Morgrave: the Places and the People

Morgrave: the Places and the People, despite its dusty sounding title, is actually a colorful account of the (often drunken) wanderings of famed explorer Rauta Stonekeg through the lands of Morgrave. Considering a vast majority of people never go far from their home, this is one of the best opportunities for many people to learn about the other locations and cultures in the world. Although many people in Morgrave cannot read, it is a somewhat popular book to be read aloud for entertainment at certain public events or even private parties, for those interested in such things.
The story is written in first person and follows the travels of Rauta Stonekeg as he set out to see the world. He was not the first person to explore Morgrave, indeed the Firbolgs had been doing it for time immemorial. However, Rauta has a specific literary style that reads more like a novel. Somewhat surprisingly, Rauta's drunken ramblings struck a chord with the people of Morgrave, who grew to love the raucous Dwarf's antics.

Plot

The story begins in medias res as Rauta is on his way to the newly discovered city of Raaha. The author relates the personalities of his companions, a caravan of profit-seeking strangers, through humorous anecdotes. After describing the (at that time) largely limestone town and its inhabitants that had been cut off from the rest of Morgrave since pre-history, he skims over his trip back and his brief reprise in his home country of Krag-a-Krach. Being a journal, Rauta did not put any effort into describing his homeland at this point, and skims over his own cities and culture.
The story picks back up as Rauta makes his way through the Stone Road, the long hewn tunnel through the spur of the Skulls that separates Krag-a-Krach from Qemt'Or. He describes in great detail the architectural wonder wrought by his cousins, the Diamond Dwarves who live under the Skulls. Beyond that, he tells of the transitioning Qemti empire, a people who at that time were just transitioning from a rigid military society to traders and merchants and bureaucrats. He traveled all the way up and past Hymbra, another nation in transition; they had just discovered Ambrosia and were just showing signs of entering their miraculous golden age. He kept going north, all the way to the Wuthering Wights, where he lived with the Elves, an elusive, vengeful, and pious people who trained in the cold wastes in the hopes that one day a champion would arise to lead their people to reclaim their lost lands taken by the modern day Hymbrans after their exodus from Lustria in The Schism.
Finally, Rauta makes his way south again, taking pains to travel the long way home through Lustria, the hyper-religious hill folk of western Morgrave. He stayed in Amia, the capital, for a few months and told stories of the powerful Twelve who rule the nation from The Hall of Mirrors. He traveled by boat to Athena's Eye, the island in Gods' Lake upon which the Pantheon is built, the greatest cathedral in all of Morgrave where the The Radiant Sodality are based. From the lake he continued his voyage east and back home to Krag-a-Krach.

Type

Journal, Scientific