5001-HârnWorld/3rd Edition/41

Meanwhile, the Khuzdul had patiently gathered an army and easily overpowered the small, disorderly garrison Lothrim had left to hold Kiraz. Outraged by the carnage they found, they undertook a furious pursuit. Lothrim and his army, completely unaware that such a force existed, were overtaken at their encampment near Sirion, where they may have been awaiting boats to carry them across Lake Benath. Lothrim found himself trapped between the Deret River, Lake Benath, and hordes of avenging Khuzdul. A great battle was fought but the result was never in doubt. Lothrim was utterly routed and the Khuzdul, in no mood for mercy, slew all in reach. Lothrim was taken alive. A chamber was carved under a mountain, possibly near Iracu, and a screaming Lothrim was cast in. Stone and mortar was brought and the tyrant was entombed with his precious tome, his madness, and an “honor guard” of a dozen starving gargun. The location and contents of “Lothrim’s Tomb” remain a subject of speculation; the Khuzdul will not speak of the Foulspawner.

Aftermath at Kiraz
The victorious Khuzdul could no longer bear to dwell in the haunted halls of Kiraz. After removing and burning the rotting gargun corpses, they sealed the gates with “enchantment and good stone” as a fitting tomb for its former inhabitants. Then they grimly marched to Azadmere, where their kinfolk gave them refuge. To this day, the Khuzdul are convinced that the Sindarin of Evael should have intervened to prevent the tyranny of Lothrim; the dwarves have yet to forgive this negligence.

Collapse of Lothrim’s Federation
Without Lothrim’s charisma and personal power, his empire lacked cohesion. When news of his death reached Elkall-Anuz, no successor could hope to overcome the tyrant’s legacy of hatred and resentment and the confederation dissolved. Lothrim’s former subjects slew or drove out the Foulspawn. The surviving gargun fled into the mountains, where their numerous descendants still live. So ended the Tyranny of the Foulspawner. Elkall-Anuz was looted and abandoned. On the eastern fringes of his former empire, where the influence of the Jarin and the Melderyni was strongest, new states arose.

The eastern tribes and states where the Jarin influence was strongest were the most culturally advanced of Lothrim’s subjects. With the Foulspawner’s demise, six states gradually emerged from the ruins of his empire. Some of these borrowed their culture from the Jarin, with whom they had long intermarried; some were undoubtedly influenced by ancient Melderyn. In any event, by 170 TR, seven independent kingdoms (including Melderyn) soon existed in eastern Hârn.

The Migration Wars
The Migration Wars were directly responsible for the contemporary political states in eastern Hârn. Heralded by the sudden onslaught against western Kephria in 178 by the Kath (a tribe from the foothills of the Felsha Mountains), a period of warfare and migrations known as the Migration Wars began. For 60 years, all but the island state of Melderyn suffered from repeated incursions and pillage from surrounding barbaric tribes.

Why the Kath, Pagaelin, Taelda, Bujoc, and Hodiri tribal nations suddenly became so aggressive is not fully understood; historians have been forced to speculate. Some of the tribes are thought to have been alarmed by the sudden appearance of large numbers of gargun in their mountain ranges. Others may have experienced something of a population explosion as a result of the relative tranquillity following the tyranny of Lothrim.

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