The World Engine

The creation myth of the main Dwarven religion.

Summary

According to Dwarven legend, when the gods created the world of Mor they created the Dwarves as automata of flesh to maintain the great machines at its center. These mechanisms turned the cosmos, regulated the seasons, and moved the very continents of the surface. The species was designed to be industrious, scrupulous, and satisfied by their duties. Yet one god, [Aust], placed within this new race an intellect and curiosity unsuited to their task. Over the centuries, the caretakers tinkered with the gods' machines, yearning to understand and improve them.
Their endeavors were fruitful, for a time. Often a dwarf would be able to change a machine such that it required less work to keep running. This would allow others to mine for materials, fueling further improvements. Sometimes a machine could be fully automated, or made to perform a secondary task in the course of its operation. However, as the centuries dragged on, the greatest engineers of the dwarves began to notice something alarming: the machines were beginning to slow.
At first, the effects were temporary. An eclipse would be two minutes late. Winter would linger a day longer than usual. Three more songbirds would hatch than were predicted. Quickly, however, things became worse. Soon (to the Dwarves, meaning within the millennia), stars fell from the sky, great arcs of electricity would leap between the heavens and Mor, and mountains would burst into flames. Every time a team of workers would fix one issue, it would cause two more twice as grave.
Then from the throne room of the Dwarven king came an order: to strip as much of the adjustments as possible from the great machines, and bring the scrap to the royal forge. His subjects complied, but not without complaint. Expressing for the first time a foible that would come to define the race, they grumbled and muttered complaints as they worked (and as some bards tell it, there has never been a moment since without some dwarf, somewhere, grumbling about something).
Once the materials were delivered, the king gathered his people and spoke to them. He spoke of the purpose of their species, and how they had perverted it. In shame, they would leave the center of the world, constructing automatons to take their places. They would continue the task that the dwarves could not.
And so it was done, and the Dwarves never returned to that sacred place.

Variations & Mutation

In some regions, storytellers claim that the unnamed king in the story personally built each of the replacement automata before sealing himself inside the heart of the world, where he still works to this day. This has lead earthquakes to be known as "the King's grumblings" among some isolated communities.