Demytha

Deep below the undermountain metropolis of Gloomdeep Hold, deeper even than the farthest tunnels where the outskirts of the city stretch, down in the abyssal depths below the Mountains of Despair, lie the remnants of the fabled Dwarven under-empire. Knowledge of this place has been all but lost to the Dwarves. But there are some who are determined to return the Dwarven people to their ancient glory, such as the lorekeeper, Demytha. Indeed, it is Demytha's insistence on digging up the past that has earned her the ire of both her king and her fellow lorekeepers. While the Dwarves are not a forward-thinking people by any stretch of the imagination, neither do they wallow in the past. The lorekeepers maintain the historical record, so that other Dwarves might live unencumbered by what has gone before, or knowledge of how far they have fallen since Siroth's Demonspawn invasion destroyed the under-empire. Better that they remember only what the lorekeepers tell them to remember and forget that which is better forgotten. But for Demytha, the deep past is a country she is determined to explore; but not out of simple curiosity. Rather, she seeks to learn more about the Dwarven Emperors of old and the ancient blood-rights that still bind her people, in order to heal the rift she believes is developing between them. For it is no secret, at least among the Dwarves, that relations between the Skyiron Dominion and Gloomdeep Hold have grown strained in recent decades, even if they remain strong. Demytha hopes to find something to unify her people once and for all. This means descending into those unhallowed depths and searching for the lost record-rooms of the under-empire. Then, as now, the Dwarves were meticulous record-keepers, tracing bloodline, ownership, and the like for generation upon generation back into antiquity. Demytha hopes to find these lost records in order to identify the true heir to the Dwarven Emperors of old. To that end, she has financed a number of expeditions into the depths, using her own family's wealth and connections to put together groups of treasure-hunters, cartographers, explorers, and historians to map the remnants of the under-empire and locate the missing record-rooms. These attempts have almost all ended in disaster. For every scrap of knowledge or imperial artifact recovered from the depths, dozens of lives have been lost and chthonic horrors have been stirred to wakefulness by the intruders. More than once, some abomination has been accidentally freed from a lightless cavern and pursued Demytha's people back to the outskirts of Gloomdeep Hold, where Dwarven Tunnel Stewards have been forced to meet the threat. These incidents have damaged Demytha's reputation both among her fellow lorekeepers and with the King at the Heart of the Gloom. After the last such occurrence, during which a titanic cave-scorpion was drawn into the outer districts of the hold, she was ordered to cease funding her expeditions into the darkness or face exile. While Demytha has ostensibly agreed to leave the past buried, in reality she is more determined than ever to find the knowledge that she seeks. Because of this, she keeps her investigations secret, despite the risk. To that end, she has gathered to her only the most trustworthy explorers and now leads the expeditions herself, hoping with each departure from the safety of Gloomdeep Hold that this time she will be successful.