Hi Community members,

As we work towards our demo this year, we couldn’t wait to share more on the enemies we’re expecting to face. Today’s update is text heavy and lore focused. In a trial for our writers, we put our world to the test. Without further ado, here is we’ll share today on one of the Conqueror’s most fearsome opponents:

Dossier: The Dwarves

Dwarves are short statured hardened laborers with a knack for mercantile and combat. Where vice exists, Dwarves are known to congregate. While they appear generally unassuming, Dwarves are incredibly capable fighters with intense mythology in their very true legends. Let us explore one such epic.

Jarl Stroznaeg Runemaster

Jarl Stroznaeg Runemaster was a legendary warrior and leader of the IronRune clan, known for his military prowess and mastery of runecraft. Rising to power after a decisive victory against an Orc warlord, he led his people through countless wars. However, his rule ended in betrayal, and he now wanders the land as a fallen warrior seeking either vengeance or redemption.

Early Life

Stroznaeg was born into the harsh traditions of the IronRune clan, a society built on warfare and discipline. From a young age he was trained in combat, strategy, and runic magic. By the age of twelve, he had slain his first enemy, and by twenty, he commanded warbands in battle. His intelligence and skill in warfare set him apart, and he quickly became one of the clan’s most formidable warriors.

Rise to Power

Stroznaeg’s ascent to the title of Jarl came after his legendary victory over Vraggash the Ravager, an Orc warlord who led a vast bandit army. The orc’s forces threatened the eastern plains, slaughtering and razing settlements. Stroznaeg devised a strategic ambush in the Black Pass, where his disciplined forces annihilated the enemy over three days of brutal combat. With Vraggash slain, Stroznaeg was named Jarl and became the unyielding leader of the IronRune clan.

Reign as Jarl

Under his leadership, the IronRune clan became one of the most powerful warrior societies in the land, maintaining a vast and well-equipped army. He implemented strict military reforms and expanded the clan’s influence through tactical warfare and alliances. His mastery of runecraft further strengthened his warriors, ensuring that they were feared on the battlefield.

Tragedy and Betrayal

Despite his successes, Stroznaeg suffered deeply personal losses. His only son, Ragnul, was killed in a raid, his body never recovered. His wife, Elda, passed away during a harsh winter, leaving him emotionally hollow. These losses weighed heavily on him, making him increasingly isolated.

His downfall came at the hands of Torvald the Black, a trusted war-captain whom Stroznaeg had treated as a brother. Torvald conspired with rival clans, staging a coup during a feast meant to honor the fallen. In the chaos, the great hall of the IronRune clan burned, and Stroznaeg was grievously wounded. Torvald left him for dead among the ruins.

Exile and Legacy

Though near death, Stroznaeg survived, wandering the frozen wilderness for days, sustained only by his willpower and runic enchantments. Now, he roams as a warrior without a home, his purpose uncertain. Some say he hunts those who betrayed him, exacting revenge in the shadows. Others claim he seeks redemption, attempting to atone for the bloodshed that defined his life.

The saga of Jarl Stroznaeg Runemaster remains one of glory, loss, and the harsh realities of war. His legend endures in the tales of skalds, a grim reminder that even the greatest warriors are not immune to fate.

Dwarven Locations (Excerpt):

Dreg’Vorn, the Mire of Cutthroats (The Dwarves Who Trade in Misery)

Deep within the festering bogs of the world’s most forsaken lands, where the air is thick with poison, and the water rots flesh to the bone, lies Dreg’Vorn—the last place a sane soul would ever want to be.

Dwarves were never meant to live in the swamp.
But gold changes everything.

Dreg’Vorn is not a kingdom, nor a clanhold, nor a forge-city—it is a den of filth and treachery, a swamp-throne of vice ruled by cruel, ruthless dwarves who have long abandoned honor, tradition, and steel. Here, no one is loyal, no one is honest, and no one is safe.

These dwarves do not mine nor forge, for there are no mountains to delve into. Instead, they have perfected another craft—one just as deadly as war.

They deal in misery.

Founding

Dreg’Vorn, the Mire of Cutthroats, was founded by Torvald the Black and the remnants of his gang—survivors of the brutal battle against Jarl Stroznaeg Runemaster. Fearing Torvald’s wrath should he return seeking vengeance, they fled deep into the swamps, believing the treacherous terrain would keep them hidden.

At first, the settlement thrived in its own lawless way. More outcasts, bandits, and fugitives arrived, seeking refuge from the outside world. They traded, drank, and hid, turning the swamp into a den of crime and secrecy.

However, such chaos could not last. Over time, Guilds of druglords emerged, each seizing control of different parts of the city. As power struggles erupted, the city was divided into warring districts. Torvald, once the undisputed ruler, failed to maintain control and was eventually left with only a single district under his command.

Thus began the dark history of Dreg’Vorn, the Mire of Cutthroats—a city where betrayal is currency, and survival is never guaranteed.

