| Meaning | "that which is cut" |
|---|---|
| Speakers | The Khazak: dwarves of the Dwarven Empire (Du-durn, "the Halls") and the dwarven holds of the Fürstentum Stormpeak (Gur-Vor) |
| Type | Agglutinative, isolate, ergative |
| Word order | Subject, Object, Verb |
| Script | The Durûmar ("the cuttings-set"), angular runes |
| Numerals | Base twelve |
| Seam mark | Hyphen |
| Size | 362 headwords, 385 attested compounds |
| Lexicon | Dictionary, English Index |
|---|---|
| People | Dwarves |
| Family | Languages |
"Kuldun ar-durûm; durûm ar-khaz."
"Speech is a cutting; the cutting is stone."
Durûm is the language of the dwarves. Its central idea is that to speak a word and to carve it into stone are the same act. The verb dur covers both, differing only in the tool. A spoken word fades; a cut word stays. This one idea, the cutting that endures, drives the entire grammar, script, and magic system.
Its mirror is Sael'aurin: the dwarf makes the impermanent permanent, the elf makes the permanent impermanent.
The dwarves call their language Durûm, "that which is cut." It is agglutinative: meaning is built by stacking blocks onto a root, the way a wall is built by stacking stone onto bedrock. A word reads like masonry, bottom course first, each layer resting on the one below.
The sacred principle. There is only one script. The same runes write a grocery list and a binding oath. What makes a carving virk (working, live) rather than toth (dead, inert) is not the shape of the rune but the intent and rite of the carver. A rune carved in anger, fasted for, sealed with the carver's own name, draws mana. The identical rune scratched idly on a tankard does nothing. The magic lives in the cutting, not the symbol.
Story use. A captured grocery list and a deadly ward look the same to an outsider. Only a dwarf, or someone who knows the rite, can read whether a carving is virk or toth.
Durûm is heavy, guttural, and front-loaded. Stress almost always falls on the first syllable of the root, so dwarven speech lands like hammer-blows: DUR-num, KHAZ-ak, KHOR-udul.
| Sound | Spelling | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| /k/ | k | hard, unaspirated |
| /x/ guttural | kh | back-of-throat rasp (Khor, Khaz) |
| /g/ | g | always hard, as in 'gold' |
| /d/, /t/ | d, t | dental, struck cleanly |
| /b/, /p/ | b, p | |
| /m/, /n/ | m, n | |
| /r/ | r | rolled or trilled, the 'grind' sound |
| /l/ | l | |
| /θ/ | th | as in 'thane'; a sacred-register marker |
| /z/, /s/ | z, s | |
| /v/ | v | rare, mostly in loanwords and dressed forms (virk) |
| /h/ | h | breathy, often at oath-openings |
No f, w, j, c, q, x as native sounds. Their absence is what makes a name feel un-dwarven.
| Vowel | Sound | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| a | /a/ 'father' | most common |
| e | /ɛ/ 'bed' | |
| i | /i/ 'machine' | |
| o | /o/ 'fort' | |
| u | /u/ 'boot' | |
| û | /uː/ long u | the 'deep' vowel; marks roots of weight and permanence (durûm, Khar-Dûm) |
| â, î | long a, long i | same gravity as û; reserved for old, sacred, or load-bearing words |
The circumflex is meaningful. A long vowel marks a word as old, heavy, or sacred. durum (short u) is a casual cut, a doodle; durûm (long û) is the Cutting: language itself. Lengthening a vowel in ritual is how a speaker "deepens" a word.
Roots are overwhelmingly CVC or CVCC: dur, khaz, khor, thun, brom, grun. A few old roots open on a vowel (udul); these are accepted as VCVC halves.
Permitted final clusters (the "struck pairs") are -rn, -ld, -kt, -zk, -th, -mb, -rk. It is a closed set: -rr, -nn, -ss, -ll, -tt, -ng, -nd, -nt are not permitted.
There are no initial clusters. The only exceptions are the canon onsets of brom, brun, grun, grol and thrî: br- and gr- before a vowel are struck cleanly, not true clusters.
