Duergar the Stone-Beards

The Darkness in the Deep
We were never loved by our father, never his proud first born or beloved baby boy. We were the middle child, unrecognized, uncared for and given an unwanted duty to carry as our inheiritance. The eldest was given the soaring mountains and their iron roots, the youngest the plentiful valleys and their rivers of gold and we were given the darkness below, harsh caverns poison places and the task of guarding the gates father had built to keep the things born of old night at bay. A duty our foolish ancestors took with pride and dignity, they refused to see what we later realized, that we were fathers unloved son and guarding the Deep Vaults was a curse. So long did we spent below in those dark places that our skin grew pale as snow, our hair black as coal and our eyes to sting from any light brighter then a torch. Working with our beloved metal became an act of endurance, the bright forges and smelters of glowing gold that should have brought joy insted stung our eyes and to even the joy of a well cut gem or sparkling treasure became a mix of pain and pleasure as our eyes stung in the light that was required to indulge in their beauty.
Yet our ancestors endured, they lied to themselves saying it was a neccisary evil, that the the first king had given his middle son a geat honour and this duty a gift. Some among us seen the right of it though Duern the great miner was put here because his father wanted to forget us! We remained loyal through the great wars, stood by our kin inspite of our grim tasks asking only for the resources to continue our guard duty. We waged their wars, held the tunnels into the mountain keeps from every monster the Ghoblyns and later the undead could press against us and did the Dhargar award us? No they simply nodded and considered it just another part of our inborn duty.
The Dragon of Stone
When Falknyr Stoneblood the Stone Dragon came to be our king he would not stand the mistreatment we received nor our exceptation to be wholey relient on the Mountain Thrones handouts. He forced the Goblins, orcs and giants who crawled through the wild tunnels into labour turning an enemy into a resource. Our wealth swelled and we Duergar had come into our own. Until the other kings discovered our new found resource. In a fit of jealousy they claimed a moral high ground over the act of slavery and forced us to cut loose our new labour force and as a punishment all the wealth they had earned us was taken! Taken and given to Dhargar and Hargar who came from impoverished clans!
They started to watch us after that, watch great king Falknyr and we became pariahs among our the others, spat on and accused of degeneration and corruption. So many eyes were opened now among our kin, so many now see that King Falknyr was in the right that we were being opressed and treated as lessers by our own kind. Through Guile and wit we found an a secret ally among the Golden Alliannce. The Swarft Alflar were bitter and they to suffered under a crown that treated them as little more then a resource. So it was that in secret we traded with them, in secret we schemed with them and in secret we devised a grand plan to take over our opressors and lead a new Golden Alliance.
We cut off the gnomes and halflings first arranged for wars to sever borders and messages, wars that occured at the same time so that forces could not just rush to one and before dwarf or elf could react came our best plan of all, the apparent murder of a Dhargar Prince and a Nytalf Elsa Prince at each others hands. The War of the Broken Chain was well played on our part, we rose to support the angry Dhargar and encourged them to commit to a war of vengence to abandon the golden alliannce in favor of revenge. We earnned their trust back as we dedicated forces to fighting Swart Alflar in the passages below or so they thought. We bided our time, forged our weapons and armor, employed the goblins, orcs and monsters and aided the Swart Alflar in completing the Unseelie Rite. For in the ages of guarding the deep vaults we had defeated many strange and terrible things and in that we had treasures in the form of knowledge of magics dark and terrible and otherworldly beings that would grant power to our clergy who now seen Kyron and the gods of our kin to be much hypocrites as the dwarves above us.
War of the Broken Chain ended with sundered hearts and hate a festering pox upon the souls of the Dhargar but we were far from done, we pushed for the act that would make them the sole kings, that would centralize all power in the mountain holds and we made them think kit was for the good of all of us. The blind fools proceeded and the Hargar acted just as we expected, in anger. We ensured with our whispers and guile that the Dhargar did not see reason and nothing would stop the War of My Brothers Axe. To this day they do not know the role we played that Dhargar and Hargar spilled each others blood and declared oath-grudges that still linger upon each other. In the end the Dhargar won, most of the Hargar left and the event caused the smaller younger dwarven peoples like the Salt Beards to turn their backs on the Dhargar. They stood alone in their mountain peaks and were poised to be pushed from them to their doom.
