Dwarf Bolt Throwers

The Fangs of Bandars

The war against the elves began like any other: with steel and screams. Dwarves knew about that. But the war changed. When the elven dragons arrived, it was no longer a war; it was a slaughter. Pride means nothing when the stone of your fortress melts and rains down upon your head. That's what happened at Karz-Haldûn and a dozen other posts. The legions were forced into a humiliating retreat, to hide underground like frightened vermin while the enemy claimed the sky.

In Bandars-Thûl, a minor mining fortress, a smith named Kalin saw it all. He was no priest or visionary; he was a craftsman who watched his life's work, and that of his ancestors, incinerated from above by winged beasts. He felt no divine revelation, only a cold, practical spite. He began to sketch plans, not for a relic, but for a tool: something heavy, ugly, and mechanical, its sole purpose to make whatever flew, fall.

But the retreat was swifter than his work. Kalin died in exile, in some forgotten gallery, his designs tucked away. One more failure among many.

His family, however, did not forget the spite. It became their inheritance. Through the centuries, as the Empire crumbled and each fortress looked to its own quarrels, Kalin's descendants became a closed brotherhood of obsessed engineers. Other clans saw them as oddities, clinging to an ancient, useless hatred. While others forged to rebuild or fend off orcs, they perfected Kalin's tool.

They compacted the designs to move them through collapsed tunnels. And for the projectiles, they did something others would deem a profanation: they used shards from Karz-Urzûl. That was a fortress lost to a rebellion of its orc slaves, a cursed place whose echo had been erased by the Assembly. The Bandars, in their desperation, believed a stone born of hatred would serve to fuel more hatred.

These mechanisms, the Fangs of Bandars, are not elegant. They are heavy irons, counterweights, and levers assembled for the sole purpose of launching a piece of metal high enough and hard enough. There is no liturgy in them, only the grease, sweat, and stubbornness of generations.

Now, with the elves returned, the Fangs are mounted at the high gates of the few fortresses that trade with the Bandars. They don't point to the sky as a symbol of hope, but as a threat. They await no day of glory, no final judgment. They only wait for the enemy to pass overhead again.

A good craftsman never forgets an affront. And a good grudge, like stone, is patient.