Flamekeepers
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Below the deepest caves of the world there is an immense ocean of liquid stone reaching all the way down to the planet's core. And though few surface dwellers can even imagine it, life exists there - beings of fire and magma who swim through that ocean and prey on each other. Some among these beings have gained the capacity of thought, and the first among these are the Kagash Nol - or "fire ghosts" as the very few dwarves and gnomes who are aware of them call them.

Beings of vast, cold intellect, they are nonetheless crippled when compared to the tiny beings of flimsy flesh who live above them. While they can communicate after a fashion, they cannot manipulate their environment in any but the crudest way. They can build no tools, as nothing can exist in their world that would not liquefy immediately. They can construct no structures or anything else that outlast the next convective stream passing through their part of the ocean. And they are trapped, for above them there is nothing but the cold ceiling of frozen rock far above them - too hostile for them to exist.

Almost. For in a few places at the surface world, where volcanoes and other hot spots bring the tiniest fraction of the heat of the fire ocean to the surface, they can exist, even if it causes them great discomfort. And in Gol Algor, where many such places exist, some gnomes and dwarves know how to listen to them - and how to talk back. These Flamekeepers worship the fire ghosts in secret, thinking them as great intelligences worthy of adoration. But the fire ghosts only see a vast space unjustly beyond their reach - for now. For the Flamekeepers have started to build enchanted bodies of metal capable of housing their elemental fury - and the dwellers in the depth sing of the day when they all learn what it is like to have a body, and can turn the surface into a place fit for them to live in.

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