Drugs, poisons, hallucinogens, cursed elixirs—if it can be brewed, if it can shatter the mind, if it can turn a man into a gibbering addict, the dwarves of Dreg’Vorn sell it by the barrel.

They will kill each other over a handful of gold.
They will poison a rival’s entire stock just to see him drown in debt.
They will trade a brother’s life for a fresh batch of rare narcotics.

Here, gold is god, and a knife in the back is as common as a handshake.

The Venom Sprawl

(The Swamp City That Breathes Poison)

Dreg’Vorn is not built of stone, nor carved from the bones of the earth. It is a wretched thing, a city strung together from rotting wood, bone, and metal, built atop sinking, moss-choked ruins.

The streets are raised wooden walkways, slick with mud, blood, and bile, constantly being rebuilt as the swamp slowly swallows the city.

Fog hangs thick, but it is not natural—it is a concoction of narcotic fumes, drifting from the alchemical pits, seeping into the lungs of anyone foolish enough to breathe deep.

No walls guard the city, but none are needed—the swamp itself is a living prison, filled with flesh-melting bogs, venomous beasts, and water so toxic it strips skin in seconds.

Shanties lean against each other, sagging like drunkards, their foundations sinking into the bubbling filth beneath them.

At the heart of this decaying ruin lies the Venom Pit—a massive alchemical swamp-laboratory, where the most dangerous, mind-shattering brews in all the world are mixed and sold.

If a drug exists, it can be found here. If it doesn’t, the dwarves will make it.

The Society of Dreg’Vorn (Where Brotherhood is a Lie and Gold is Truth)

Dreg’Vorn has no king, no jarl, no clan lord—only the strong, the wealthy, and the treacherous.

Guilds of druglords rule the city, each controlling a different product. Some deal in bliss, some in rage, some in dreams, and some in pure, unfiltered death.

Loyalty is a myth. A dwarf will sell his own blood for a better price, and no alliance lasts longer than a single gold coin.

Murder is business. If you want to survive, you better have gold—not for weapons, but for bribes.

Even the weakest dwarf can be deadly, for every ale mug, every piece of bread, and every breath of air could be poisoned.

There is only one rule in Dreg’Vorn:

Don’t get caught without coin.

If you have gold, you live.
If you have nothing, you are nothing.

And no one in Dreg’Vorn grieves for nothing.

The Black Vein Market (Where Vice is Sold Like Bread)

In the very center of the city, beneath a great, rotting canopy of woven swamp-vines and bones, lies the Black Vein Market—the most infamous drug bazaar in the world.

Here, dwarves, humans, elves, and worse come to buy and sell every nightmare imaginable.

Potions of false joy, powders that make the strongest warrior a mindless slave, vapors that let one see beyond the veil of life and death—all are sold here.

Every merchant is a liar, every deal a trap, and every handshake a possible death sentence.

But the most feared thing in the Black Vein Market is not the drugs, nor the merchants, nor the cutthroats waiting in the shadows—it is the collectors.

When a buyer cannot pay his debt, his flesh pays it for him.

Eyes, tongues, hands—the dwarves of Dreg’Vorn do not waste good material.

The Brewmasters (The Poison Lords of the Mire)

The true rulers of Dreg’Vorn are not warlords nor clan chiefs, but Brewmasters—the twisted, brilliant alchemists who create new drugs, poisons, and mind-shattering elixirs.

Their faces are hidden beneath plague masks, their lungs long since burned by the fumes of their own creations.

They do not speak in words, but in chemical formulas, in doses and toxins.

Their hands are blackened, their veins glow with strange colors, for they are their own test subjects—always searching for the next great high, or the next great horror.

Some say the most powerful Brewmasters are no longer even dwarves—that they have drunk so deeply of their own alchemy that they have become something else entirely.

The Flesh Pits (Where Those Who Owe Find Their Fate)

For those who fail to pay their debts, there is one last stop—the Flesh Pits.

A massive swamp-laboratory, where the most broken, ruined addicts are brought to be used for experiments.

Their minds are already lost, so the Brewmasters see them as nothing but ingredients.

Some are pumped full of new drugs, just to see how much a body can take before it shatters.

Some are dissolved in vats, turned into alchemical reagents for new concoctions.

And some… some simply never leave.

To be taken to the Flesh Pits is to cease to be a person.

You become a test subject. A failed transaction.

You become part of the product.

A legendary alchemical formula is hidden deep in the Flesh Pits, but to retrieve it means facing the horrors that lurk within.

Final Words

Dreg’Vorn is not a city.

It is a rotting wound in the world.
A place where greed, cruelty, and addiction have replaced honor, loyalty, and kinship.
A place where gold is king, and nothing else matters.

And no one ever leaves it the same.

Because once you taste the poison of Dreg’Vorn,
it never truly leaves your veins.