Mini Campaign Idea: The Lost Road

The Lost Road (A Mini Campaign Seed)

Summary: A group of dwarves seeks a legendary path beneath the mountains. One whose discovery could have profound political ramifications.

For a long time, I have wanted to run some kind of D&D campaign featuring a party made up entirely of dwarves. While working on characters for the 31 Day Character Challenge (2025), I decided to devote one week to making a party of AD&D dwarves. To help inspire me, and to give these characters a bit of context, I thought it would be useful to imagine what sort of campaign I might run for them.

The following is just the sketch of an idea. It’s perhaps a bit verbose, but it sets the groundwork nicely. There are a lot of references here, to locations mostly, which don’t actually exist in my campaign notes or my imagination. The hard part of worldbuilding, for me at least, is coming up with names. What I’ve done here is at least a good start. Were I to run it for real, I’d start by mapping things out and giving some detail to the places and events mentioned below.

Background

The history of the dwarves tells of an ancient road that once ran beneath the Gray Mountains. Made by the dwarves of the antique kingdom of Dharavon, who carved it from the living rock of the deep earth, this subterranean tunnel once connected the lands on either side of the mountains, allowing trade and travel to flourish between the otherwise divided nations of the east and west. The dwarves called this path the Visirhelt, or the Path of Gold. It was a great feat of dwarven engineering and an architectural wonder of the ancient world.

Rul Velgar

No living soul, dwarf or otherwise, knows what become of the Visirhelt. Today, it is known as Rul Velgar which, in the dwarven language, means the Lost Road. It is less the study of serious scholars than the focus of treasure-hunters and adventurers. And there are many guesses and theories about what became of the now lost road.

Some say Rul Velgar became overrun by goblins and other creatures of the deep earth and had to be destroyed by the dwarves of Dharavon. Others believe that a dragon built its lair there, demanding a heavy toll from anyone who dared travel the road, and it eventually fell into disuse and disrepair. Still others claim that a now forgotten dwarven king, overcome with pride in the marvel of the road’s design, sealed it up so that none but he could ever look upon it again.

Legends aside, a trade route beneath the Gray Mountains would be of great economic and political worth to whoever controlled it.

The Silver Mount

Tradition holds that Rul Velgar’s eastern edge began somewhere along Gray Mountains, at a place called the Silver Mount. No modern location bears that name, however, and many believe that the Silver Mount, like much of the legend, is simply a storyteller’s fabrication.

A few years ago, however, a dwarven scholar named Gamah Belgard discovered a strange reference in an old family letter. This letter, a record of accounts written by Gamah’s ancestor on her father’s side, made reference to a “hall of records, much like the ancient archives at the Temple of the Gods in Mennock, which was known to certain scholars as the Silver Mount.”

Mennock is the old name for a city that once stood in what is now modern Gallenstone, a city on the eastern edge of the Gray Mountains. Could a lost archives in Gallenstone somehow hold the key to the mystery of The Lost Road?

The Adventuring Party

In the months after her discovery, Gamah Belgard began to plan a journey to visit Gallenstone herself and see if it truly is the location of Rul Velgar. She is accompanied by three others, two her cousins from Clan Belgard, and one an old friend. Gamah is not sure if she’ll find anything at all Gallenstone, but she is hopeful. If her hunch is correct, and she’s able to somehow find evidence of the old road, then she’ll not only unravel one of the great mysteries of the ancient world but also secure her own place in history.