Interlude 16: The Forgotten Paragon
Shaper Czibor of the Orzammar Shaperate
It is the responsibility of the shaperate to collect and maintain the Memories of the people of the stone. We look to our past and our ancestors in order to better understand our future. Without our history we merely grope in the darkness.
We must remember it all, both the worthy and the unworthy. In recalling the worthy we strive to emulate them. In recalling the unworthy we strive to avoid the failings that bring nothing but destruction.
Much has been lost over the ages, our thaigs have fallen but we strive to recover and record what has been lost. Each piece brought to light is worthy of rejoicing and added to the vast array of knowledge already collected. Always we seek what has been forgotten.
We can only truly forget that which we choose to forget. Even a paragon can be forgotten if they bring evil upon their people that outweigh their contribution. Thus all dwarves must be wary of arrogance or recklessness.
In the old records there is an example of one instance where the name of a paragon has been removed. On stone tablets of the long Memories it speaks of a paragon, a dwarven miner of immense ambition from the thaig of Heidrun. He discovered a lyrium vein so pure; few had seen its ilk in the tunnels below his thaig. He created a means to mine and process the ore faster than any before or since. For the methods he created he became revered and was named paragon.
The ore was brought forth in large quantities and was distributed to both eager smiths and artisans. With it they could create armor so strong and items so delicate that they were sought after by many, particularly the nobles.
There was an evil in this ore. It is suggested in the Memories that the paragon's own ambitions poisoned it, making it unfit for use and the dwarves' natural immunity to lyrium was compromised. Over time, all who had contact with this lyrium became mad: turning violent or losing all sense of self, their minds dominated by the effects of the lyrium. The illness spread and many began to suspect the cause and called for the ore to be shunned. Measures were taken to destroy any object made with the ore; much was discarded into the molten rivers that fed the forges.
The paragon scoffed at this in his pride and he strove to prove that nothing was amiss with the lyrium. In a public display he clasped a beautifully crafted necklace made from the ore around the neck of his own beloved wife. The woman believed in her husband and refused to remove it. This faith became her downfall.
Though many of the details of the subsequent events are vague in the records, it relates that the woman began to claim hearing the stone itself singing. Insisting in her claims, she madly tried to get others to hear the song as well. Her actions went so far that they resulted in the death of her youngest child. She was named murderess and sentenced to be abandoned in the Deep Roads by the Assembly.
Her husband, the paragon, felt deeply the guilt of his wife, insisting that the fault lay with his own pride in the ore that fueled her madness. He chose to accompany her into the Deep Roads and it is believed that they perished in the darkness together.
The Assembly, not satisfied with the death of the paragon, commanded that his name be struck from all records in the Memories, though an account of what had befallen him would be maintained as a warning for future generations. All records of the location of the lyrium vein and the paragon's extraction methods were also destroyed for fear they would be replicated out of another's misguided greed. His house was dissolved and some of his line chose to live on the surface rather than carry the shame among us.
Though the paragon was gone, the evil consequences of the ore remained among our people. Many that had fallen ill from the poison the ore had unleashed never recovered. Some were abandoned to either the surface forests or to the tunnels by their families who were unwilling to kill them outright, though it might have been perceived as a mercy. Some locked them away in their own homes where the shrieks of the troubled could be heard for many years until they succumbed. There was not a single family who had not suffered a loss as a result: a father, a brother, a mother, a sister. Three generations passed before the population recovered.
We remember this evil brought upon us so that it will never occur again, but the paragon himself is forgotten. His name is dead as is fitting.