A dwarven state in the southern Kharvorn Mountains, sharing a southeastern border with the state of Myorna. Hephake is known for its extensive silver mines and the pollution they produce.
It is also a kingdom built around a wound. Two centuries ago, when the black dragon Rothogomos broke dwarven Argysis to the northwest, the survivors crossed the Two Brothers and came down the South Passage under the exile leader Strømgar. Hephake took them in, and never stopped being the place they arrived. The refugee clans and their descendants reshaped the realm's faith, its grudges, and its standing posture toward the north. A people who watched a neighbor-kingdom die in a single season does not relax its guard, and Hephake has not.
The Pact of Barrik
The Pact of Barrik was a tradition Hephake shared with Argysis before the fall: a statue of two dwarven kings, one holding a battleax and one a book, set at the border to stand for both peoples. Princes from both kingdoms spent days in meditation beside it. When Rothogomos took Argysis in the Dragon Betrayal, the road to the monument closed and the tradition died. The statue now stands in ground Hephake cannot safely reach. That it sits abandoned in a dragon's territory is, for the refugee clans, the loss in miniature.
The Mountain Churches
Three ancient churches stand in the high passes of Hephake, built in the early days of the kingdom to sanctify the mountain roads and protect travelers. Each is dedicated to a different aspect of dwarven faith, and each has developed its own character over the centuries.