Hidden Mountain Prologue

  Dwarfs never had much in Norway anyway. They had their caves in the mountains, but there wasn't much in the way of food for them there. In the early 18th century they were driven out of their mountain homes, by human invaders. Their main population begrudgingly got into their massive, albeit never used ships and sailed across the Atlantic to find a new home in a hopefully less discriminatory place. They sailed for many days and nights and finally reached America. Unfortunately the ports and harbors that were large enough to dock the gigantic dwarfish ships were not very welcoming to a race of short stocky people with huge appetites and even bigger attitudes. If it wasn't for the Dwarfs intimidating axes and swords, the Americans probably wouldn't have let them pass at all.
  That's a joke, of course. Americans have guns.
  The leader of the troop, Gladrin, was a great king, proven in battle. He'd seen plenty of war and death, and considered himself to be a tough, thick skinned, take-on-the-world sort of dwarf. But when he saw his people threatened by the taller, scrawny humans, who held nothing but a bit of blunt metal for weapons, he couldn't help but put aside his pride and roar with laughter. He was shot.
  The bullet barely pierced his armor, and left him winded and with a painful, but not very deep wound. He'd had much worse before. He bent at the waist, grunted, gasped, and stood up holding a small bloodied bullet. He looked at it with confusion, and then chuckled.
  "We have no quarrel with you, humans." He chortled in a thick Norwegian accent. "Allow us passage to your great mountain ranges and we in return will not pillage and burn your towns."
  The small American militia talked among themselves for a minute, and then decided to let the dwarfs pass. "So long as you get your filthy asses off our land. You must also you forfeit your ships to our harbor. We're taking them." And he sent forth the strongest of his men to commandeer the ships.
  "You may have them. You'll have a difficult time sailing them without magic, though." Gladrin laughed again, and lead his company out of the town.
  It took weeks before the troop reached the Smokey Mountains. Some of the dwarfs decided to settle there. Largely these were the older ones who were weary of travel. The majority of the people continued onward in search of higher peaks.
  Some months later they found a place deep in the forest in the Rocky Mountains. A rocky clearing gave way to a small cave in the side of a great mountain, and Gladrin proclaimed that they would settle there and begin mining through the mountain as early as the next day. Using magic and strong hand made tools they dug out a long complex tunnel system beneath the mountain.
  No more than a few miles north, a clan of woodland elves was settled in the forest. But as elves are generally vegetarian and only hunt animals as a last resort, food was hard to come by for them, and they were constantly moving around to keep up with the forest’s resources. When they heard the dwarves not far away, with their banging around and digging and such, they set out to form an alliance in the hope of saving their clan from famine.
Gladrin was reluctant at first because the elves he had known in Norway were not very friendly with Dwarfs, but eventually decided that allowing the elves to settle the mountain about their mines wouldn’t be so bad, as long as they stayed out of the mine and didn’t take their meat.
  The first difficulty with this alliance came because the elves are a very welcoming people. Once they were settled and had started learning to farm and cultivate the land given to them, they started to work towards building a town. It began with a few small huts as housing, and even the dwarfs preferred that to sleeping in their caves. But then more non-human species came and asked for lodging, willing to pay in gold and silver coins. It wasn’t long before they were building shops and houses, even setting up a government and a simple economic system. The town grew to be home to vampires, werewolves, human-animal hybrids, and sorcerers, along with the original dwarf and elf clans.
  Gladrin ruled the growing town until the day he died. Then an argument broke out over who would take over. The dwarfs wanted Gladrin’s first born son, Flintak, to rule, and keep the settlement under a monarchy of Dwarfish rein. The majority of the other species disagreed with a resounding ‘No’, and the dispute was only settled when a wise old elf named Sae suggested breaking tradition for the sake of the town as a whole. It wasn’t just dwarfs living there anymore, and if there was ever to be an agreement, it would have to be done fairly. They held an election, with four candidates. Flintak representing the dwarfs, a young elf called Leek, a vampire named Joshua, and a wolf hybrid called Nori. Leek was barely old enough to be accepted as a candidate, but he was the son of one of the elfish clan leaders. Joshua was relatively new to the town, so it was difficult for him to convince anyone he was worthy of their vote. No one expected Nori to win because at that time it was not ladylike to claim rule or dominance over any man, set alone every man in the town. It seemed that Flintak was the only one who really had any chance at all. But as the females in town were given the right to cast their votes just the same as males, and many of the males thought Nori could prove herself as well, she took everyone by surprise and won the election, with 48% of the votes.
  It was within Nori’s first decree that a set of laws were made for the town.  She also appointed Flinktak, Leek, and Joshua to a council of advisors. They would help with her decision making, but have very little power for themselves. Nori also set up a second election for a high court of law. This would be three judges, who would decide if and how each person would be held responsible for breaking any of the town’s laws. Finally, she inquired to the people what they should name the town. There were many suggestions, but the most widely accepted one was given by a young boy named Cardin Helm. He suggested that the town be called Hidden Mountain.