The Age of Strife

With the weapons forged by the Blacksmiths, we drove off the great threats of the land, and installed ourselves as the ruling species upon the planet. Then, some ambitious Blacksmiths, took to the idea of uniting the disparate clans of our "ancient" race, with war and fire, and most of all, Iron. We called them Warsmiths, and the first of them, the one to be known as the Forge of War, Agnir Firehammer, was soon to be celebrated in an even higher station: Runesmith. Among these Blacksmiths, there arose legendary leaders of war, who with wielding ever increasingly deadly weapons of war, with their smithing skill within the great Fire Forges, from which the legendary Warhammer drew its reputed origins and fame from, were known as Warsmiths, and after taming the beasts of the lands, took to battle amongst themselves, in wars of massive magnitudes that took to the marching of whole clans. The Warsmiths' actions were dedicated to the "lineage" of Grimnir, first of the Warrior Gods of the Ancestor Gods.

Then, among the Warsmiths of renown, there was one legendary Warsmith, gifted among the rest for his skill at forging. He had rumoured to have created the Tempered Blade, the very height of achievement of the art of forging itself. All along as they mastered the crafts of forging, they gradually through their trials, developed and mastered their skill, till the best of them were near peerless. Among them arose the idea of an artifact crafted of such sheer skill and artifice, that it should be considered the masterwork of their kind, the Tempered Blade. To craft that weapon of power, it is said that only one who is able to fuse the Runes of Fire into the blade of the weapon can create it, and that man was Agnir Firehammer, the first Warsmith and Runesmith. The Runes themselves were the creation of the first written language of our race, hammered into the cave walls with those very same tools of forging. It is said the written script of the Runes depict the actual forging process of melding Iron with fire, to create ultimately the Tempered Blade itself. The Tempered Blade itself was forged into the fabled weapon of the Warhammer, by Agnir Firehammer, from which he used to unite the disparate clans into one united entity, during what came to be called The Age of Fire and Strife.

The written language of the Demiurg was one constituted of deep meaning in the construction of the characters. The very ways in which the language is carved onto the cave walls held meaning, and only the first Runesmith, Agnir Firehammer, knew the exact means for fusing the Runes into the Warhammer. Thus he was the first Runesmith. It is said that as the crafting of language was directly related to forging, being constructed as a means of conveying its process through it, the Tempered Blade itself is the very epitome of the forge, being an instrument that directly translates the forging and refining process in the act of creating it itself. Thus it is the embodiment, the Living Example of the Runes taken to Form.

Then came the end of the Age of Strife, with the unity created by Agnir Firehammer as he sought to bring together the various clans into cooperation through the tides of battle, by wielding the Tempered Blade itself. But the ordeals he faced in the process of that act would test his skill and command to the limits, and earn him the moniker, The Forge of War. One of these trials describe an event that led to the creation of the Slayer Guild, "Throrin's Oath", by none other than Throrin Oathbeard himself. Though the skin of the Demiurg was of stoneskin, they had long flowing beards that were a result of age. The older a Demiurg, the longer his beard, and since the Demiurg had such respect for ancestry, given their own Myth of their Ancestry, the beard held a special meaning among the Demiurg. Throrin Oathbeard was the Warsmith that fought under Agnir Firehammer, and was his second-in-command in fact. He earned his name and repute by being the first Warsmith to fight under another Warsmith, and although this might seem small means for reputation, it was because he was the first Warsmith to recognise the leadership of the Runesmith Agnir Firehammer, and so came under his fold thus. He took an oath under Agnir Firehammer, swearing that if he ever betrayed his trust, he will cut off his beard and take to the supreme devotion of vowing and taking vengeance upon his name, to "proof himself a Slayer" in his own words, thus earning his name, Oathbeard. This was to come true, though not in the expected way, when an enemy of the Forge of War, captured and cut off the beard of Throrin, knowing and understanding both the shame and humiliation to his taken avowed oath, and against his Ancestry as a Longbeard of Ancient Days.

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When Throrin was saved by Agnir, he said he will take up his oath and live by it, and having since had his beard removed, even if by force, he will forever leave his station as Warsmith next to Agnir, and become the first Slayer, the Slayer King of the Guild of "Throrin's Oath". It was not a recognised and established Guild, but all similarly dishonoured Demiurg would henceforth take up the same "Throrin's Oath", in the fashion of their founder and originator, and shave off their beard, for whatever slight misdeed and dishonour, wear it as a badge upon their bare skin, and from then on seek death as a means of avenging the deed, throwing themselves in a hunt for the greatest threat they can ever face, as a means of restoring honour. As of now, such is the skill of the Slayer King Throrin Oathbeard, that he has yet to avenge his dishonour through death, and he even once saved Agnir, after leaving him, when the Runesmith was cut off from all retreat, not as if he would, but for the fact that he was all alone from any aid. Just as doom seemed near, Throrin appeared on the scene, and with his Great Cleaver in hand, carved a path of blood to Agnir, freeing his former master from certain death.

With that one singular act, the war was won for Agnir, as that was the final deciding battle between the last Warsmith that resisted Agnir's attempt at unification through strife. And for his act of uniting the disparate Stronghold Clans into one single organisation, Agnir Firehammer became the first Mountain King, "Mountain" for symbolising his greatness, a stature "as large as a mountain". Among the established Warsmiths and those under them, the Blacksmiths, came in their union, the setting of the "Tempered Blade" Guild of Smiths, with the three recognised nominations of Blacksmith, Warsmith and Runesmith, becoming the ranks to the rungs of difficulty in crafting the ideal weapon, the Tempered Blade itself.