Today, we bring you a shocking announcement: Dwarves absolutely love their mines! And, this week, we’re bringing you some more Vagrus art in the form of, well, a Dwarven mine. Joking aside, as some of you know, the Mines of Ukzular is a location in the upcoming second part of the update that continues the story of Kharandar’s expedition into the heart of ruin. These are free, chunky updates that add significantly to an already alluring pile of content in our At the Heart of Ruin expansion.

This week we’re coming to you with more lore relating to the Dwarves of the Riven Realms and their lost culture. We’re set to delve deep, as this lore is becoming increasingly relevant for those currently enjoying our At the Heart of Ruin expansion, and who anticipate the updates of its ongoing story. Not to mention, of course, that Vagrus has always been aimed toward the discerning lore-enjoyer, and what’s coming will be no different.

Today’s lore post is focused on the Dwarven kingdom of Dvendar Tharr, and it’s connected to At the Heart of Ruin’s release thematically, which has seen players venturing deep into the Mountains of Fire. A place which, long before the Calamity struck, was a bastion of brilliance, ingenuity, and innovation. Perhaps most importantly, Dvandar Tharr is not a place so easily shown in one expansion, as much as we would like to. It is an entire region with a rich history of ascendance and, subsequently, peril. Moreover, it is easily among the most difficult places to traverse due to its terrain and insane natural conditions.

Varnurud, the stage that most of At the Heart of Ruin plays out on, is a varied realm of ruin, past glory, and faded splendor. The kingdom of Dvendarr Tharr, now mostly referred to as the Mountains of Fire, has a great deal of Dwarven infrastructure; ruins of stone are most plentiful. Although most of it has crumbled to rubble or dust in the wake of the Calamity, there are those jutting edifices that yet endure – old watchtowers, cracked roads, small forts, great staircases, and massive walls only a few among them. One does not have to look far and wide.

Today we’re taking you underground, into a realm obscured to most inhabitants of Xeryn. Beneath the broken sprawl of the Mountains of Fire lies a labyrinthine network of cyclopean tunnels: the roads of the ancient Dwarven kingdom of Dvendar Tharr. During Xeryn’s Third Age, before the Calamity wreaked untold havoc, these passages were used for trade, marching armies, and all manner of other activities. In fact, the majority of Dwarves during the period favored them over paths above ground. Small fortresses stood at important crossroads or straddled major causeways, and by now, many of them have crumbled to rubble.

‘I say: Dwarves! I’ve seen ‘em pass through ‘ere. Folks say they went up the way of the old fort inside the mountain, they did. Whass their business – nobody knows. Maybe in cahoots wif the Elves there? Aye, armor black as night, eyes aglow with malice, I tell ya. Murka said so, ‘fore he died. Poisoned, the poor wretch. Told ‘im not to go to Dum bloody Garok, but he was starvin’. Or uh… might’ve been the spiders, you see. Maybe them Dwarves are in cahoots wif ‘em? Anyhoo, are ya eatin’ that?’

Every once in a while in the debilitatingly hot locale that is Varnurud, the ground rumbles. Indeed, earthquakes are frequent to the point of becoming one of the most common sources of peril. But when the ground opens up, revealing an ancient Dwarven town, it’s really something special.

Gorge Town, the “creative” name the local scavengers have come to call it, represents one such special occasion, and today we’re eager to show it to you. It’s just one more place that you might find yourself delving into in our At the Heart of Ruin expansion via the new Exploration Encounters, and if you’re lucky, you can perhaps recover veritable treasures.

Another week, another location teaser for the upcoming expansion! This week we’re bringing you one that was already featured in our At the Heart of Ruin trailer: the Fallen Tower.

Unsurprisingly, Varnurud is home to many settlements, fastnesses, and facilities once occupied by Dwarves and their Inventor Kings during the last centuries of the Third Age of the Riven Realms. Since mines were common, so too were satellite towns, of which Ember Town is one.

What makes a great set of stairs, you might ask? Well, that’s a tough question, we say. In our At the Heart of Ruin expansion, there are many sets of great stairs, but only one is called the Great Stairs – at least that’s what the locals would say. Whether those locals are bloodletting miscreants who worship an unknown entity that demands depraved sacrifice, madmen who delight in the act of burning themselves and others alive, or men who believe themselves to be beasts after discovering a dead Wyvern that they thought was a divine creature of the skies, that’s what they would say. There are other… more cultured locals, of course – even ones that’ll talk to you – but they each share a different brand of insanity. Enjoy, we say.