The Father of Songs

Dwarves revere words and writing, as many of them believe the world itself was written into being by the deity Tak. As such, dwarves believe that the world itself is a story. A written account of what has happened, what is happening, and what has yet to pass. This creation myth is not as unlikely as one would believe. After all, do bards not exist amongst us? Unlike clerics, whose magic arises from their deities, and wizards whose magic comes from constant study. Bards command magic with nothing more than the breadth of their imagination and the force of their personality. Their words and song shaping reality itself to their artistic whims, but how did this unique branch of magic come to pass?
Halflings often take credit for discovering the bardic arts, but ask any old dwarf and they’ll tell you about the one they call the Father of Songs. The Father of Songs is the paragon bard of dwarven legend. And quite possibly the first mortal to first weave words into the fabric of reality. He is the standard dwarven bards throughout time have measured themselves to, and have so far not equaled. Much less known is the story of the Father of Song’s life and death. While no doubt once common knowledge amongst the dwarves, the eclipse took its toll on the history of all races. What can be puzzled together from surviving records is that the story dates back since before the Age of Arcanum.
Sometime during the Age of Wonder, there was a dwarf living in poverty in an unnamed dwarven city, his name was Berrin. Berrin was born deaf, which in those times was a great taboo in dwarven culture. Berrin was barely an adult when he was cast into the deepest darkness of the earth, deeper even than the dreaded underdark. The reason for this is unknown, it could've been a punishment, an accident or a murder-attempt by those who'd wish hate upon a poor deaf boy. What is known is that Berrin was almost certainly doomed to die. Instead he miraculously survived the fall, and for six weeks endured the dangers of the deep dark, devoid of sight, sound and sustenance. Fighting off horrors he couldn’t see and surviving on droplets of water he couldn’t hear fall. On the seventh week he heard a sound. The first sound the deaf Berrin had ever heard. Deprived of all senses, what he heard was the Voice of all Things, the language with which Tak wrote the world. Berrin listened to the voice, learned from it, and imitated it. By the end of the sixteenth week, Berrin emerged from the deep dark and returned to his people. The language of creation enabled him to imbue his words and songs with magic, changing reality through force of will and creativity. From henceforth he was known as Berrin Wordsmith.
For the remainder of his days, Berrin would perfect his craft and teach others the art of the wordsmith. He became called the Father of Songs when, nearing the end of his life, he achieved the pinnacle of the bardic arts: unraveling and mastering the music of the soul itself.
However, these days the bardic arts are relatively rare amongst dwarves, and sometimes even frowned upon. Later generations of dwarves would denounce Berrin’s teachings as heresy. Claiming only Tak had the right to write reality, and that to imitate him is to corrupt his work. Regardless of the truth of this belief, the result of it are clear. While wordsmiths certainly still exist, their influence and standing has waned drastically since the times before the eclipse.

- Excerpt from: ‘The Children of the Stone’ by Clavicus the Enchanter

Date of Setting

Age of Wonder