The Jade Empire was the title claimed by the hold of Grônstunad after the fall of Amldihr which asserted its overlordship over Aul-Dwarov. It first established itself in the East Serpentspine, uniting the holds of the Jade Mines and the Tree of Stone while attempting to also subjugate the holds of the Middle Dwarovar. Proclaimed in 5887 BA, the Jade Empire made the reclamation of the West Serpentspine a priority, declaring three calls for reclamation to reconquer lost holds. The Jade Empire was dissolved in 2419 BA with the fall of Grônstunad to the goblins and hobgoblins.
Rough Beginnings[]
First Arrival[]
With the East cut off from Amldihr and Er-Natvir in 6000 BA, Grônstunad became the de facto capital of eastern Aul-Dwarov, and King Orrin IX of Grônstunad took charge of the push to reclaim Hul-Jorkad. Due to proximity to front lines, the hold of Gor Vazumbrog was placed under martial law and attempts were made to break through to Hul-Jorkad.
In 5989 BA, Orrin IX raised a large army consisting mainly of troops from the Jade Mines holds and started sending them into the Middle Dwarovar, starting to try and dig through the blockades of the Tunad. Meanwhile, he sent messenger convoys towards Amldihr to get an idea of how the west was faring.
Centralisation of Power[]
The push towards Hul-Jorkad had progressed very slowly, partially hampered by lack of railroad maintenance slowing down supplies from the east. In 5963 BA, in order to unify the war effort, Grônstunad took steps to institute a proper chain of command over the holds of the east, which was met with some resistance by powerful dwarven clans of the Middle Dwarovar, who had been pulling power towards themselves with the central authority from Amldihr gone.
Proclamation of the Jade Empire[]
Soon after the fall of Amldihr in 5895 BA, Grônstunad declared itself overlord of Aul-Dwarov and declared the West lost, establishing the Jade Empire in 5887 BA. Outraged at being passed over, many of the holds of the Middle Dwarovar refused to acknowledge the proclamation, and severed ties with Grônstunad. The holds of the Tree of Stone however, tired of the constant warfare, accepted the proclamation and joined the Jade Empire. Gor Ozumbrog and Ovdal Kanzad, the holds of the Segbandal and Jade Empire that were closest to the border, still maintained close ties despite the hostile relations of their overlords.
The Calls for Reclamation[]
In 5702 BA, High King Moilin I of the Jade Empire, on the first day of his rule, issued the “call for reclamation”. He stated that the western holds must be reclaimed by any means necessary, and called for the creation of a reclamation army. It was led by Morri Splitbeard, a noble from Ovdal Kanzad and was to be sent west, marching straight through the Segbandal, to reclaim Hul-Jorkad and Verkal Kozenad. If they were to be denied access by the dwarves of the Segbandal, Moilin stated, those dwarves would be enemies of the Jade Empire.
As the reclamation army arrived at the gates of Gor Ozumbrog and demanded to be given access through the Segbandal, they were rebuffed by their incredulous king. As he had been ordered, Morri Splitbeard began to siege Gor Ozumbrog in 5695 BA, but did not launch any assaults upon their defences since he had many family and clan members within the gates. Unwilling to actually wage war upon them, he kept up the pretence towards the High King that he was actually fighting a war. Gor Ozumbrog, whose western access wasn’t actually blocked off by the half-hearted siege, began to expand its fortifications in response.
As the half-hearted siege of Gor Ozumbrog carried on, Morri Splitbeard grew old and eventually died of old age in 5608 BA. On his orders, his subordinates fired several crossbow bolts into his chest after his death, and delivered his body to Moilin I, claiming that he had fallen in an assault against the impregnable walls of Gor Ozumbrog. Defeated, Moilin I declared the reclamation had failed, and recalled the army.
In 5440 BA, Dvepnir II called for a renewal of the Call for Reclamation, putting together an army of all of the holds of the Jade Empire. He had decided to lead the forces himself, and to travel over what is in modern times known as the Forbidden Plains rather than through the Segbandal, aiming to reach and reclaim Dûr-Vazhatun. Departing from Grôzumdihr, the Reclamation army travelled through Phazuélen, and was never heard from again. It is clear that they had failed, but their exact fate is uncertain.
In 5002 BA, Moilin III declared the third Call for Reclamation, and stated that the holds of the Segbandal would kneel before his army as he moved westward or be destroyed. He began to besiege Gor Ozumbrog in 5000 BA, but its defences much improved since the first siege by Morri Splitbeard. Gor Ozumbrog was able to withstand the assaults with relative ease causing a protracted siege to begin.
