Khro-Korhaz

The Forming of the Cavern
Long ago, the dwarf Hrolf Stonebeard seperated from the landing party of King Oin II with his family when they fled from their Northern Homelands of Azai. He set out from Syltor and headed East into the lands of Nieden. He travelled south of the desert of Adit-Kwa-Aros, and there he made camp. Stonebeard then forged a mighty pickaxe of which he would carve out a mighty cavern to found his town, the pickaxe called Yintirith. With his pickaxe, he carved out a massive cave of which he would found his new city. Hrolf Stonebeard, once finishing his carving, was met by a Witch. The witch spoke to him saying that while any settlement he founds may stand for a while, it never will remain forever. So the witch proposed such; "Relinquish your cavern to me, and I shall grant you a vision of your future and the future of your family."

Hrolf agreed to this proposal, and the witch gave him a bowl containing a stew known as "A Gilded Stoneling", to which the recipe has been lost to time. Hrolf, upon ingesting the stew saw everything that will happen to his family and himself. After snapping out of his gaze, he immediately pulled out his proceeded to pack up his belongings and leave with his family.

The Founding of Grovehelm
Long after Hrolf Stonebeard's departure, when the cave he carved was long forgotten by those around, settlers from a local town came upon it. Settlers from the nearby town of Paludis of the Silver Coalition came upon the cave while seeking gold and iron in mines. The Settlers came in contact with the very witch that had convinced Hrolf Stonebeard to leave his creation. The witch had been creating an army of the undead, corpses from any unlucky miners to stumble upon her, and which this army then engaged in combat with the Settlers of Paludis. The Settlers, after being pushed back from the witch's army, fled back to their town to tell their countrymen of the incident. After a time, the settlers returned in force, baring swords and axes ready to fight, but when they returned to the cave, the witch's army had disapeared. After searching for a while, the settlers came upon a Void Pit that had formed in the time of their absence. And seeing the cave was supposedly clear of the undead, the settlers began to found their city of Grovehelm."'Be wary little one, for the witch's liches roam in the mines, where explorers are lost to ancient spines. They fall apart as they rot, and kill and revive the miners that they've brought. Be wary little one.' -A old rhyme on the Mines of Grovehelm"

The Abandonment of Grovehelm
At first the settlers of Grovehelm ignored the Void Pit, focusing more on survivng and building up the cave they'd discovered. But, to calm some more weary settlers, they had covered the pit with cobbled stone. As they continued to work, one saw the stone covering the pit change, and morph into beautiful quartz. They had realized that what they placed to cover the pit, would change with time to something better. Seeing this change, they grew greedy, and while at first just exporting quartz, they decided to test how far this went. The settlers decided to try to transmutate iron into gold, and when they covered the pit the iron began to change. It grew red, hot, and began to flow. The iron changed to lava, and from it a black smoke rose from it filling the cavern and began to suffocate the dwellers inside. The dwellers fled the town, and waited above ground until the smoke stopped coming from their cavern. The grass grew black above ground where the pit was, and the grass began to smolder as well. Once the smoke cleared, the dwellers returned to see the lava had disappeared. When they tried covering up the pit with stone again though, no change occurred. The magic had disappeared, and with that the settlers abandoned the town, believing it cursed.

The Resettlement of Grovehelm, and the naming of Khro-Korhaz
With Grovehelm abandoned, the Silver Coalition that settled is no longer existing, and any who remembered it wishing to forget it, Grovehelm quietly was forgotten. That was until Orm Hrolfson, son of Hrolf Stonebeard who had carved the cavern long ago, sought out the cavern his father had sown. Upon finding the cavern, Orm Hrolfson decided to resettle the abandoned town for the nation of Axum, which ruled the lands above Grovehelm. Orm renamed the town to Khro-Korhaz, meaning "Iron Shield" in the dwarven language, naming it as the shield Axum could use in times as an anchor in their lands. But, after a daunting time resettling the town with very few settlers and with Axum's internal struggles, Orm decided to leave the town and travelled abroad, still roaming the world today.

Khro-Korhaz Today
With the town yet again left to ruin, it was overgrown with flora, and became a mighty ruin worth visiting to any in the region. And while now it remains a ruins, it stands as a pilgrimage site to local dwarves in the region to show what their kinsmen could do, carving a future for themselves.