The Night of Sharp Picks
King Falknyr waited until the Unseelie Rite had come to pass, the rite that allowed us and the Swart Alflar to tap into a dark and powerful part of our fey ancestry. Magic and new found powers coursed through all of us, the rite was so powerful that not just the warriors and nobles were blessed but every last duergar to the lowest commoners and new borns were granted dark fey might. King Falknyr called for a moot with the Dhargar lords to discuss matters and alone in the tower of thanes we struck. Invisable and grown to giant size our assassins used their new powers well and razor sharp war picks coated in poison fell upon the backs of the Dhargar thanes, the leaders of clans and nearly their king were sent to the cold stone that night a handful escaped but their leadership was in shambles and when our armies and our monsterous mercenaries and swart Alflar Alliies attacked they were no match for us.
We conquered their territory and with the Swart Alflar became the leaders of our new Alliance, an Alliance of Iron. We even found an ally among the Halflings, Ardanus "Sundered Heart" a bitter old halfling who suited us fine. We helped the Kobolds take the gnomes and ensured Ardanus and his ilk drove back the invaders but gained control of halfling lands. All of the former alliance was ours and to help us maintain control Ardanus gifted the Duergar and Swart Alflar with relics from their lost world, the Fiend Mirrors. With the Mirror we called upon devils, and gained great magical knowledge at the mere cost of the lives of our new found slaves. This was the age of the Duergar and Swart Alf no longer would we be opressed or forced to bow to kings who cared not for us. We were made them bow! We wore the highest crown and their toil filled our treasuries!
To rise so high only to fall into deepest darkness
The world trembled as our armies marched west to fight the Hargar and others to force them to bow before the new empire, we were winning our forces and the devils we called up from the mirrors swept over any who opposed us and we felt that all to soon every last dwarven people would be under our rule. Two things became our undoing, The first was the shattering of the Fiend Mirrors, Kyron our former patron god betrayed us by giving a band of mortal heroes a Hammer that could sunder them. The broke the tree Mirrors shattered them to peices and with them the fiends who were bound to our service were sent to their home dimensions. This alone weakened us but it was not the end, the end came at the hands of Rhakthar Steelsworn a Dhargar cleric of Kyron who tricked king Falknyr into killing him and spilling dwarven blood with the Sacred Pick given to our first king.
The curse took hold in an instant, every duergar who was truely loyal to our new cause shuddered in agony as the color drained from our hair and skin as the joy and glee bleed from us as powerful magical items that had been crafted in the days before we opened our eyes crumbled into dust in our hands. Our ignorant traitor ancestors punished us with the curse of the grey soul and in that moment of weakness our monsterous mercenaries turned on us to settle their old grudges, we should have enslaved them not hired them a lesson learned by later Duergar. Those not punished by our wretched ancestors turned to stand with the Dhargar and with the Swart Alflar, kobolds and Ardanus unable to come to our aid we were driven past the very Gates we once protected forced into the deep dark of the night below.
The Curse of the Grey Soul
So we survived, we built new fortesses and we set to recovering our lost wealth and rebuilding stronger then before. An empire of Black Iron built with the blood and bones of lesser beings labours, It soon became known to us that the Curse had done more then bleed out our color and crumble the tools our ancestors had crafted, our joy was lost to us. It became a muted cold thing, where once our hearts burned with love for treasure there is only a dim satisfaction, where crafting and the creation of art once made us proud there is a only a shadow of emotion. We are grey now, grey of skin, grey of hair and grey of soul. Only anger, hate and greed draw even a spark of emotion worth feeling in our souls. We still are capable of emotion, we still feel a measure of them as if to remind us of our lost ancestors disapproval of us seeking freedom. Someday we will be free of this curse and when we are we will rise through the deep caves and all dwarves will bow before the might of the Duergar!