A hyphen marks a compound seam: two roots set side by side like two dressed stones, never blended (Khor-Udul). Names are written with a hyphen, not a space (Durn-Khazak, not Durn Khazak).
Every Durûm word is root plus layers, read base upward. Word order is Subject, Object, Verb: actor and thing first, the action set last like a keystone.
| Root | Meaning | Domain |
|---|---|---|
| dur | cut, set, speak | language, masonry |
| khaz | stone, endure | the durable |
| khor | deep, under | earth, mines |
| kuld | voice, breath | speech, song, life |
| brom | forge, fire | craft |
| grun | ground, hold | foundation, loyalty |
| thun | old, first | ancestry, the sacred |
| mar | hand, make; a turn of the road | labour |
| zar | break, sunder | ruin, the enemy |
| gul | death, debt | binding, the owed |
Singular is the bare root. Plural doubles the opening beat of the whole word, a spoken echo like a second hammer-strike:
After a numeral the noun stays singular, because the count already counts: dok khor-marak-hol, two troops of engineers.
| Suffix | Case | Sense |
|---|---|---|
| (bare) | absolutive | the thing itself; subject of a state or of a verb with no object |
| -ak | ergative | the one who acts (on an object) |
| -ul | genitive | of, belonging to |
| -im | dative / allative | to, toward, for |
| -or | locative | in, at, within |
| -eth | ablative | from, out of; by means of; than (comparison) |
Stacking: khaz (stone), khaz-ul (of stone), khaz-ul-im (toward that which is of stone). Each course rests on the last; you never reorder them.
In a coordinated phrase the case marks the last noun only: Durn Gurihm ek Khaz-Kuldun-ul tum-or, between Durn Gurihm and Khaz-Kuldun.
Dwarves grammaticalise not past, present and future but permanence: is this act fading, or lasting?
| Cap | Aspect | Sense |
|---|---|---|
| -a | fading, ongoing | happening now, will pass |
| -on | done, sealed | completed, fixed, cannot be unmade |
| -ûr | cut-eternal | carved to last forever: the sacred or oath aspect |
dur-a (speaks, fading), dur-on (has carved, set), dur-ûr (carves-eternal: an oath, a working rune).
The -ûr cap is the grammatical seat of dwarven magic. To speak a verb in the cut-eternal aspect is to claim it will hold. A working rune is exactly a verb carved in -ûr, sealed with the carver's name. Misusing -ûr in casual speech is, to a dwarf, both blasphemy and a lie.
Durûm has no future tense. A narrator who says "they will keep doing so" uses the fading cap with a time: dok-gor-gor ek gor bod hûr da mar-a, for three hundred years more they do this. Only an oath may claim the future, in -ûr.
The clause-final particle -na marks an open seam: "this is open, not yet set." Word order does not change.
A dwarf does not say "I" the way a human does. The bare self is unfinished, like a stone not yet set. A pronoun is person-stem plus hall-anchor.
| Stem | Person | Note |
|---|---|---|
| ka | 1st (speaker) | the one cutting the words now |
| du | 2nd (heard) | the one addressed (shares the root dur) |
| ven | 3rd (named) | he, she, it, they; also "itself, themselves" (ven-ak ven dem-a, it rules itself) |
| khaz- | 1st plural inclusive | "we, and you with us", 'the stone-many' |
| ka-mar | 1st plural exclusive | "we, not you", 'the speaker and the hands' |
Two-tier address. The anchor is the genitive of the speaker's hall or clan:
There is no neutral middle, as there is no neutral self. The self-introduction formula is Ka-[Hall]-ul, [Name]: King Kald named himself Ka-Brom-Udul-ul, Kald until the day he died.
The hall-less self. An exile, an oathbreaker, or one whose hall has fallen cannot take an anchor. They are forced into the broken form ka-toth, "I, anchored to nothing": the same toth as a dead carving. To introduce oneself as ka-toth is to confess disgrace in two syllables. A dwarf who refuses the broken form and keeps claiming a fallen hall's anchor makes a defiant, possibly dangerous claim (as Thrain Ironfist does with Ka-Mor-Udul-ul, Tharn).
