"Ronenog and Us"This is a collection of notes dated year 37 of the First Dwarven Era. It contains accounts of a mining foredwarf named Ingish "Roofcoal" Cilobrîsen about his work for the dwarven settlement Asteshdatan, "Cudgelirons" in the summer of 37.
27 FelsiteBusiness has been good lately. With all the craft production, there's great demand for warehouses and extra workshop space, and Mayor Zefon just caved to the brewer guild's recent petition for expanding the Great Hall. We're in the right place at the right time to give them what they want—and get paid at a premium.
8 HematiteI didn't know this storage would be used for musical instruments. Guess the guild really plans ahead. Next up is a new shaft, right past the river. Going to take some precautions, it'll take longer but we play safe.
28 HematiteJust got word from the other brigade. Upper rooms are done and they're moving in to help us.
-further writing garbled-1 MalachiteDamn! They ran into something up there. Some kind of fish-things with spears; Lorbam's boys got ambushed and lost half of their crew before organizing a defense. They managed to seal the passage now, we just need to hold out until militia arrives.
2 MalachiteOne of the surviving miners took to examine the dead fish-things. Said he used to work in a butchery, so maybe figure out where to hit best. Told him it's fine as long as he doesn't try to make dinner out of
that.
-further writing soaked in water-11 GalenaLooks like it's war. The militia took over and beat them back, then decided to foray into their territory. We found remains of a gold mine, which I'm sure sits on the same large vein we've been excavating all these years.
14 GalenaDamned frogs always know where we're coming from. I think we should just crash this whole cave to seal us apart, but who's going to listen? "It's our gold they're digging", they say, "We must fight for it."
***
There was potential for a peaceful encounter, but Dwarven greed and Tritons' blind xenophobia won out in the end. War broke out after the initial skirmish, and lasted until the end of the next year. Though evenly matched in numbers, and being stronger individually, Dwarves managed to lose a lot of ground as their amphibious enemies used the river to move about and strike at undefended points, relying on the psychic powers of the Triton queen to avoid direct confrontation.
Since this time, Tritons came to be known in Dwarven legends as Ronenog, "berserker frogs". This is also the last time they do come up in legends. After the war, they just... disappeared. All of their warriors and priests were gone, along with their queen. Only the tadpoles swam in the pools—they will grow without guidance and become like beasts of the wild.
The few surviving dwarves were too busy to try and figure this out; they had a civilization to rebuild. And though they didn't know it yet, they had a new competitor.
Choose where the goblins will start: point
A,
B or
C.