Gromkar

Gromkar is a border city of great importance in the province of Nearpeak, one of its large cities alongside Nearpeak itself, Bordernroot and Twinhills.¹

Government

Gromkar is so vital a centre of trade and diplomacy that, like the capital Nearpeak, it is governed directly by House Grett.¹

The rulers of Gromkar have traditionally conducted their affairs under the mentorship of a dwarf instructor who raised them from childhood. The bond is so strong that the dwarves have taught the sacred language Kharguz to the members of Gromkar's ruling house, a sacrifice that would be unthinkable under normal circumstances.¹

Architecture

Like the cities of the dwarves, part of Gromkar spreads underground. This style of building can be seen throughout the province.¹

In Sürgün Günlükleri

In the campaign Sürgün Günlükleri ("Exile Chronicles"), Gromkar is a large town carved into the mountain, with an outer quarter spreading like a half-moon over the foothills; the rock city runs into the mountain at the same level as the outer town. Its stone buildings are old but sound and well kept, built to the measure of short folk, and the ring of forges is heard on every side.²³

Rule and gates

The city is ruled by humans, but the dwarves are strong in its government and in military counsel; it is said that beside every human official stands a dwarf. The baron, Castor Garet, is human, and the dwarf Balgur Demirkapı has been his counsellor since childhood. Balgur holds that the defence of the city belongs, by his rank of thane, to his own house, while the baron sees to trade and the city's works. Every man of the Demirkapı house learned the axe from its champion, Karak Dağdöven.⁴⁵⁶⁷

There are two outer gates and four entrances into the rock city. The dwarves explain that the gate checks collect the trade tax, keep out troublemakers and help dwarf clans arriving in the city; goods are opened and inspected, and a tax is taken on large loads.⁸⁹

In older days the dwarves lived inside the mountain and the humans outside it, until an earlier baron mixed the two peoples with tax relief and grants of property.¹⁰

Places of the city

Outside the walls, at a crossroads, stands a camp of tents for travelling merchants and fairs, for those who cannot pay for lodging within, and for those turned away at the gate.¹¹

Inside, travellers lodge at the Tahta Bacak. Ejder Boku is a clean tavern with a sullen elf for its owner; Kazan has seats outdoors; the Shieldmaiden is run by northerners and much frequented by northern mercenaries. In the dark of the rock city lies a poor quarter of small dwellings packed together.^12131415

Beneath the city an old silver mine was closed some months before, after its workers took fright and refused to work and the silver vein grew thin. The dwarves say that tunnels under the city reach as far as the Underdark, though none of them has gone so far.¹⁶¹⁷

The drow threat

People began to vanish from small settlements near the mountains that belong to Gromkar. The spirit of a woman from Thorgate, a village to the south, told how dark-skinned, pointed-eared raiders had taken all of its fifty and more villagers below ground. The baron raised the number of guards and mercenaries, at a heavy cost to his treasury; humans, tieflings and mages came to take service, among them some twenty-five mercenaries bearing a grey sun.^18192021

Drow seen in the city were to be killed. When the drow Ephorus showed his true face to the baron and the thane, the baron agreed to announce an exception for him; as Ephorus walked to his inn unmasked, people fled, and insults and calls for his death followed him.²²²³

A drow prisoner, Hançer, warned that an army from below was moving upward, that there was no other target near so large and valuable, and that the attack would come within a month or two. The dwarf champion Karak reported large bodies of drow passing beneath the city.²⁴²⁵²⁶

News from far away reached the city as well: after three cannon shots, heralds under the imperial banner proclaimed that a region in the New World had been declared imperial land.²⁷

The coming of the Inquisition

The baron received word that more than eight hundred soldiers of the Holy Inquisition, four captains, twenty witch hunters and a grand master were marching to the city. For their arrival the great gate, normally open, was closed for ceremony, and the baron, the thane and Karak waited on the wall. The host came with twenty or twenty-five riders at its head, under banners showing a great skull and an eye pierced by a sword. Grand Master Hemlock dismounted before the wall and promised not to pursue any case of his own in the city without the baron's knowledge, saying his forces had come to serve Balgur. A war priest then read from the Codex to the people and blessed the walls.^2829303132

Spoiler: Before the siegeRevealSpoils: Sürgün Günlükleri #33; Sürgün Günlükleri #34; Sürgün Günlükleri #35 · Say what you have read

Before the siege, Balgur broke open a great metal vessel and scattered a handful of ashes over the city square, and the dwarves mixed them into Gromkar's soil; Karak declared that Gromkar was now dwarven ground of the kingdom of Dağ Altı. Dwarves young and old, women among them and the one-legged keeper of the Tahta Bacak, gathered in the square with hammers in their hands. In the days that followed they gave money, mended weapons free, sewed war clothing and dug in the tunnels.³³³⁴³⁵

On a night of alarm the drow struck at several places in the city at once, some forty of them by one account; some were taken and there were deaths at important places. Some water sources were found poisoned, and a curfew was proclaimed: anyone found outside without a lantern and without duty would be treated as an enemy.³⁶³⁷³⁸