Dwarves count in base twelve, the mason's and trader's number. It divides cleanly by 2, 3, 4 and 6.
| Value | Durûm | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | an | the single set stone |
| 2 | dok | a pair, 'the matched' |
| 3 | thri / thrî | the sacred count (lengthened in ritual) |
| 4 | kor | a squared course; walls are counted in kor |
| 5 | bel | |
| 6 | haz | half a dozen, the 'short hand' |
| 7 | haz-an | six-one |
| 8 | haz-dok | six-two |
| 9 | haz-thri | six-three |
| 10 | haz-kor | six-four |
| 11 | haz-bel | six-five |
| 12 | gor | one full dozen, 'a hand of hands' |
| 24 | dok-gor | two dozen |
| 144 | gor-gor | a gross, the trader's great count |
| 1,728 | khor-gor | a great-gross, 'the deep dozen', for hoards and ages |
| 20,736 | gor-khor-gor | a dozen great-gross |
Composition. Highest unit first. Each multiplier is hyphenated to its unit, and ek comes before the last term:
| Number | Durûm |
|---|---|
| 30 | dok-gor ek haz |
| 300 | dok-gor-gor ek gor |
| 2,000 | khor-gor, gor-gor, haz-kor-gor ek haz-dok |
| 40,000 | gor-khor-gor, haz-bel-khor-gor, gor-gor, haz-thri-gor ek kor |
Sacred threes. Three (thrî, lengthened) is holy: an oath needs three to hold (the one who swears, the one who hears, and the stone that keeps it). Rites repeat three times; a binding rune is often cut in three strokes that must join as one unbroken line.
Ritual Durûm is not a separate language but the everyday tongue deepened:
The rule of restraint. Deepening is never decorative. A dwarf who lengthens vowels or forces -ûr caps in ordinary talk is either swearing a true oath or lying about one. An outsider who picks up the sacred register to sound impressive commits something between fraud and blasphemy.
Foreign words are "dressed" like rough stone, struck until they fit the dwarven mouth:
| Foreign sound | Becomes | Example |
|---|---|---|
| f | p or b | 'Phoenix' → Penik; 'Frya' → Bri |
| w | g or v | 'Wolf' → Gulf (folk-read as gul-, death: a grim joke); wirk → virk |
| j | d or z | 'Judy' → Dudi; 'Jötunhall' → Dotun-Hal |
| soft c, s-c | k or z | 'Academy' → Akademi-khor ('the deep school'); 'ARTEC' → Artek |
| x | ks struck apart | 'Rex' → Reks |
| q | k | 'Quel'Glacier' → Kel-Rim |
| apostrophe, double vowel | struck; vowels collapse to a long vowel | 'Sa'ana' → Sân (as Naem → Nâm) |
| triple consonant | opened or cut | 'Tundral' → Tudral; 'Silberbrook' → Silbaruk |
| final unstressed vowel | dropped or hardened | 'Ana' → An, which collides with 'one', so An-thrî ('Ana-the-third') |
Cultural tell. How a dwarf dresses an outsider's name signals regard. A respectful dwarf finds a flattering anchor (An-thrî); a contemptuous one lets the name collapse into something ugly (Gulf for Wolf). Naming is a small act of politics. The reverse happens too: humans hear the dwarven Tharn and make Thrain of it, and the dwarves do not correct them.
Some names are translated rather than dressed, when the dwarves care what they mean:
| Original | Durûm | Literal |
|---|---|---|
| Stormpeak | Gur-Vor | storm-height |
| Sturmfels | Gur-Khaz | storm-rock |
| Tradewind | Tak-Sus | trade-wind |
| the Demon Realm | Zakh-Mûr | demon-land |
| the Scorched Throne | Brom-Dâs | fire-seat |
| Hammer and Amboss | Kumb and Dom | hammer and anvil |
| the Grenzpass | Mek-Brun | border-throat |
| the Iron Mountains | Bek-Vor | iron-heights |
An attribute stands before the noun it describes, as a bare root, exactly as in the names (Mor-Udul, the dark heart; Khar-Dûm, the weighty deep). In names the seam is hyphenated; in prose the words stand apart: kip sokun-hol, a small troop of trackers; hes rim-pal, the western frost-plain.
