Moradin wooed Berronar, and won her. But before they could marry, Surtr had to give his blessing. In return for this, Moradin forged him a sword that burned of its own accord with a light brighter than the sun.

Then Moradin set about forging the world.

Placing the Eternal Flame of Muspelheim in his forge with elemental stone, Moradin forged. With tongs and hammer he made the mountains and hills and the ocean trenches. He quenched the world in the Trough of Life, and steam formed clouds and sky. He set the world on a pinnacle of pure mithril, and there it remains.

What could test the world? Moradin wondered. Only a race of miners and craftsmen, he knew. He took stone from the world and alloyed it with mithril and iron, casting them in a sturdy form with four limbs and a head. Then he set about adding a soul, but the fires of Muspelheim were not hot enough to forge them.

Sighing, again Moradin went on a journey. Descending into the nine hells, Moradin came to the Lake of Fire. There the devils were forging their own souls - crude and misguided their work was, but the fire was hot enough to do the job.

“I need some of your flame,” Moradin told the keeper of the Lake. “In return, I will forge you something.”

“Forge us a god,” said the keeper of the Lake. “Forge us a god to serve us, and a mind to think for us. Here are a thousand souls for this task.”

Moradin did as he had promised, and he was given the fires of Hell. Taking them back to his forge in Heaven, he purified them with his bellows. With the purified flames he forged the souls the dwarves would need from his own breath.

To assist him, Moradin created the other gods. He made Tharmekhul to help him with his forge. He made Kossuth to burn and to fan the flames of Life. He made Istishia to make sure the Trough of Life never emptied. He made Grumbar to guard the stone from which he forged worlds. He made Akadi to guard the air that filled his bellows. He made other gods, and revealed to them all their place in the world. Then he spoke to the first king of the dwarves, and told him of the mithril spire.

Moradin Creator placed the two loveliest globes of ore in the earth into the Heavens so that those far from the mines would not miss the wonders of the subterranean world. One shown like gold; it is called the sun. One shown like mithril; it is called the moon.

Corellon, a foolish god Moradin had assigned to guard trees, tried to steal the globe of mithril. Using poisonous magic he tried to slay the guardians Moradin had assigned to it. His magic caused parts of the moon to turn black with tarnish, but he did not succeed. In his mercy, Moradin taught Corellon to create a race of his own, thinking this would keep him so busy he would not try to steal celestial orbs again.

Zarus, the creator of humans, came about accidently. Muamman Duathal, son of Berronar and Moradin, was exploring the surface of the Mountain when he slipped and fell backwards in the snow. He quickly got up and continued on his way, but his divine power remained in the depression he left behind. As the depression filled with mud, it created a being in the likeness of Muamman, but stretched out of its proper shape by the mountain’s slope. Muamman’s divine energy awakened the mud creature, becoming a lesser god in his own right. He stole the secret of creation from Corellon, though both are too proud to admit it.

Later in the same journey, Muamman Duathal met a small female creature huddled in the snow. Taking pity on her, he brought her back with him to his father’s throne. Finding her remarkably well-spoken and good-hearted, Moradin gave her the gift of fire so that she would not freeze in the future. He also taught her how to create a race in her own image, but she made her race badly, and they are not as lawful or good as she.

Muamman Duathal also came back with a tale of the creation of gnomes, but Moradin knew it was a lie created by Garl Glittergold’s illusions. The true origin of the gnomes is known only to them, if even they remember what is glamour and what is reality.

Outside the universe Moradin made things were corrupt and impure, uncanny and disturbing to good folk. Because of the weakness of those not of the Morndinsamman, some of these outer things were allowed into Creation. Some of these things, like vile worms, built themselves a god of their own out of the contents of broken skulls. This god of evil, a god not of Creation, became known as Ilsensine.

Ilsensine, the God of Evil, stewed in jealousy of the Maker’s creations. First he made the illithids, the foul enslavers of minds. They resembled disgusting worms. The two greatest of these worms he separated from the rest. He placed one in his forge, the Pit of Hell, where it became the devil-king Asmodeus. Ilsensine placed another in his crucible, the Abyss, where it became the demon-snake Merrshaulk. Merrshaulk would spawn Gruumsh and Demogorgon. Asmodeus would sire Maglubiyet Goblin-King, and he corrupted Tiamat, Queen of Dragons.

Moradin Creator offered the gods a refuge from which to resist the God of Evil. Only a few came, and these became known as the Morndinsamman. In the beginning these were Moradin, Berronar Truesilver, Laduguer, Clangeddin, Dumathoin, Thautam, and Tharmekhul.

Corellon, who the Creator had taught to make elves, and Zarus, god of humans, fled the sacred mountain to the lands beyond, and would not help the Creator or the Morndinsamman. But Clangeddin and the other warrior-gods kept their realm safe and Ilsensine’s creations could not get in.

Outside the Mountain many things were corrupted by Ilsensine, either directly or indirectly. The orcs and goblins came under his sway, though they were never smart enough to realize it. Even some of the dragons would be drawn into evil.

