+3 Maul…

Hammer of the Stormforge a.k.a. The Stormhammer

The Stormhammer is the central relic of the Clan Stormforge. Crafted by Ragnar Stormforge (known then as Ragnar Ironbeard) in the days of Thane Drannor himself. It was in these days, before the dwarfs had truly mastered ore and fire that this mighty stonecraft was wrought.

This fearsome two-handed maul is a block of incredibly dense stone mined from deep under the mountains that would eventually house Karak Frumgerð. Originally, the haft was a three foot long piece of exotic hardwood fully two inches in diameter, which was said to be cut and milled from a tree deep in the northern wastes which was protected by the gods themselves from the giants and other horrors of those lands. Later, the haft was replaced by a rod forged from the finest and purest vein of ore found in the mines of Karak Frumgerð.

The storied history of the Stormhammer, and the clan patriarchs who wielded it, reads like the glorious military history of the dwarfen people. Much, as is custom, has been embellished so as to be worthy of song and recital, but the truth is hardly without color. From the first wars alongside Drannor the Mighty, the Stormforge clan forged its name with thundering strikes from the Stormhammer.

Legends boasted by the dwarfs of clan Stormforge tell of a gleaming maul of solid adamantine emblazoned with the clan’s crest and the most sacred and powerful runes bestowed on dwarfkind by Asgard itself.

Sadly, in the last generation or so, the Stormhammer’s thunderous call has gone silent. In truth, it had been hidden away by the reigning patriarch, Thane Thorum Stormforge, for its “safety” since it was so sought after by enemies of the dwarfs. That is, until recently.

When Raethe came to great halls of Thorum Stormforge, some five years into his quest of purging, he found them unusually quiet. The braziers had gone cold, the banners were tattered, and the throne was thick with dust and cobwebs. There, deep in the holdfast, he found Thorum slumped in a chair in his darkened bedchamber. He looked drained and pathetic, like death had long since claimed him. There, covered in years of filth lay the mighty Stormhammer, cast aside like it was rubbish.

Thorum scarcely moved when Raethe entered the room and did not answer when he was called. Raethe spoke in hushed tones and cautiously moved to where Thorum was sitting. He placed his hand on that of the corpse-like Thane, and recoiled with a shudder at feeling the ice-cold flesh of his clan-lord. Everything about Thorum’s visage would lead one to believe he was long dead, but Raethe felt something horrible about him. Unsure of what to do, he stretched out his hand toward the hammer of his grandfathers. At that, Thorum let out an unearthly wail, and set upon the last son of the Stormforge with a horrible assault. Razor sharp claws raked across Raethe’s face and neck, and not even the tempered edge of the mighty waraxe he carried could break the patriarch’s skin.

The battle was prolonged and one-sided. The Patriarch’s frail frame belied the terrible ease with which it could kill. Raethe’s fate was surely sealed as nothing he brought to bear could harm his Thane. Even the battle-rage that had been carrying him through his grim task, sometimes against overwhelming odds, only served to allow Raethe to absorb more punishment at the hands of the Wraith King (as Raethe remembers him.) With preternatural swiftness and strength Thorum lashed out at Raethe repeatedly. Tossing his body with ease, Raethe sailed the length of the room, and he landed only a foot away from the hammer of legend. With what little of Beordun’s fire still smoldered in him, Raethe grasped the haft and was at once empowered by the strength of those dwarfs who helped build the great karaks of Ruus. Thorum flew through the air, but before he could land the death-blow, the massive head of the Stormhammer collided with his chest, and a deafening roar filled the halls…

The walls shook, and everything was a blur for a moment. Raethe shook his head violently trying to focus his vision and his thoughts. Leaping to his feet, he spun wildly looking for the accursed Thane. To his surprise, the broken body of the once great leader of Clan Stormforge lay contorted in a mangled heap. No blood escaped his wounds, and his skin was no colder than it had been when Raethe arrived. Thorum was surely dead long before the hammer struck.

As the fury of battle wore off, Raethe fell to his knees and wept. Holding the great hammer, he began to clean the remaining filth from it. It was not in fact adamantine, nor was it anything he would have expected from the legendary mason-smith on whose name the proud Stormforge clan was built. It was dull, and lamentably, unremarkable save for its size and the clan symbol carved in perfect detail and symmetry on either side. Still, Raethe felt proud for the first time in years as he held it. As ordinary as it seemed, he could see no stain of evil on it, no sign that the Stormhammer had succumbed to the dark power that so many of his clan’s great works had. That, and the sheer magnitude of what the hammer meant to the dwarfs of his clan, and indeed all the dwarfs of Ruus was more than enough to deserve the reputation it had built as far as Raethe was concerned.

Raethe collected himself, and carried his grandfather’s body to the forge at set it upon a makeshift pyre. The prayers and ancient blessings of Asgard tumbled through his mind, though he could not bring himself to voice them. He simply held the Stormhammer close to his chest in what almost amounted to a salute.