An Amber Dwarf general by the name of Thrindul Frozenflame and his retinue defected to the Segbandal, claiming that they should not be fighting their own kin and in 4874 BA, they had attacked the besieging reclamation army in the back, killing High King Moilin III. The rest of the reclamation army scattered, and the siege of Gor Ozumbrog was lifted, with Thrindul and his forces settling down in Gor Ozumbrog.
The Frozenflame Coup[]
With logistical support from the Segbandal, Ordmir Frozenflame organised a coup in Ovdal Kanzad in 4701 BA, ousting the king Tharvid who was loyal to the Jade Empire, causing the Frozenflame clan to return to Ovdal Kanzad, and having the Jade-aligned clans expelled from the hold with Ordmir crowning himself king and declaring independence from the Jade Empire. He did not join the Segbandal, instead entering a treaty of mutual friendship with Gor Ozumbrog: the Copper Road Pact. High King Vorri IV of the Jade Empire decided to not contest this as he was unwilling to enter into another conflict in the west, instead inviting the exiled clans to settle in Grônstunad.
The First Ogre Incursion[]
As ogres began to migrate into the foothills near Hul-az-Krakazol, some of the human bands that lived there requested aid from the Amethyst Dwarves. Delighted to fight these formidable opponents, the dwarves agreed, and fought and defeated the ogres in several open battles. Clearly outmatched, the ogres abandoned their incursions, expanding elsewhere in Rahen.
The Golden Age of Grônstunad[]
Prosperity in the Capital[]
With a long period of peace and stability behind it, the Jade Empire prospered, and Grônstunad entered a golden age in 4100 BA. With the best and brightest dwarves of the eastern holds moving to the capital, Grônstunad was expanded and improved greatly, and the outlying Vûrdriz-Ândriz expanded along with it.
The Great Gardens of Tuwad-Dhûmankon[]
With the loss of the Serpent's Vale, the food imports to the eastern holds had ceased, vastly reducing the amount of available food. Individual holds had made efforts to increase their own food production in order to compensate, but the variety in the dwarven diet was still quite underwhelming compared to the days of Aul-Dwarov. In order to try and remedy this, High King Vrorri V ordered a grand project to expand the gardens of Tuwad-Dhûmankon in 3987 BA, in order to produce vast amounts of Serpentbloom of all kinds. The expansion took centuries, and over time the amount of available food would come close to the time of Aul-Dwarov, and more varied. Because of this, the cooks of Tuwad-Dhûmankon would become experts at their craft, and highly sought after in the other eastern holds.
The Second Ogre Incursion[]
With the ogres having become more established in central Rahen in around 3900 BA, they had begun a second incursion into northern Rahen, much bigger and better prepared than the first one. The Amethyst Dwarves were mostly avoided, and repelled in what few open battles took place. Grôzumdihr, meanwhile, simply kept its gates closed, and fired at any ogre that came into reach of its trebuchets. The ogres maintained control over the region, subjugating the few humans that lived there, and established a number of magically protected strongholds.
The Pilgrimage of Halanna[]
In Ovdal Kanzad, faith in the old Dwarven Pantheon had been slowly fading, as the gods appeared to have been entirely unable to stop the fall of Aul-Dwarov. Instead, many of the Amber Dwarves took up the Ancestor Worship faith like many of the western holds they were in contact with. This was widely disliked by the followers of the pantheon, and would result in the bolstering of the cult of Halanna, which was the strongest voice denouncing this “godlessness”. The cultists warned that all this was just a test, and that apostates would not see the restoration of Aul-Dwarov leading to the king of Ovdal Kanzad publicly renouncing his faith in the gods in 3859 BA. This led to the cult of Halanna and many of those who still held onto the gods to leave in protest, deciding to move to Ovdal-az-Ân, where the cult of Halanna had a strong presence. When they arrived, they were welcomed in, strengthening the cult there even further within the hold.
The Forays past Vûrdriz-Ândriz[]
A number of attempts were made to crack open passages to the north of Vûrdriz-Ândriz in 3784 BA, to explore the caverns below the mountains there. The hope was to find a suitable location for the creation of a new hold, from where the plentiful tin in the region could be mined. Tin had been relatively rare in the east, and with the West Serpentine lost, initial mapping efforts were quite optimistic, noting the near absence of goblins there. Soon, however, they found out the reason for this. The caverns were frequently home to seismic activity, which made building there extremely difficult. What was more, caverns regularly collapsed, formed, and shifted, making mapping them virtually impossible. The mountains were then named the Range of the Damned, and these plans were abandoned.
The Construction of Verkal Ozovar[]
After several fruitless attempts to find a suitable location within the Range of the Damned, scouts were sent out towards other mountain regions in the vicinity of Grônstunad. Eventually, a location within the Phokhao Range was found, and construction of the hold of Verkal Ozovar commenced in 3500 BA. Because of the distance between it and Grônstunad, most of the necessary materials were obtained locally, and the colony was run mostly autonomously.
