Dwarves had always been known for their artifice. They had that knack for combining tinkering with magic. It was dwarves that built the first battle constructs that the Royal Viridian Army had ever seen. Not the Jadebraid clan, though.
The Jadebraids were warriors in their own right and proud of it. Their small fortress sat on the southeast of Winchester Lake, making it the closest Dwarven settlement to Viridia's capitol. The Jadebraids were the first line of protection for the Duchy of Winchester. That was nearly a century ago. What remains of the Jadebraid clan is a small ruined fortress now inhabited by monsters and the most prolific artificer Pastoria has ever seen, Durzog Jadebraid.
Durzog was the sole survivor of the Jadebraid Massacre. He doesn't talk much about that day, so no one knows what he experienced. No one has heard him describe the horror he saw with his own eyes. To this day, no one, except for maybe Durzog Jadebraid, knows who or what caused such devastation that day.
He was rescued by Jurgis and Sentha of the Rivlovna clan, Dwarven fishers from the opposite side of the lake, who saw smoke rising from their fortress. They found him pinned under debris, missing a leg. The pressure from one of the stone slabs kept him from bleeding out of the wound from his missing limb. Sentha knew some healing magic and stabilized him enough to get him onto their boat and take Druzog back to the Rivlovna fortress. They had healers who helped get him back to a healthy state, but no one had the power to restore his leg.
An artificer from the Rivlovna clan, Kenscot offered to make him a prosthetic leg at no cost to the young dwarf. Durzog thanked Kenscot and made a strange request. The young dwarf looked to Kenscot with pleading eyes and asked if he could be taught how to make the leg himself. Kenscot worked with Durzog to make the leg and taught him the basic principles of tinkering, and Kenscot found that the young dwarf took to it like a fish to water.
The two dwarves worked for a week on the prosthetic leg, and eventually, Kenscot asked Durzog if he wanted to add a personal touch, a signature. Durzog thought long and hard and decided to add a clockwork mechanism that gave the leg a faint ticking sound.
Over the decades that have passed, when Durzog feels as if he has not done enough to help the world around him, he puts a calloused hand to his leg. He listens for the faint ticking noise, and he is reminded of the truth that he held onto since that fateful day so many years ago.
As long as we live, we still have time.
I was looking at your maps earlier and then read this, a little piece on the map came alive!
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