By Alvarus Elari 
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The north-west is sparsely-populated, bleak, the hardest part of the world.  The bitter winds lash the mountains and bring salt off the sea, making agriculture a tenuous proposition.  A handful of skraelings make their ice-homes in the polar north, hunting seal, whale, and caribou.  Further south, a few tribes of men, fur-clad, cling to a base existence in their stone villages.  Around them, in the mountains, were once dwarves. 
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Originally from the deep hills of the west, the dwarves were descended from Gisli Fireeater, the ancient dragonslayer.  After he slew Glasa, the sky-drake, Gisli led his people north on longships, arriving at the base of a large, mountainous island.  The dwarves named these mountains "Stoneheim", found an easily-defended position, and began to dig in. 
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Year after year, they dug.  Their tunnels led to an enormous natural cavern deep within the mountains, and here they built their city.  They hewed the stone, built up dwellings, and began work on a great hall in honour of their leader. 
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The work never finished.  Years later, we elves, coming on the invitation of long-travelling letters, arrived at the wide-open gates.  What we saw there was a scene of sick destruction: homes smashed, corpses mummified by soot and ash.  The letter-carriers, a small band of dwarves, set out further east to found a new home. 
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Eventually, dwarves from other tribes throughout the world joined them, and some gnomes too, and Stoneheim was reborn.  The old city, grand in its destruction, was christened "Wyrmeswraec" - wyrm's torment - as the dwarves were under no illusion as to what caused such death. 
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The new Stoneheim is located in the far north, in polar mountains near the great caps of ice.  The dwarves there are not only miners, but great sailors and travellers, and they sail their longships far and wide, keenly aware that if they are not congregated together, they cannot be completely destroyed.  The ruins of Wyrmeswraec lie distantly to the west of Stoneheim, a grim and enduring reminder: that the dwarves there were slain by fire, and that the great wyrm has never been found.