Rooting out the Ogres[]
Following a petition by Hul-az-Krakazol and Grôzumdihr for an imperial action to deal with the ogres outside of their holds, arguing that if left alone the ogres could grow to become a threat to the empire, High King Borrun II sanctioned an expedition to root them out in 3497 BA. Using rune magic, the expeditionaries managed to break the glamours obscuring many of the strongholds, and immediately began besieging several of them.
After many decades of slowly losing strongholds to the dwarves, the ogre magi finally succeeded in improving their glamouring spells, protecting the surviving strongholds from the dwarven expeditions. At this point in 3353 BA, however, their control over the region had been mostly lost, and the ogres only kept contact with their direct tributaries in order to avoid detection. There were still occasional skirmishes with the dwarves, and those strongholds that are still found by chance were quickly besieged and destroyed.
First Tin Expeditions[]
With the Phokhao range also not containing the tin the Jade Empire needed, prospectors again looked north to the Range of the Damned in 3461 BA. As permanent mining settlements could not be constructed, mining operations would be mobile, to make the process as safe as possible. After a period of earthquakes, prospectors would have been sent out to find newly exposed tin veins, map them, and send word for a caravan to be sent. All the exposed tin ore would be mined, and the caravan would quickly return to Vûrdriz-Ândriz before the next series of shocks.
Human Migration[]
With the power of the ogres severely limited, and the dwarves uninterested in taking direct control over the region, by 3180 BA, human tribes began to migrate into Northern Rahen in large numbers, establishing independent towns and villages all over the region. The ogres still occasionally attempted to subjugate them or bully them into becoming tributaries, but this constantly attracted the attention of dwarven expeditionary forces, who promptly found and destroyed the ogre stronghold attempting this. This began a period of friendly contact and relations between the dwarves and humans, as the dwarves recognised that the humans establishing themselves could permanently break the strength of the remaining ogres.
Following several centuries of casual cooperation between humans and dwarves in combating the ogres, many of the human tribes started seeking the explicit protection of the Jade Empire. Former ogre tributaries and independent later arrivals alike petitioned the dwarves to establish themselves as their nominal overlord, in return for protection against the ogres and the ability to trade with the holds. Jade High King Muiri I accepted all of these petitions, and within a few decades virtually all of the human tribes in Northern Rahen were under the direct influence of the Jade Empire by 2700 BA. Grôzumdihr especially developed close ties with the Ghankheden people living in the hills near its gates, sharing technology, philosophy, and administrative methods with them.
Fall of the Jade Empire[]
The Goblintide[]
Under the command of Grimka the Despoiler, a powerful goblin wizard, the goblins of the Tree of Stone united in 2497 BA, and began large-scale assaults on all transport between the holds. While none of the holds were attacked head-on, they were all de facto under siege, as they could barely reach any of the other holds. As it became apparent that the Tree of Stone holds were unable to regain control over the Dwarovrod by themselves, a massive army led by general Dourban Brightbrow was rallied in Grônstunad to regain control over the Tree of Stone in 2474 BA.
As the jade army entered the Tree of Stone, Grimka sent emissaries to the hobgoblin clans in the Jade Mines and on the surface, proposing a united front against the dwarves in 2472 BA. In return, they promised the Hobgoblins would receive Grônstunad, the grandest hold of the east, as their prize.
The Jade army successfully destroyed several goblin encampments in the vicinity of Hul-az-Krakazol in 2471 BA, enabling the hold to be supplied through the Dwarovrod from the Jade Mines again. King Grongnir I of Hul-az-Krakazol offered troops and supplies to the army as they prepared to move further into the Tree of Stone. In turn, Grimka ordered a full siege of Ovdal-az-Ân in order to delay the dwarves as much as possible, and sent word to the hobgoblin and goblin tribes of the jade mines.
Chaos in the Jade Mines[]
As the jade army reached Ovdal-az-Ân and started to dismantle the fortifications of the besieging goblins, the hobgoblin armies from Rahen launched an assault on Grônstunad from the south in 2470 BA. The alarm was raised, and messages were sent to the other holds in the Jade mines and to the expeditionary force in the Tree of Stone.
With the attack from the south commencing, the goblins and hobgoblins of the Jade Mines also initiated their attacks, and shut off the access routes from the east and west towards Grônstunad in 2469 BA. The Jade Mines were in virtually the same situation as the Tree of Stone now, with all access between holds nearly impossible.
