Life after the goddess

As time went on, the dryads became obsessed with the link between the goddess’ magic and the living things of the world. Slowly they turned their focus from finding the goddess to finding the reason for that link. The obsession proved to be the dryads' downfall, as it corrupted the once noble race. The longer they studied the links to the goddess’ power, the more they became convinced that only they should be linked to that power. It started slowly, with the dryads draining power from the plant life, but when they began slaughtering magic users to gain their power, something had to be done. The druids, seeing how far their former allies had fallen, used their gifted power to stop the corrupted dryads. In the end, the dryads were all but wiped off the face of Rukan.

Unlike their corrupted brethren, the dwarves worked diligently to find their buried goddess. They were convinced if they just dug deep enough, they would find the goddess at the center of the world. Having a firm knowledge of stone and soil, the dwarves used their intelligence to invent machines to aid their work and that allowed them to dig deeper than anyone on the face of Rukan. In doing so, they found vast caches of ore and minerals, which they put toward more advanced machines. What they didn’t use was traded with the other races of the world for things they didn’t have time to bother with, such as food and clothing. The dwarves soon became the most prosperous race on Rukan, which drew the unwanted attention of a small but powerful race.

The kunst wanted the riches and power the dwarves had gained with their mining and claimed it was their birthright to control everything the dwarves had. The kunst believed they were descended from one of Saol and Kurnt’s offspring, a son by the name of Knut. Their belief that they were true descendants of the two gods led the kunst to attack and conquer the dwarves. It was easy for them to gain control despite their limited numbers, as the troich had not bothered to make weapons or learn to defend themselves.

Once the kunst were in power, they split the dwarves into tribes and gave each tribe a certain area in which to mine and live. The dwarves soon became slaves to the kunst, and that was the beginning of the dwarves’ distrust of magic. Having seen what magic had done to their brethren, the dryads, and being forced to submit to the magic-using kunst left a lasting impression on their race.

It did not take long for the tribes to declare magic evil, and anyone found using it within the tribes would be put to death. Because of their harsh new masters, the dwarves had no more time to search for their hiding goddess and over time most of the tribes forgot the task their goddess had given them. But every once in a while a dwarf would be blessed with dreams from the sleeping goddess as a reminder of their divine quest. And so the goddess waited and slept while her creations struggled in vain to find their true place in the world.