#brouver

Brouver Hoog

Chest 1: Brouver Hoog would happily sever all contact between Mahakam and the rest of the world. He sees other races as a threat to centuries-old dwarven traditions and culture, in constant danger of being subsumed beneath the thinly veiled guise of assimilation. For this reason, daily life in this mountainous region is tightly controlled. The Council of Clans issues decrees that regulate even the minutest of matters. Suspenders – admissible or not? May folk eat carp just after it has been prepared, or must its bed of jelly first congeal? Is playing the ocarina in line with the stalwart traditions of the dwarven race, or is it a nefarious import from the rotting, decadent culture of humans? And if the former, has it in the meanwhile become simply uncouth?

Chest 2: Elder Brouver Hoog changes his mind about as often as he shaves – which is never. Rulers of the human domains quickly realized they would not buy his favor with fancy gifts, nor intimidate him to action with fanciful threats. The sole way an elder as stubborn as Brouver can be influenced is through the invocation of some long-forgotten dwarven law or some precedent upon which to base one’s plea. Many a king has rushed to fabricate some scrap of an ancient code allegedly lost to time, so as to call upon it when debating the Mahakaman leader…

Chest 3: While mages throughout the Continent worry continually about the prophesied danger that is the White Frost, Brouver Hoog impatiently awaits its arrival. For far beneath the earth’s surface, in the mountains’ very bowels, the dwarves have hollowed out whole cities, where temperatures are stable, and mushrooms grow plentifully without need of any sunlight. So even should the Frost encase the Continent for centuries, the dwarves will be just fine. Then, after the Great Thaw, they will emerge into a world freed of the human scourge.

Scroll 1: Brouver Hoog, Mahakam’s elder-in-chief, is quite the controversial figure amongst nonhumans. Some see him as the Elder Races’ last chance for survival, while others perceive in him solely cowardly traitor. How did the voices come to be so divided? To find out, we will need to venture back more than two centuries…

Scroll 2: It was around that time that the elves embarked upon a final, desperate attempt to rid the Continent of humans. A messenger arrived in Mahakam. With an impassioned voice, he spoke of the need for solidarity between the Elder Races. Brouver Hoog listened… then promptly threw him out of dwarven homeland and slammed the gates shut behind him.

Scroll 3: While humans and elves tore at each other’s throats, Brouver waited. Ten, twenty, thirty years… A whole century passed before Mahakam re-opened its doors. Eagerly, the dwarves awaited the first arrivals from the valleys… and any news of the war.

Well, only some unimportant NPCs left!