Relief of Ovdal-az-Ân[]
The jade army broke the siege of Ovdal-az-Ân, routing the goblin forces in 2468 BA, with the jade army requesting supplies and access past the hold in order to relieve Grôzumdihr as well, but king Snorri V refused. He was insulted by the Jade armies, as he had not requested them, and their presence implied they were unable to deal with a simple infestation of goblins around their hold. After nearly two months of attempting diplomacy with Snorri, the jade army returned to Hul-az-Krakazol. Unsure what to do next, they sent word back to Grônstunad asking for instructions.
Failed Relief of the Jade Mines[]
A messenger returned from Tuwad-Dhûmankon over the surface, informing the jade army of the dire situation in the Jade Mines. Dourban Brightbrow ordered his forces to prepare for a surface journey towards Grônstunad, however, when king Grongnir of Hul-az Krakazol heard this, he laughed in his face and called it the cowardly route. Wounded in his pride, Dourban ordered his troops to instead move through the Dwarovrod in 2466 BA. As they attempted to move through the tunnel towards the Jade Mines, they were ambushed by a large force of goblins and hobgoblins, in what eventually turned into a long siege as the jade army dug itself into a defensive position in the tunnel.
The jade army made one final attempt to push through the tunnel towards the Jade Mines in 2463 BA, but were slain to the last. Hearing of this, Grimka believed this to be the moment to strike, and ordered all the clans to go on the offensive again, launching direct attacks on the holds of the Tree of Stone yet again.
The Goblintide Shattered[]
While leading a direct assault on Grôzumdihr, Grimka the Despoiler was killed as he attempted to break a powerful runic warding spell defending an outer gate in 2460 BA. The energy released as the spell was broken disintegrated Grimka as well as any goblin within his vicinity. Almost immediately, the clans taking part in the siege started to fight amongst themselves over leadership of the goblintide. As news spread, the goblintide disintegrated as the many clans fell back into their old rivalries. The hobgoblins, however, remained united in their attacks against the Jade Empire.
Granite Independence and Betrayal[]
With the Tunad towards the Jade Mines thoroughly under the control of the hobgoblins, the holds of the Tree of Stone focused mostly on reclaiming control over the Dwarovrod apart from the area around Ovdal Kanzad. King Snorri V of Ovdal-az-Ân decreed that the Jade Empire no longer held sway over the Tree of Stone, and declared itself independent in 2449 BA.
Grôzumdihr and Hul-az-Krakazol however started organising a large expedition over the surface to relieve Grônstunad in 2445 BA. They intended to attack the surface settlements of the Hobgoblins, in order to cut off supplies from the besieging forces. As they were sent out, however, Snorri accused them of plotting to put them back under the heel of the Jade Empire. As the Amethyst-Peridot expedition was fighting the hobgoblins in northeastern Rahen, Snorri arrived at the gates of Hul-az-Krakazol with an army, and began a siege. Enraged by the betrayal, the Amethyst-Peridot expedition returned to Hul-az-Krakazol, and attacked the besieging forces. In a bloody battle in 2443 BA, the Granite Dwarves were defeated, and Snorri V was killed. His body, on the orders of the furious queen Ogdis I of Hul-az-Krakazol, was thrown into a pit, and an extension of the Hul-az-Krakazol sewers would eventually be built to direct the waste of the Amethyst Dwarves into what would become known as Snorri’s Dung Pit.
The Nephrite Expedition[]
Being informed by Peridot messengers of the situation in the Jade Mines, Verkal Ozovar also organised an expeditionary force to aid in the relief of Grônstunad in 2425 BA. The three holds together managed to soundly beat the hobgoblins on the surface in open battle, and attempt to move towards Grônstunad. However, the cave entrance has since been fortified by the hobgoblins, and their advance was halted once again.
The Fall of Grônstunad[]
Having recovered from the battle of Hul-az-Krakazol, a second Amethyst-Peridot expedition was organised in 2438 BA and sent overland to attack the hobgoblins. As the hobgoblins were prepared this time, they were less successful, and while they made progress, it was slow. With Grônstunad besieged by the Hobgoblins, the defenders launched an attack to their south which was successful, finally meeting up with the army of the Amethyst-Peridot expedition and the Nephrite Expedition led by queen Ogdis I of Hul-az-Krakazol.
At the same time, however, the western and eastern gates were breached, and the hobgoblins and goblins entered Grônstunad from both sides. The defenders and the expeditionary forces quickly entered the hold to try and repel them, resulting in a chaotic battle that stretched over every level and section of the hold. The battle took several months, as the dwarves desperately attempted to hold on to their capital. High King Moilin IV of the Jade Empire and most of his direct family were killed in this battle, as was queen Ogdis I of Hul-az-Krakazol. In the end, Grônstunad was lost, and the Dwarven survivors escaped to either Vûrdriz-Ândriz or the surface. The survivors that escaped to the surface mostly settled in the holds where the expeditions came from.