountainsides, inhabited by dwarves who have made warfare itself into religion. The Strømgodden fight as worship, offering every battle as sacrifice to their war-gods and measuring a life's worth by the glory of its ending.
Every settlement here is a fortress. The armor worn into battle bristles with spikes designed to wound the wearer going in as much as the enemy coming through. The Strømgodden have held these mountains against lizardfolk from the south and whatever lurks in the briars to the east for generations, and they will hold them until the mountains themselves crumble, or until they die gloriously trying.
Overview
Trømgar occupies the Thunderdark Peaks in the eastern Inner Rim, a compact but fiercely defended territory roughly 200 miles across. The borders are defined by:
- Southwest: Nashua and the toxic marshlands of the Ix'Vasyla
- East: The Croaking Briars, a living thorn-barrier separating Trømgar from Phirexes
- Southeast: The Duskwood Forest and Whispering Mangroves, edge territories claimed but lightly held
- North: Highland wilderness stretching toward colder regions
The terrain is predominantly mountainous, with steep peaks, deep valleys, and the carved fortress-settlements that make Trømgar nearly impossible to conquer. The eastern slopes descend into forested foothills before meeting the supernatural barriers of the Croaking Briars.
The Thunderdark Peaks
The mountain range that gives Trømgar its spine. The Thunderdark Peaks are not the highest mountains in Alaria, but they're among the most rugged, with sharp granite ridges, narrow passes, and deep gorges that channel any invading force into killing grounds.
The name comes from the storms that gather around the peaks, thunder echoing through the valleys with such regularity that the Strømgodden consider it the war-drums of their gods. Lightning strikes are common; the dwarves have learned to use this, positioning metal structures to attract strikes away from settlements and toward defensive positions.
The mountains are rich in iron, copper, and the rare ores needed for Strømgodden armor-smithing. Mining operations honeycomb the peaks, providing both resources and an extensive tunnel network that connects the fortress-cities underground. An enemy who takes a surface position has accomplished nothing. The dwarves simply retreat into the tunnels and counterattack from unexpected directions.
Major Settlements
Every Strømgodden settlement is a fortress first and a city second. Architecture prioritizes defense: thick walls, multiple fallback positions, and integration with the tunnel network beneath.
The Eastern Territories
Beyond the mountain core, Trømgar claims territory extending to the coast, though "claims" and "controls" are different things.
Duskwood Forest
A dense forest with permanent twilight beneath its canopy, technically within Trømgar's borders but practically ungoverned. The Strømgodden send occasional patrols but have little interest in forest territory. Their culture is stone and steel, not wood and shadow.
The Duskwood's valuable resources (bioluminescent fungi, medicinal mosses, rare flowers) are harvested by others, including Phirexan subjects operating under their queen's authority. This jurisdictional ambiguity has never quite risen to conflict, partly because the Strømgodden don't care enough about forest products to fight for them.
Whispering Mangroves
The coastal mangroves mark Trømgar's theoretical southeastern extent, though no Strømgodden settlement exists there. The mangroves are unsuitable for dwarven habitation, wet, confusing, and haunted by whispers that the superstitious find unsettling.
Smugglers and refugees use the mangroves as transit routes, moving between Phirexes and the open sea. The Strømgodden are vaguely aware of this traffic but consider it beneath their concern. Chasing humans through swamps is not how glory is won.
Rivers
Several rivers flow from the Thunderdark Peaks, fed by snowmelt and mountain springs. The largest flows east toward the coast, providing water for the lower settlements and eventually losing itself in the Duskwood and mangroves.
The rivers are not navigable in the mountain reaches, with too many rapids, waterfalls, and narrow gorges. They are primarily water sources and, occasionally, defensive obstacles.
Climate and Conditions
The Thunderdark Peaks experience harsh mountain weather: cold winters, brief summers, and storms that roll through with little warning. The Strømgodden have adapted completely. Their fortress-cities are designed to withstand any weather, their forges burn year-round for warmth, and they consider the harsh conditions part of what makes their people strong.
The lower elevations toward the coast are warmer and wetter, transitioning from mountain climate to the subtropical conditions of the Duskwood and mangroves. Few Strømgodden venture into these lowlands by choice.
The war Trømgar cannot fight
For three hundred years Gorath has worked Drasnian dwarves to death on the Slaver's Coast, and for three hundred years Trømgar has done nothing about it that an outsider would call a war. This is not indifference. The Strømgodden count the Drasnians as kin in the most exact way their religion allows: both peoples recite their dead to Grømnuul at the long-table fire on the night the year turns, and a Drasnian sold into bondage is a name that will never reach the roll. To the Strømgodden, three centuries of slavery is three centuries of dwarves dying unrecorded, ancestors going unspoken because the halls that would speak them are broken. There is no deeper wound in their faith.
The trouble is the map. To march on Gorath, a Strømgodden host would first have to break through Nashua, and Trømgar has been losing dwarves to the Ix'Vasyla on that front for longer than anyone counts a clean campaign. The same mountains that make Trømgar impossible to conquer make it impossible to leave in force. The Warcouncil cannot send the army its creed demands, because that army is already pinned in a war it can neither win nor abandon.
So Levke fights the war it can reach, which is a cold one. The handler Grøndar Kaldmar runs a covert program out of a counting-room beneath the Warcouncil: gold moved quietly into the Moon Road, the Drasnian escape network that walks slaves out through the Moon Wilds, and a single operative, Sigvar Dnyhak, planted in Tamadrez to feed the coin in through the slavers' own paperwork. It is patient, unglorious, and effective in a way the open war never was. It is also a scandal at home. The hawks of the Warcouncil, led by Brynja Vornmar, call it a disgrace and want a charge instead, and the argument between gold and steel is the live fracture in Trømgar's leadership. Both sides are watching the same horizon: Emperor Veramus is old and cannot name an heir, and a contested Gorathi succession is the opening they mean to take.
For Adventurers
Earning anything from the Strømgodden requires proving it in combat first.
The Nashua front always needs fighters. Outsiders who perform well against the Ix'Vasyla earn grudging acceptance; those who die gloriously earn honor.
The Strømgodden's repeated failures at the Croaking Briars suggest brute force alone won't break it. There may be an opening for cunning.
Old passages beneath the Thunderdark Peaks reach past any surviving map: abandoned mines, forgotten holds, and whatever has lived in darkness for a very long time.
Grøndar Kaldmar's people pay well for quiet work that moves slaves north along the Moon Road or coin south into it; Brynja Vornmar's hawks want a war and would welcome anyone who could open a road to one. The two will not thank you for serving the other.
The Strømgodden don't trust outsiders easily. But they respect courage, honor combat prowess, and remember those who fight beside them. Prove yourself in battle, and doors open. Fail, and you're simply another soft lowlander who couldn't handle the mountains.