| Durûm | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ek | and; joins the last item of a list |
| bar | but |
| ot | or |
| tam | also; even |
| sol | only, alone |
| pak | still, yet |
| hal | about, roughly |
| da | this; da-or here, da-eth hence, since then |
Durûm has no relative pronoun. A relative clause is a participle phrase placed before its noun:
An aspect cap may stand before the participle when the time matters: dur-on-um, that which has been cut. Where the fading cap meets the participle, the hyphen marks the hiatus: kuld-a-un, the breathing ones, the living. An agent inside a participle phrase takes the ergative: Khaz-Kuld-ak nâm dur-on-um, one whose name the Stonecouncil has cut (appointed). A lexicalised noun fuses (gadun, soldier); a participle inside a phrase keeps its hyphen (lun-un).
A clause becomes a noun with -um, then takes a case like any noun:
| Pattern | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| clause-um-or | when, while | rim zar-um-or, when the frost breaks |
| clause-um-eth | because; by (means) | brun grun-um-eth, by holding the throat |
| clause-um-im | so that, in order to; for; until | gur-rim sok-um-im, for tracking in the frost-storm |
| clause-um-eth thun-or | before | vor-gan-um-eth thun-or, before the climbing |
| clause -na, main clause | if | Brun zar-a -na, durn zar-a. |
One script, the Durûmar ("the cuttings-set"). Each rune is one root or one grammatical course. Four rules govern every glyph:
Glyph shapes carry meaning:
| Root | Shape | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| khor | a V pointing down, into the earth | deep |
| kuld | a V opening upward, like breath rising | voice |
| zar | a snapped, offset spine, drawn in the red of ruin | break |
| gul | struck through near the base, a closed ledger | death, debt |
| thun | a bar across the top, the first course of a wall | first |
| grun | a wide bar at the bottom | foundation |
| khaz | two stacked bars | stone |
The -ûr cap already ends in a seal-stroke at its base, because to claim permanence is by itself to begin sealing. No two carvers close a column identically: a true name is never cut twice the same way.
Identical runes, two states, separated by rite, not shape. Requirements of a virk (live) carving:
| Requirement | Why |
|---|---|
| Cut in the -ûr cut-eternal aspect | Grammatically claims permanence; mana answers claims of permanence |
| Sealed with the carver's true name-rune | Mana needs an owner to flow toward; a debt needs a debtor |
| A price paid (fasting, blood, a memory given up) | Mana is memory (mun), so the carver feeds the cut something real |
| Single unbroken cutting, no lifted tool | A break breaks the working; the cut must be one act of will |
The seal-stroke is everything. To forge a seal-stroke is to fake a working; to break one is to kill a living rune. Both are quiet, deniable acts. See also Runemagic/Runecarving.
Old carvings that are "still active, meaning lost, magic still hungry" are sealed virk columns whose price was never closed. The seal holds, so the rune still draws, but the carver died before paying the debt the gul root demands. A bound debt with no debtor is not closed; it is hungry (rag), drawing on whatever stands nearest. In Durûm a curse is a hunger: a cursed cairn is a rag dob, a hungry cairn. This ties dwarven runework to the gul root and the karn'tharaël debt-theology. The greatest hungry working in the world is the empty array of the Runebound Citadel, and its hunger has drawn the First Wound into itself.
A stele at the lip of an unnamed crater in the far north, on tundra the Empire holds and the dwarves avoid. Read top to bottom, khor-gul-dur-ûr:
"Here the deep is owed a debt. I bind it, cut to last."
Below the seal, where the carver's name should close the column, there is nothing: worn away by age or by intent. The seal holds but the debtor is gone, so the working draws on the ley line, the stone, and any traveller who shelters there.
Hooks. Was the name worn away, or struck off to sever the carver from the debt? What was the original debt? It rhymes with Karn'tharaël and the Arinoth tear: a price opened and never closed.
