Hammerdeep: the West Hall & the Underways¶
See Hammerdeep's geographic and room maps in the Regional Atlas.
Roads Beyond Thirty gives the source-backed route through the level-31-to-36 Singing Veins.
Behind the West Postern at the Pale Steps' end stands the oldest habitation in the north: Hammerdeep, the dwarven mother-hold, which shut every door it owned when the Long Winter came down and has been working, in the dark, in good order, the entire time. The hold heard the bell of Sunstead ring over the west and drew back its inner wicket arch. The count of arrivals, suspended twenty-seven centuries, has resumed.
The West Hall: the hold's sanctuary¶
Through the Gatehall and down the Long Stair lies a working dwarf-city in miniature, and the sanctuary for the western deep roads. The peace of the hold runs from the gate to the Winze-Head, and not one stair further.
- Warden Grimma Stonetally (the Gatehall) counts everyone in and out. Her family mustered an empty hall, in full dress, for twenty-seven centuries. Ask her anything; she was, in a sense, there.
- The Shift-Bell Concourse is the hold's heart, and the Shift-Bell is
the region's ember shrine — lay down an offering and
RING BELLonce. - Forgemistress Berrild Ironmourn (the Forge-Court) sells the best plain arms and armor money can buy anywhere — and, to purses that survive the appraisal, two vault pieces: a deepsteel waraxe (+20) and an argent war hammer (+15), the holy metal whose flare wakes against the unquiet dead. Sunstead's cleansing finally has its proper tool for sale.
- Provisioner Katla Deepshelf buys skins and pelts at 150 — the best rate in the known world. The Pale Steps hunting loop now sells at the top of the mountain it happens on.
- Tallykeeper Odo banks behind the bronze grille. Bonesetter Ulfhild mends the broken beside the Held Flame — the fire that has never gone out, the hold's greater recovery node and the region's resting place: die in the western deep and you wake on its warm stones.
- CHECK IN at the Old Dormitory, kept made-up for guests through twenty-seven centuries of nobody coming.
- Loremaster Edda Longcount (the Loremasters' Gallery) posts the Underways writs and sells the Long Count — read it before you go down.
The Underways: levels 25–30¶
Below the Winze-Head lie the hold's Underways, a level 25–30 front occupied by deep fauna and the Sundered Kin, below the Pale Steps shelf.
| The deep keeps | Lvl | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| shaft-worms | 25 | blind, granite-eating; hide 150 |
| maw-hounds | 26 | hunt in pairs; the one you hear is the polite one |
| rust-renders | 27 | eat metal; their middens hold what they couldn't finish |
| Sundered raiders | 27 | the Kin's toll-collectors; locked boxes (t4) |
| forge-thralls | 28 | the Kin's smith-caste; boxes (t4) |
| grudge-chanters | 29 | the Kin's law, sung; boxes (t5) |
| deep-road howlers | 29 | echo-hunters of the vaults; mane 210 |
| Vargr the Unforgiven | 30 | the Kin's war-leader, at his court; t5 boxes, the grudge-iron waraxe |
The Sundered Kin are not monsters — they are the hold's own three kin-lines, sealed out with the Winter coming down, who survived twenty-seven centuries in the dark on discipline and grudge. The hold does not deny the debt. Read the Grudge-Book's open page in the Loremasters' Gallery, then read Edda's writ board, and understand the hold you are working for.
- The Great Cistern crossing needs SWIM — the first water in the game that does. The drowned gallery beyond holds the rust-renders' centuries of indigestibles.
- The Long Winze is a climb (the falls are real — see the Steps). Bring chalk, lamp oil, and a pair.
- At the very bottom stands the Deep Road Gate: forty feet of black stone, locked against the warm dark. A deeproad wardkey or sufficient lockpicking opens the surveyed descent. The old survey charts ended here with one word: SINGING. Beyond the gate the word now has a country — the Veins (levels 31–36). The old Muster Hall is a protected Compact station: Resonance Clerk Maud Chordwise posts ordinary work, Deep Physician Orren Vell treats pressure and hearing injuries, and Assay Factor Tessa Harmonic makes provenance, relay delivery and shortage visible in the adjoining survey office.
Getting in¶
Reach the West Postern from the Pale Steps, pass through the wicket arch, and follow the Long Stair. Ozzel at the moraine camp still translates the door's runes, and the frost-sworn still decline to enter the forecourt, which remains either etiquette or advice. The Deep Road below Hammerdeep is a separate descending front; it does not tunnel secretly to the High Shelves or Wyrmshoulder.