The Iron King

The Iron Realm

The northern crown of the continent of Oerth is a cold, mountainous territory baring great tundra plains, scrawling freshwater rivers and an expansive taiga. This unforgiving environment, inhabited by only the most stalwart of natural flora and fauna, is the renowned realm of Drin, named after its mythic progenitor.
Drin, the Lord of Steel and King Eternal, was born during the third era after order had been restored to the world of Orr by the acts and mysteries of Rizion. The son of a minor lord in the Dwarven hold of Balroc, Drin enjoyed privilege and prestige amongst the city under the blue mountains, but would not rest upon unearned laurels. Drin is described in the annals of history as a prodigal inventor and engineer. With these gifts he set to work in revolutionizing his hold, developing machinery and inventions that eased the burden and work of the lower mining caste whom the city depended on for their prosperity. Drin’s innovations allowed the synthesization of new ores and metals (including mithral), created safer work conditions for the laborers under the mountain and eventually lead to the discovery of the century; black powder. In a short time the young Thane had become renowned to his people and word of him had begun to travel the great roads of the brother-holds within the realm, but it was the coming trials that would see him crowned king.
During the winter of the year 352AR the great mountain of the north realm, Orromundus, came alive and began to spew fire and ash. The ensuing quakes brought devastation to the brother-holds of the blue mountains and as the sky darkened and that already desperate land became one of both fire and snow, legions of darkness descended upon the sundered Dwarven cities from above and below. Where the fissures had cracked the earth armies of the Underdark, unknown on Orr until that time, ascended and laid siege while desperate clans of native Orc, Goblins and Bugbears sowed discourse and destruction where they were able to penetrate the hidden cities beneath the stone. Pincered between the forces of evil and the molten fire raining from the sky outside their holds, all seemed lost for the Dwarven kingdoms until Drin forged the first of the Rune Anvils and upon it awakened steel.
The secrets of the anvils are known only to a chosen few, their mystery passing down from rune-smith to apprentice with the same secrecy as any druid order. With the power of the Rune Anvil, Drin awoke his first legion of golems and with them laid waste to the invaders of his hold. Over a course of years Drin would awaken more legions and reclaimed the brother-holds of the north realm before using the power of black powder to collapse the fissures and once again sealed away the Underdark. For these acts the Dwarven Kingdoms anointed Drin as the first High King. None in that era imaged that his rule would prove eternal.
While mortal, king Drin was a compassionate and benevolent leader. A king of the common man, much of Drin’s efforts in life were focused on improving the conditions and stations of the laborers and working force of the brother-holds. He continued to invent and innovate, creating marvels that none had dreamed possible. With his kingdom expanding exponentially, it was not long before his realm and that of Dalair and Iskandar began to entreat upon one another. Though Drin was in that time a wise and pragmatic man his council and advisors were stubborn and short-sighted. Having seen the might of the golem legions first hand, the lesser kings of his realm were all too eager to test their power against the other great realms and the ensuing wars and battles brought about devastating losses.
Drin realized that left to their own ambitions the kings of the north realm, both those that lived in this era and those to follow, would eventually be the cause of the breaking of his kingdom. He became reclusive, rejecting the council of of his fellow kings and worked relentlessly, often sending a golem of his likeness to attend the matters of his throne in his stead. Some believed he had in fact lost his way and seeds of dissent began to sow among his court, the would-be usurpers claiming that his coronation had been misguided all along. A string of bitter defeats at the hands of Iskandar freed the isles surrounding the northern realm from the mountain kings, creating the new nation of Aardwulf and signaled to the courts of Drin that his leadership had wavered. An assassination was orchestrated against the High King but by providence it was thwarted. Drin survived but had been left mortally injured and fearing that his court would sooner see him destroyed than allowed to complete his great work, the High King retaliated with his legions and struck down all of the lesser kings. For a time there was unrest and turmoil and the war effort against Dalair and Iskandar appeared as if it could only end with the northern realm shattered. It was in the spring of the year 484AR that the High King completed the etchings of his Runes of Eternity and with them, ascended to immortality.
Writ upon thousand-foot high slates carved from the very rock of Orromundus, the Runes of Eternity are the encoded soul of the High King Drin. Only he knows the extent of their mystery and none have ever replicated the feat of their making. When the Runes are inscribed into the armor of his golems, Drin’s heart and soul are bound into the steel and awoken. Where his realm would have fallen under the misguidance of lesser kings, a legion of his own might and willpower was raised and with it the kingdom of Drin threw back the armies of the other nations of Orr with such ferocity that an entire new territory opened in the gulf left between them as Iskandar and Dalair retreated. These “Free Lands” would serve as the staging grounds for all future conflicts and became a kind of borderless nation unto their own.
Drin, as a mortal, has long since left this world but through the Runes of Eternity his rule appears destined to last until the stars themselves burn out. Having been separated from mortal-kind in this endeavor the heart of Drin has become more callous and war-minded as the ages pass. His declaration is that it is inevitable that he should rule all of Orr, for like the kings that once turned against him he views the rulers of all other nations to be of a lesser caliber of vision. Drin’s immortality, his genius, his unwavering resolve and relentlessness have earned him deification to a great majority of his subjects, inspiring the greatest sense of nationalism known on Orr and making his efforts and his claim to the right of rule that much more difficult to deny. Only time may reveal whether all the crowns of Orr will be his alone.

Maps

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  Drin