The Ahargon Den

From the Codex of Aihrde

The Gates: The Ahargon Den

In all of towering Aufstrag there is but one physical gate, the Ahargon Den, the Great Maw. Those who entered called it the Art et Unklar, the Mouth of Darkness, for all that entered there were devoured by the malice of Aufstrag.

The dwarves fashioned this gate for Unklar, for in those distant days he bound them to him by chains of servitude that they could not break. And they put all of their skill into the project and made for Aufstrag an unbreakable set of doors. They cast the doors of bronze, but laced that bronze with iergild, that magical ore from beyond the world’s of men. They scripted runes into the doors, words of making from their forges that the bronze absorbed but that gave the doors a magical property that protected them against sorcery. They set riddles into the bronze as well. These riddles captured sound and absorbed it so that none could speak words of opening to it. Thus protected they ordered it set into the frame of stone and trolls, huge and monstrous came at the bidding of Unklar and set the doors in place. There it stood, overshadowing the Wasting Way.

To open the door the dwarves crafted a horn of exquisite beauty. Shaped from the horns of a dragon, bound with bands of platinum and inlaid with thin strips of gold, the instrument’s final shape resembled a ram’s horn.  Upon the mouthpiece they carved runes which opened the gates to the Rings of Brass. Upon the inner coils of the horn, where the air of the use blew, were more runes and these they set with a chime of opening and it alone could force the gates wide. Only the very strong or clever ever mastered the horn and those who tried and failed activated the runes of the Rings of Brass; these tore them from the world and hurled them into the Void where history forgot them. The horn the dwarves set upon a stand before the Gate and there it stood for many long centuries.

The Wasting Way ends in a broad patio of flagstones, exactly 100 feet wide and 60 feet deep. The flagstones are cracked and chipped, covered here and there in patches of a thick damp dark green moss. Vines snake across the stones to cling to the walls and great gate, called by men The Ahargon Den, the Great Maw. The two giant doors stand at their apex 24 feet high and are each 8 feet wide at the base. In sharp contrast to the gray stone the doors have a green tint to them. The left door has a crack in it; the right looks untouched by time. Both doors have a relief of a crescent moon upon them. When closed the moons come together in a large circle. The gates are set into two half moon shaped towers and covered by a huge arch all of stone. A tangle of wrought iron tops towers and arch, once shaped like thorns and brush, but now much decayed and wasted away. The doors stand shut.

The green tint is from oxidized metal, it flakes off to expose the bronze beneath. If the doors are pounded upon the green flakes fall off and expose the words carved into the doors by the dwarves at the Horned God’s request:

Suffer Not the Tyranny of Fear

Embrace The Dominion of Law

The Yoke Shall Set You Free