House Kundarak: History (Patreon)

The ancient history of the dwarves of the Ironroot Mountains is preserved solely in stories—tales passed down and embellished over the course of generations, stories that vary depending which clan is telling them. According to the talespinners of Clan Mroranon, King Mror sent twelve heroes to the surface world so they could prove themselves worthy of inheriting his kingdom. He also sent the master mason Kundarak to help build their halls and to protect them from harm. The bards of Clan Soldorak tell a different story. They say King Mror was a tyrant who banished the twelve heroes, fearing that they would overthrow him… and that Kundarak was the warden who sealed the gates to the Realm Below and made sure the heroes would never return. Every clan has its own twist on the tales, but in every one of them Kundarak stands apart. In most tales Kundarak is a protector who helps the heroes build their mountain fortresses. But some clans say those keeps were first made as prisons, and that Kundarak only relented because the clans became too strong to be held under lock and key. Narathun ‘spinners say that when Mror sent the heroes to the surface, he gave their greatest treasures to Kundarak with instructions that they should be restored to the clan leaders when they proved their worth. But, say the Narathun, greedy Kundarak refused to return these treasures. According to these stories, House Kundarak is still holding onto legendary artifacts tied to each clan founder—awesome treasures hidden in its deepest vaults. 

The truth of these tales is buried in the past. But a few things are certain. The early Ironroot clans weren’t exceptional miners, and they were divided by bitter feuds; they spent most of their energy and resources fighting one another, as well as the Jhorash’tar Orcs. Clan Kundarak remained neutral in these conflicts, helping every clan build fortifications—and the Kundarak dwarves were expert miners. While the other clans largely didn’t tap their natural resources until the period known as Korran Hal, Kundarak dwarves always spent as much time below the earth as they did above it. Early in their history, Kundarak had two important subterranean holdings. The first is Aur-Hal, the “Blessing of Gold”—a gold mine beneath Korunda Gate that was the original source of the clan’s wealth. Aur-Hal remains in operation to this day, but it is shrouded in mystery. Kundarak has never allowed outsiders into its oldest mine. Some believe that the original mine was tapped out long ago—but that the Aur-Hal tunnels contain an entrance to a demiplane that is the actual source of Kundarak’s gold. Others claim that there is a dragon in the depths—that the gold of Aur-Hal all comes from this Greatwyrm’s hoard, and that this creature is the true master of House Kundarak. The truth is hidden beneath a maze of tunnels and centuries worth of wards. But one thing is certain; the house still draws gold up from the depths. A second deep holding of note is Bal Ulok, the “Great Pit.” This is the oldest continually operating prison on Khorvaire. The prisoners held in Bal Ulok generally weren’t criminals; instead, they were members of the ruling clans who ran afoul of more powerful members of their clan, or hostages whose sentence was part of the terms of a temporary truce between feuding rivals. Occasionally, dwarves targeted by a relentless enemy voluntarily chose to dwell in Bal Ulok; there was no safer place in the Ironroot Mountains. While Dreadhold is now considered to be Kundarak’s most secure prison, Bal Ulok is still in operation and offers luxurious confinement for noble prisoners. 

While the scholars of the Twelve believe that the Mark of Warding first appeared around the same time as the Mark of Making, there’s no way to be certain. The dwarves remained isolated in their mountain holds as new civilizations spread across the lands below. This changed with the rise of the Kingdom of Galifar. Prince Karrn subdued the Ironroot Mountains in the name of his father, and it was the flow of tribute that opened the floodgates to trade and communication with the clans. House Sivis was quick to investigate this new territory, and they were thrilled to discover a new mark within the mountains. House Sivis and House Kundarak formed a quick bond that remains one of the strongest alliances among the Twelve, and it was from this union that the Banking Guild was born. Kundarak’s vast wealth provided the capital, but it was Sivis that understood the markets and the math, and Sivis scribes who maintained the ledgers and drew up letters of credit and loans. Sivis helped Kundarak establish the Korunda Mint and convinced Galifar to accept its coins throughout the kingdom. Over the next century, the Banking Guild spread across Galifar. While the Twelve worked to suppress unpleasant details, Kundarak and its allies took aggressive action to undermine or assimilate rivals. 

While the Banking Guild was the driving force of House Kundarak, the Warding Guild played a noteworthy role in the early history of the House. Centuries before the rise of Galifar, Karrn the Conqueror established a prison colony in the Lhazaar Principalities on a barren island he called Blackrock. King Galifar I saw the value of a distant, secure prison—a place to hold hostages and rivals too valuable to kill but too dangerous to be kept close at hand. Prince Karrn’s battles in the Ironroot Mountains demonstrated Kundarak’s talent for constructing fortifications and defensive magic. Working through House Sivis, Galifar I arranged for Kundarak dwarves to build a proper prison on Blackrock—a prison that would eventually be rechristened as Dreadhold. This comes to another interesting aspect of House Kundarak: its land. The Korth Edicts were put in place before Kundarak joined the Twelve. While Kundarak was willing to respect the edicts in regard to its holdings in the Five Nations, the dwarves had no intention of surrendering Kundarakhold or their precious mines. After long negotiations they were allowed to “purchase” Kundarakhold from Galifar for a lump payment. After the death of Galifar I and King Cyre, Kundarak also negotiated an agreement that gave the House dominion over the island of Dreadhold, as long as they continued to serve Galifar and secure its prisoners. 

