At the dawn of time all Dwarves revered the Old Ones. It was a primal faith that demanded blood sacrifice and intense servitude. The Old Ones, though not evil were primal beings, their first priorities being with themselves and not with mortals. In this ancient time, the Dwarves were tribal and lacked the structure of a united society. Agamor was a religious peacekeeper of this time, an appointed Vigilant. His duty was to settle inter-clan disputes to limit the bloodshed of Dwarf-kind. This position made him without clan, with him forsaking all ownership to the clan he once knew, so that his decisions could be without prejudice.
It was he who first saw that most clans are alike. Their disagreements were petty, mostly due to the different interpretations of blood price for the Old Ones. Being devout himself he took a pilgrimage to the mountain where their Old Ones lived, a forbidden place to his faith. He wanted to talk to his gods and try to bring peace to his race. Upon reaching the summit he was shocked at what he found. No gods were there to greet him. He saw the wreckage of their living, ruins and corpses, but nothing alive. There at the centre of the ruins he found the Thorgen, the Yurrir, the Runestone
He went down to his people and told them the gods were no longer with them. The clans were in turmoil and soon open battle raged between some. Agamor no longer settled their disputes but was driven to melancholy over the reaction of his people. He decided to further investigate his findings on the mountain, so he gathered his closest friends. With him went Toreval, the collective clan historian; Fallarn, a noble lad of a dwarf, charismatic and strong; Noragall, the brother of Agamor who shared his love for their people; and Oriess, a chief miner of his clan. They later became the first of the Erigrim (the Elders, the Eternal Ones). They were not the only of the people to follow the path to divinity, but they were the first to start.
From the mountain summit Agamor watched his people. His party explored the ruins of their once revered gods, trying to find some clue to their disappearance. But it was not long before they came. They came to see why their offerings had stopped. Shadows overcast the summit as they came. First to arrive was a manifestation of Air, the titan they once called Validarn. It cut them with its sharp wings in anger at their betrayal. Agamor and his friends had to take cover inside the ruined structures to get away from Validarn. Inside they were met by a manifestation of darkness, the titan they once called Valigath. It blinded them completely and made them choke on its poison. Agamor and his friends ran once again, to the centre of the ruins. There, with his ceremonial Warhammer, Agamor struck the Runestone. No one knows why he went for it. Maybe he felt it pull his arm. Maybe he wanted to destroy it to curse the Old Ones. It struck like thunder across the skies, light pouring from the Runestone into a beam that divided clouds. Validarn and Valigath was driven back by its light. The pedestal upon which the Runestone lay crumbled, but the stone itself remained floating in the air, shining with brilliant light. Agamor grabbed the stone and he fled with his friends from the summit.
And so the war between the Dwarves and the Old Ones started, yet it was a battle doomed from the start. Fallarn, the embodiment of Dwarven bravery called the clans together and convinced them to fight. Noragall strengthened their bond of unity, making them remember their honour and pride. All the clans gathered to fight against the immortals. Their fiercest general, Gort came forward to lead the assault.
The Dwarves used the Runestone every time they went into battle, striking it to weaken the Old Ones. Many died still and the Dwarves were losing the war. Toreval was first to suggest that the markings on the Runestone was more than decorations. He thought it was a text, written in the language of the Old Ones and that it gave the stone its power. This is when Agamor's study began.
The Dwarves were losing so many warriors, they started to fragment. Out of the stone and rock they carved sanctuaries to hide from the wrath of the Old Ones. Sanctuaries turned to fortresses and the dwarves found that they could hold out and survive underground. New heroes were born and old ones died. Urir the Assassin, Bazardin the Smith. Still Agamor studied the Runestone and still more were lost to the war. The stone kept those close to it alive and it kept Agamor and his allies from aging. It was in the 400th year since the stone was found that the Erigrim became more than the leaders of the war. The clans saw them as living paragons of their unity, respecting and even fearing them as demigods.
It took them 684 years to unravel the mysteries of the Runestone. In this time the face of the eternal war changed many times. From the Old Ones were spawned creatures of darkness that plagued the lands. Dragons were commanded by ancient pacts and powerful magic, to rain down fire over crops. It was the Age of Chaos by the standard of the Eternal Forge. By then the Dwarves were settled underground. Between skirmishes fought against the Old Ones, new enemies came from the deep caverns. It was a time when the Dwarves were few, and most of any hope was lost. But the translation of the stone brought magic into the hands of the Dwarves. It made them immensely powerful. They forged weapons that could kill gods and hope was sparkled once again.
Historians called it the _Age of Stone_. The Dwarves drove back the Old Ones and lifted the curse of 700 years. The Dwarves built an empire across the known world as have never been seen before. The Dwarves grew ambitious and proud. It was in this time that the Erigrim reached true divinity, but only after another disaster struck.
Some say it was a final attempt of the Old Ones to settle the score with the Dwarves, although no one had seen a manifestation for hundreds of years. Others again believe it to be the dragons, who hated all mortals, who called forth the corruption. All that is certain is that the Dwarves delved so deep into the earth that they opened a gateway to a dark and evil place, the _Reilagg_. Devils spawned from this darkness and fought against the Dwarves from below. These creatures were difficult to kill and they could strike at the heart of the Dwarven strongholds. With them came _The Corruption_, silent whispers in the minds of leaders that drove them to turn on each other. Many was driven mad.
Desperate and overtaken by greed, Oreiss planned to steal the Runestone that gave them their power and pawn it to the gods of the other races. He wanted to trade it for his own immortality, so that he wouldn't be corrupted and killed by the darkness that infested the I. The price of true divinity, however, held more in store than the greedy Oreiss had anticipated. The Runestone had touched many lives already and their strings of fate were firmly attached to it. It had become part of Dwarven culture, their livelihood and worship. If it were to fall out of Dwarven hands, it would end the whole of Dwarven history.
The goddess of Magic, Maia, came up with a solution. She would take the stone into her care, as it was an artefact of magic. This would link the lives it touched to the divine and grant the Erigrim true divinity, but it would also upset the balance of reality. The price of their divinity would have to be balanced with an antithesis to their virtue. This antithesis however needed a vessel, just as the Erigrim who once were mortal. Maia kept the stone on good faith as Oreiss returned to his people and told them what he had done.
Oreiss' betrayal was not well met by most of the Erigrim, but it was Urir the Evenminded and Toreval the Wise who convinced them that Oreiss' actions, although selfish and ill conceived, granted them an opportunity to save their beloved people. Agamor himself took it upon him to vow eternal vigilance over the Dwarves, and with him at their head they went to meet with the other gods. Here they accepted the responsibility of taking care of the Dwarves. Oreiss' son volunteered himself to the fate of being the vessel of evil and became the one known as Durathor. With his naming all dwarves who fell victim to the corruption and still lived, turned grey as ash. Their flesh became cold as stone itself and their hearts were forever lost to the bidding of their new god, Durathor.
And so it came to be that The Erigrim became gods and Durathor was named. The paragons built Heldar and took the battle to the Reilagg and Durathor himself. It so came to be that the Dwarves could continue their fight and had the time to rebuild their defences. Until this day no Dwarf has forgotten their lost brothers as they fight their war until the day that the Eternal Forge makes them all new.