The Ruins of Duraz Karag

by **Djehuti** Sat Jul 01, 2017 2:23 am

This building, located at -203|-122 in Tor Carrock is known to play a small role in the "The Greatest Quest on Illyriad!/Race-Specific Craftables" questline, though many speculate the ancient Dwarf structure still has other roles in the game (though as to what those roles might be is still a mystery)

System (same reply to 60 T2 Scouts as 125 T2 Spies) wrote:
Your followers find their way, by ancient roads and forgotten paths, through hidden mountain passes, to the ruins of a once great Dwarf Fortress. In the distance, the ragged ruins blend in to the mountainside, their stone the same grey as the cliffs around them, moss and bushes and trees clinging to the broken walls just as to the mountainsides. But as your people move closer, uneven walls, pillars, even gateways and, in places, stone roofs become visible.

Even in ruins, the structures here are immense. Walls that now stand a hundred paces high are but the remains of greater edifices, rubble strewn about them suggesting that some towers must have been many times as high as that.

The remains of a royal hall cover an area big enough to contain a whole village. In the ruins of crumbled townhouses are the Clan crests of dozens of proud families, some familiar (Moedagh, Reashag, Bealagh), others long forgotten by all but the Dwarves. Collapsed tunnels and gates sealed with rubble hint at networks of passages beneath the mountains, now inaccessible.

In ruined shrines, tablets still stand attesting to the glory of this fallen city.

A plaque in the overgrown marketplace attests to once vibrant commerce: "Give thanks to the east, for Obsidian and fine silks. Give thanks to the west for grain and meat. Give thanks to the north, for Iceheart and oak. Give thanks to the south for spices and fish. All the goods of the world are brought here, by the skill of the Dwarven Clans in obedience to the Artefores."

Another tablet recounts the names of craftsmen who were presented to the gods each year as the finest jewelers, cabinet makers, glass-blowers, armourers, potters…. But their works have long since vanished.

Close to the royal palace, the wall of another shrine reads: "For the glory and might of Duraz Karag, we thank the Artifores. We give thanks that they made our crafts people deft and hard working. We give thanks that they made our kings wise. We give thanks that they made our mountain ranges rich with iron and Silversteel. We give thanks that our warriors are strong, our children healthy, our women enduring, our families dutiful. Upon these things does Duraz Karag stand. May it last for ever."

Leaving the city to return home, your people note a few small scattered cairns, little piles of mossy stones, also brought low by time. These, they suspect, may be crude monuments to slain Orc warleaders, whose hordes over-ran the vast city in the Second Age.

Your followers regret that they did not return with any treasure or insight. The ruins of Duraz Karag are so vast, they say, that it must contain some secrets, but they had no clue where they might even start such a search.