For the last eight centuries, House Kundarak has been a vital part of the economic foundation of Galifar. Along with House Sivis, it’s one of the most trusted and reliable houses. Kundarak investments have funded countless projects and expeditions. While its services have largely remained consistent, Kundarak continues to work with the Twelve in pursuit of new advances in security. The most dramatic development occurred in the last century. Like the other Mror Clans, House Kundarak began exploring the realms below the Mror Holds over the last century. They have kept their discoveries hidden, but in 960 YK Lord Morrikan declared that he was withdrawing his forces from the depths and fortifying all gates to Sol Udar, saying that the dangers of further exploration outweighed the risks involved. Four years later, the Twelve unveiled the Kundarak Vault Network. This leaves a few critical questions in the hands of the DM: What did House Kundarak find in Sol Udar? Did they ACTUALLY seal the gates, or is that a public lie to conceal continued operations in the depths? Does the demiplane tied to the Vault Network have ties to Daelkyr or an Overlord? Most of all… Is it safe? 

The Last War had relatively little impact on House Kundarak. All nations made use of Kundarak services and sought Kundarak investments and loans during the war. The one twist that has shaken the House is the rise of the Aurum. Before the rise of Galifar, Kundarak alone carried out extensive mining in the Ironroot Mountains. But Prince Karrn’s victory over the dwarves actually led them to dig deeper, setting in motion the age known as Korran Hal, Korran’s Blessing. All of the clans found wealth beneath their feet. And over the last century, with the Mror claiming full independence from fallen Galifar, many Mror nobles have become more active in engaging with the rest of the world. Kundarak is still the most trusted name in banking, but Mror investors are taking opportunities that would once have surely fallen to Kundarak. Antus ir’Soldorak has established his own mint producing coins of Soldorak gold. While these actions have yet to have a serious impact on Kundarak profits, it’s a concerning development for the House. 

What Happens Next?  

House Kundarak seeks stability. It strives to protect an image of absolute security and reliability. As such, it’s not a House that takes dramatic actions—or at least, when it does, it seeks to keep them quiet. Here’s a few seeds to work with. 

The Heist. There’s countless opportunities for adventurers to be pitted against Kundarak. This could be driven by simple greed, seeking to plunder a Kundarak bank purely for the gold it holds. But villains bank with Kundarak, and there’s many reasons adventurers could need to plan a heist. Perhaps someone is unjustly imprisoned in Dreadhold and the adventurers need to get them out—or perhaps they just need to deliver a message to a prisoner. Maybe the adventurer’s arch rival has a crucial item in a Kundarak demiplane vault—can the adventurers get the key and the password and get it on the surface, or do they actually need to find a way to enter the vault demiplane itself?  

Inheritance. One of the player characters discovered that they’ve inherited the contents of an Adamant Chest stored in a distant bank. How quickly can the adventurers get to the bank? What is in the Chest? Is it just a useful item or gold or could it be dangerous secrets? If the adventurer is an Artificer, this inheritance could be an arcane prototype created by a rival, with the note that they believe House Cannith is going to have them killed to prevent them from completing this paradigm-shifting invention—will the adventuring Artificer finish what they started? 

What Lurks Beyond The Vault? The Kundarak Vault Network is located in a demiplane, and the House needs to know more about it. The adventurers are hired to enter a portal below Korunda Gate and explore the realm beyond… what will they find? And if given the opportunity, will they plunder any of the vaults? 

Your Mission, If You Choose To Accept It… A dying spy thrusts a crumpled paper into the hands of an adventurer—the key and password to a Kundarak vault. This contains information about a dangerous plot and an artifact that must be kept out of enemy hands. But it’s unclear who the spy was working for and who exactly the adventurers are going up against. Will they dive into this shadow war or leave it alone? 

Storage Wars. Perhaps, if a Kundarak demiplane vault is left unpaid for over a decade, the House will hold an auction for a select group of bidders. The adventurers have a chance to obtain the contents of one or more vaults. Perhaps they only hold junk. Maybe they hold valuable treasures. Or perhaps they hold dangerous secrets, the answers to unsolved crimes, or things that were buried and never meant to see the light of day. How much are you willing to spend to find out? 

