Tower of Ascension

Yul'ganus is built around a fortified mountain road and a network of older halls that descend into the stone beneath the pass. Its outer works are less ornate than those of Kron'ganus, but they are exceptionally thick, heavily repaired, and marked by generations of re-carving. Many lintels still show where goblin marks were cut away and replaced with hammers, scales, anvils, and ancestor-runes.

The hold is commonly divided into several major sections:

• The Upper Gate-Halls, which contain the main musters, watch barracks, judgment chambers, and public shrines.
• The Reforged Halls, where returning dwarven clans rebuilt markets, workshops, clan houses, and hearth-temples after the occupation.
• The Deep Warrens, an older network of mines, roads, cisterns, and sealed chambers, many of which were altered by goblin occupation.
• The Ash-Vaults, where ruined records, desecrated holy stones, broken masks, and recovered bones from the Shattered Age are kept under temple guard.
• The Old Mask Roads, sealed or heavily patrolled passages once used by Fengite goblins for ambush, escape, and ritual movement through the hold.

Yul'ganus is a hold that learned not all enemies come from below. Its doors lock inward and outward. Its feast-halls have murder-slits, the dwarves usually consider this sensible.

Yul'ganus is one of the Kromite holds, though its worship is sterner and more penitential than that of Kron'ganus. The great religious center of the hold is the Cleansed Temple of Krom, built over the restored remains of the old temple that was profaned during the goblin occupation.

Yulganite rites place great emphasis on cleansing, rebuilding, and remembrance. A forge is not lit without a prayer. A gate is not repaired without a blessing. A reclaimed room is not used until the priesthood has walked it with hammer, lamp, and salt.

Feasts exist in Yul'ganus, but they are smaller and graver than those of Kron'ganus. The most important are Return Feasts, held when a sealed hall is reopened or a lost clan-name is restored to the public records. These feasts usually begin with silence, continue with the naming of the dead, and only later become properly dwarven, which is to say loud, stubborn, and impossible to end at a reasonable hour.

Before the Shattered Age, Yul'ganus was a smaller but respected dwarven hold tied closely to Kron'ganus by road, kinship, trade, and shared devotion to Krom. It guarded one of the western mountain approaches and served as a wayhold for caravans, pilgrims, smith-priests, and clan messengers traveling between the greater dwarven halls.

Its earliest histories describe it as a practical hold: strong gates, good mines, competent smiths, stern priests, and beer that visitors from Kron'ganus politely described as “military.”

During Feng's dominion in the Shattered Age, Yul'ganus fell to Feng-worshipping goblins. The exact manner of the fall remains disputed. Some accounts blame a siege. Others blame betrayal, hidden roads, poisoned cisterns, or masked infiltrators who opened the gates during a holy observance.

Most dwarves of Yul'ganus refuse to choose only one explanation. They consider it safer to assume all of them happened.

Under goblin occupation, the hold's lower roads were turned into warrens, ambush tunnels, murder-shrines, and storehouses for stolen tribute. Kromite symbols were defaced, ancestor tablets were smashed or carried away, and the old temple was used for Fengite rites. Later dwarven records refer to this period simply as The Masked Shame.

Yul'ganus was cleared near the end of the Shattered Age, during the campaign of the Chosen against Feng. The liberation is remembered in the hold as The Cleansing of the Hammered Gate.

The Chosen broke the goblin command within the upper halls, drove the surviving Fengite warbands into the deep roads, and restored the first public shrine of Krom at the gate-temple. In Yulganite tradition, the campaign did not truly end when the last goblin captain fell. It ended when the first hammer rang again on the temple anvil.

Not every passage was reclaimed at once. Some were sealed. Some were collapsed. Some are still opened only by priestly rite and military order.

Yul'ganus is traditional, wary, pious, and deeply concerned with whether a door has been properly barred. Its people value craft, duty, clan memory, military readiness, clean shrines, honest repairs, and a healthy suspicion of masks.

Common Yulganite sayings include:

• A hold is not lost while one dwarf remembers its name.
• Stone remembers. Dwarves should do at least as well.
• Krom sees the rebuilt wall first.
• Trust the cousin who checks the lock twice.

Yulganites are often seen as grim by outsiders and overly cautious by dwarves from safer holds. They answer that “overly cautious” is what the dead call the living when they are jealous.

Yul'ganus maintains a compact but disciplined defensive force centered on tunnel fighting, gate defense, ambush detection, engineering, and anti-goblin warfare. Its soldiers are commonly known as the Passwardens.

The Passwardens train closely with Kromite priests and stone-engineers. They specialize in:

• Shield-wall fighting in narrow halls.
• Counter-ambush tactics.
• Trap finding and trap rebuilding.
• Defense of shrines, gates, cisterns, and records.
• Pursuit of goblins, cultists, and masked infiltrators through old roads.
• Rapid sealing of compromised tunnels.

Yul'ganus rarely marches far from its mountains, but when it does, it sends soldiers who expect betrayal, bring extra hinges, and regard unsecured side passages as a personal insult.

Relations between Yul'ganus and Kron'ganus are close, old, and occasionally strained in the manner of dwarven relatives who agree on almost everything except who is being patronizing.

Kron'ganus views Yul'ganus as a sacred reclamation, a western shield, and a reminder that even a proper dwarven hold can fall if vigilance fails. Yul'ganus respects Kron'ganus as the greater hold and a mighty center of Kromite tradition, but dislikes being treated as a wounded dependency or a historical lesson with gates.

Trade, pilgrimage, military coordination, and temple exchange between the two holds remain strong. Kron'ganus sends engineers, priests, coin, and feast goods. Yul'ganus sends stone, soldiers, relic reports, and warnings that the western roads are never as clear as merchants claim.

• The Hammered Gate: The main restored gate of Yul'ganus. Its inner arch bears hundreds of small hammer marks, each representing a family, shrine, or hall restored after the occupation.
• The Cleansed Temple of Krom: The central temple of the hold, rebuilt over the desecrated old sanctuary. Its altar-anvil is struck at dawn, during musters, and whenever a sealed hall is reopened.
• The Ash-Vaults: Guarded reliquaries containing broken ancestor stones, burned records, shattered Fengite masks, and other remains of the occupation.
• The Old Mask Roads: Former goblin routes through the deep portions of the hold. Some have been reclaimed. Others remain barred by stone, iron, oath, and common sense.