Text by Paul O'Connor, Dungeon Master
Once upon a time, there was a mountain, a perpetually snow-capped peak near Hundlestone. The dwarves called it Noggak, and Uuthil was its Drow name. Humans, unimaginatively, just called it Blue. Blue Mountain.
For ages, Noggak was worked by dwarves for gold. Humans followed, and there was a glorious age of cooperation and trade. Together, humans and dwarves built the Castle of Blue Hills.
Then a fresh discovery of Ice Opals led to greed, mistrust, and an underground war.
The mine played out and the war sputtered to an end. The Castle of Blue Hills was abandoned. Drow tunneled up into the chambers of the exhausted dwarves, and enslaved them.
Unnamed among the enslaved dwarves was a sorcerer, his name lost to time. To please his masters, he built a mighty magical forge, and created wonderous armors and weapons.
But his experimentations went too far. His dwarven workers were transformed into a gibbering mass, and the sorcerer himself degraded into a dribbling Nothic. The sorcerer’s Spectator foreman was left alone to finish armor for the Drow.
Decades passed, maybe centuries.
Then came the Frost Giant, King Gut. Exiled by his own people, he moved into the ruined Castle of Blue Hills with his slaves and followers, and brokered a peace with the dragon Codoroth the Longtail, staving off the dragon with regular sacrifice.
Through simple good luck, Gut discovered a fresh field of Ice Opals, and set his slaves to mining them.
The wealth of the opals fired Gut’s thirst for vengeance against the world that exiled him, and he began to raise an army of orcs and ogres, while his Frost Daughters lured men to his slave pens.
Then the Frost Daughters lured the wrong guys.
In short order, Gut was decapitated by his own legendary vorpal blade, the slaves were freed, and an avalanche buried Gut’s dreams along with the Castle of Blue Hills.
And in the roots of the mountain, our adventurers found the ruins of the old dwarven tunnels, and found the magical forge where armor had long since failed to flow to distant Drow masters.
They discovered the foul remnants of the once-proud operation — the Mouther, the degraded sorcerer, the desperate Spectator.
In a way, they finished the order … and wisely bugged out before the Drow, who had long since forgotten all about the place, were alerted to investigate.
Escaping the dungeon, up a winding stair, at last our heroes came to a watch tower high atop Blue Mountain. Dazzling white light reflected from the snow field beyond slitted windows.
The Spectator flew into the blue sky — free, finally free! Enter Codoroth the Longtail, who swallowed the poor Spectator …
Thus ends the sage of Blue Mountain. Sic Transit Gloria.