This will actually follow the Focus Items section in the final article, but I developed it while working on history, so here it is.

THE KUNDARAK VAULT NETWORK

The Kundarak Vault Network is one of the wonders of the Dragonmarked Houses, on par with the Creation Forges of House Cannith and the Storm Spires of House Lyrandar. It was developed during the last century, and House Kundarak is still exploring all of its potential applications. The basic principle is simple. 

While at a Kundarak bank with a Vault Portal you can rent an extradimensional vault for 10 gp/day. You set a password that serves as the key to the vault. 

You can store an item of up to 10 pounds in the Vault. It’s possible to store a Bag of Holding or similar item within a vault, to maximize storage potential.  

As long as you have the password, you can access that vault at any Kundarak bank with a Vault Portal. 

A Vault Portal can only be activated by an individual with the Mark of Warding, and it requires an expenditure of 2 gp worth of refined eberron dragonshards for each day that’s passed since the vault was last opened. This is the foundation of the daily charge to rent a vault; if you let your lease lapse, the vault remains, but they will charge you for the intervening time when you come back to open it again. While typically all that’s needed to open a vault is the password, when you initially set it up you can add additional security measures; the most common is to charge one or more key items, in which case someone must have both the password and one of the charged keys to access the vault. Whenever the Vault is used, Kundarak records the identity of the person accessing the Vault and the details of what was placed within it or removed from it. In principle this is a measure to avoid the Vault network being used for smuggling or other illegal activities; Kundarak maintains the right to refuse service or simply to reject a specific deposit. In practice (and for an increased cost) preferred clients may be allowed to deposit goods in their vault without this oversight. Notably, the intelligence services of the Five Nations maintain Kundarak vaults for the use of agents in the field. A handler can use Sending to provide an agent in the field with a vault password; they can go to the nearest bank in order to retrieve whatever supplies or information have been left in the vault. Since the development of the Vault Network, House Orien has joined with Kundarak to handle the postal service; Orien uses a series of dedicated vaults to deliver bags of mail between major cities. 

The Vault Network is a relatively recent development. Vault Portals are expensive to build; most Kundarak banks in major cities have them, but it’s rare to find one in a town or village. This ties to the point that the Vault service isn’t very useful if you’re not planning to access it from multiple locations. If you’re never leaving your home city, it’s cheaper to rent an Adamant Chest or even a mundane safety deposit box, both of which are options at any Kundarak bank. Beyond this—there’s a mystery behind the Vault Network. The common story is that the Network was developed in a collaboration between Kundarak, Orien, Ghallanda, and Cannith—blending the principles of Durbannek’s Secret Chest, Ghallanda’s Hospitable Hall, and Orien’s knack for working with extradimensional space. And experts from all of these houses did work together to attempt to create the network, and are working to improve it now (extending the weight limit, reducing the cost of storage). But the fact that you can place a Bag of Holding in a Kundarak vault shows that it’s not a typical extradimensional space. The Vault Network isn’t located in the Astral Plane or the Ethereal Plane… it’s located in one of the demiplanes of Khyber. Over the course of the last century, the dwarves have been exploring the realms below the Mror Holds… and one of the notable features of the ancient dwarven civilization was their domestication of demiplanes. The details of Kundarak’s expeditions into Sol Udar are one of the deep secrets of the House, but the fact is that they discovered something in the depths that allowed them to establish the Vault Network in a demiplane. As far as is known, it’s impossible for a living creature to enter the Vault Network. But are there portals in the depths below Kundarakhold that could allow someone to physically enter the Vault demiplane? Does Kundarak have an outpost in the demiplane, or do they know nothing about it? Are there ancient vaults dating all the way back to the fallen civilization of Sol Udar? And… what else is in the demiplane? Is it a random alien world? Is it a prison for something terrifying? Or could it be the heart of an Overlord? The Vault Network is an invaluable tool, but there could be hidden dangers waiting to be unleashed…  

And this is an additional focus item that I came up with while thinking about the Vault Network and Kundarak's other services.

Adamant Chest

Wondrous Item, Uncommon 

The Adamant Chest is a Tiny model of chest forged from adamantine and set with a sliver of siberys shard. If someone uses the Adamant Chest as a material component when casting Durbannek’s Secret Chest with the Mark of Warding, they can summon a 3’ x 2’ x 2’ chest from the Ethereal Plane. This chest has the durability of adamantine and is sealed with an Arcane Lock; the Adamant Chest serves the key. Casting the spell allows the bearer of the Mark of Warding to summon this chest or to send it back to the Ethereal Plane, but the chest is bound to the Adamant Chest, not to a specific caster; anyone with the Mark of Warding who gains possession of the Adamant Chest can use it to access the associated chest. There is no risk of the spell expiring and the chest being lost in the Ethereal Plane, and an heir can cast the spell with a different material component to summon their own personal chest.

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