Most sources agree that the god Abbathor is Moradin’s son, though the bas-relief on Abbathor’s temple in Thoriduum claims they are brothers, both born directly from the earth at the dawn of time. Moradin represents the will to shape the raw materials of the world, while Abbathor represents the desire to treasure and appreciate both the raw materials and what can be made from them. Each compliments the other, in this view. The cult in Thoriduum even claims that the things Moradin forged would not exist were Abbathor not there to witness and value them, and they include in this the entire dwarf race. The stern Huesamman puritans, on the other hand, insist Abbathor is not truly a dwarf god at all and not fit to be worshipped. Eschewing material things, the Huesamman sect claims that Abbathor is a creation of Ilsensine‘s sent to blind and tempt dwarves into their ruin.

For most dwarves, however, Abbathor is the son of Moradin and Berronar Truesilver, brother to Muamman Duathal, Dugmaren Brightmantle, Dumathoin, Clangeddin Silverbeard and many others. There is a story about how Abbathor acquired his personality and divine portfolio that, as so many things do, begins with a ring.

The ring was made of gold. It was shaped like a snake, or a dragon, biting its tail. It had been a gift from another god: Task of the hatchlings of Io, given freely from his personal trove.

But Task gives nothing for free.

Abbathor found the ring compelling in a way that he was not willing to explain to his kin. He kept it secret, running his hands over it in his darkened quarters with the door tightly shut, not daring to make a sound. He stopped sleeping, then he stopped eating. His eyelids dropped off so that he could stare forever unblinking like a snake. His hands grew clawlike to better grasp his prize. His tongue grew long from licking it. His skin began to slough off, and something almost metallic glinted underneath.

Abbathor is a god in the middle of his story. It is said that Moradin finally noticed a change in his son and arrested it by forging a magical charm of his own. It was too late, though, and Abbathor’s addiction eventually overcame it. So Moradin forged his son another charm, and another, and he must continue to periodically give new rings to Abbathor lest Task’s ring transform him completely; over time, Moradin must give him more and more. Perhaps one day Abbathor’s need will be greater than even the Soul Forger can satisfy in time, and Abbathor will become identical to Task in both body and mind.

Ilsensine decided to try to convince some of the dwarves to come out of the Mountain. He whispered to the youngest three gods, Diinkarazan, Diirinka, and Abbathor, and told them of the magicks known only to himself and the Creator.

Eagerly, they began to descend below the roots of the Mountain where Ilsensine dwelled. But just before he left the Mountain’s protection, Abbathor looked down and saw a vein of purest mithril. So consumed was he by the find that he refused to go any further. Diinkarazan and Diirinka (sons of Sharindlar and the human god Fortubo) continued alone.

When the two brothers saw Ilsensine in his full unholy glory, Diirinka became so terrified that he stabbed Diinkarazan in the back and fled, but not before stealing enough petty secrets from Ilsensine to create the Twisted Ones, or derro. Diinkarazan was driven insane by Ilsensine and banished to the Abyss.

When Diirinka ran back to the roots of the Mountain, he found Gorm Gulthyn guarding the gate. Though he begged to be let back in, Gorm Gulthyn saw Diirinka’s corruption and would not allow it.

When word of this reached Laduguer the Grim Taskmaster, he advised Gorm Gulthyn to relent. “Diirinka is our brother,” he said. “We are honor-bound to protect him, corrupt or no.” And so the dwarves let Diirinka back into the Mountain.

At first, Diirinka was well-behaved. He taught his brother Dugmaren many useful things. But Ilsensine’s whispers were ever in his mind, and terrors only he could see made him cry out in his sleep. With desperate cowardice he kidnapped his own mother, the goddess of fertility Sharindlar, and brought her to Ilsensine, who imprisoned her in another layer of the Abyss. In return, Ilsensine stopped plaguing Diirinka, but Diirinka dared not go back to the Mountain.

When the gods discovered that Sharindlar was gone, there was much anger and recrimination toward Laduguer. “The blame is not mine,” said Laduguer. “But Diirinka’s. If I had forsaken my duties as host and blood-kin, there would have been two crimes, not one.” But the other gods would not listen, and Laduguer sorrowfully left the Mountain with the most devoted of the dwarves.

Since the loss of Sharindlar, both Laduguer’s people and Moradin’s have dwindled. Only Diirinka’s people maintain their birthrate, and thus it is thought that he must know where Sharindlar is hidden.

Still the dwarves have endured, and they continue to keep the forces of Evil at bay.

There are some heretics who said that Ilsensine waited until Moradin was asleep and worked his tentacles into the Creator’s sleeping mind, and this was how the God of Evil discovered the secrets of creation. This, they claim, is the great secret of the Morndinsamman, that Moradin Creator sleeps still under Ilsensine’s dread spell and his Forge is operated by lesser gods such as Tharmekhul. This, say the heretics, is the great secret under the Mountain that Dumathoin protects, and this is why the realm of the Keeper of Secrets is so close to Ilsensine’s, deep beneath the Mountain’s base; this is where Moradin’s mind lies trapped.

They say that Laduguer was named by Berronar as Moradin’s successor until he disgraced the Morndinsamman with his protection of Diirinka.

Perhaps this is truth.