The gate-lintel (kald) of a living hall. The central column reads khazak-ak grun-ûr:
"The enduring ones hold here, cut to last."
The seal-stroke is intact, and below it stands a full carver's name: Brom-ûr, the runesmith who answers for it.
| Gate of Durn-Khazak | Khor-Udul Warning-Stone | |
|---|---|---|
| Column | khazak-ak grun-ûr | khor-gul-dur-ûr |
| Meaning | The enduring ones hold here, cut to last | Here the deep is owed a debt, bound to last |
| Seal-stroke | Intact | Intact |
| State | Live (virk) | Live (virk) |
| Carver's name | Brom-ûr, present and clear | Worn to nothing |
| Debtor | Living, named, accountable | Gone |
| Result | A proud hall that stands | A hungry working that draws on whatever is near |
The lesson. A sealed working is not safe because it is sealed. It is safe because someone is still standing behind it. Magic in this world is not power, it is debt, and a debt is only ever as safe as its debtor.
At the gate of Durn-Khazak, the runesmith Brom speaks with hall-kin (Grunda), then with a road-worn half-elf stranger:
| Speaker | Durûm | English |
|---|---|---|
| Grunda | Brom-ul, khaz grun-a -na? | "Brom, is the stone still holding?" (intimate -ul; -a for the ongoing now) |
| Brom | Grun-on. Ka-mar dur-on, kha-khaz grun-on. | "It holds. We cut it true, and the stones keep." (settled -on; exclusive ka-mar: his crew, before her time) |
| Stranger | Durn-im, khor-na? | "The way to the hall, which way?" (bare stems, honest about not belonging) |
| Brom (formal) | Du-grun, durn-im dur-a: khor-eth, an gor mar-im. | "You there, I'll tell you the way: up from the low road, twelve turns on." |
| Stranger | Ka-toth. Du-grun-im, kuld-on. | "I'm no one's. My thanks to you." (the broken self) |
| Brom (lower) | Toth na-dur-ûr. Du grun-ûr, durn-or. | "'No one'? I'll not have it carved so. Inside, you stand on solid ground." |
The turn. Brom uses na-dur-ûr, the strongest denial, to refuse the stranger's toth. Then he offers grun-ûr, the same sacred verb carved on his own gate, to a stranger. A translation flattens all of this; a Durûm-reading character catches what the human beside him cannot.
A treatise on the binding, spoken in the voice of a Gul'durak, the Debt-Cutters (gul debt, dur cut, -ak those who do: a name that is also a sentence). Humans called the family Fesselschmiede, the chain-smiths: they forged the chains that held Malnaar in the Runebound Citadel, the only imprisonment he ever knew.
The treatise was set into dead letters by the travelling Kenku scribe who catalogues the peoples of the world in the Folk Teachings. Like all his transcriptions, it keeps the speaker's words exactly, breath for breath. The scribe adds nothing; he never has. The voice that says "I am the one who counted the bodies" is therefore not his own, and whose voice it is, he does not say.
What the treatise says:
"The runes never betray you. The flesh that signs them does."
Faithful, not true. The treatise is the main dwarven source on the binding, and it is wrong on two points. Its speaker claims the family never used chains ("chains are toth, dead iron", "the greatest wyrm would wear them as jewellery"), yet the Fesselschmied chains are historical fact, runed so that only the smith's bloodline could break them. And it claims the Maelstrom opened "where the Citadel had stood", yet the Citadel still stands, its chains hanging empty over a working that is still hungry. The scribe recorded both exactly as he heard them, because correcting is not something he can do. Whether the speaker erred in grief or spoke to protect the craft is unknown.
The hidden line. The array counted only the sworn, and so does the treatise. There was a ninth Gul'durak, never sworn and never counted. He survived the night and took the name Thûndurak-ûr, the Elder Cutter, and founded a hidden line. The name became its honour-name: each head of the line has borne it since. The present Thûndurak-ûr survived the Fall of Emberdeep in 1020 a.S. and works the family craft in the cold forges of its ruins, the last hands alive with the Gul'durak craft. No one in the Empire knows the line exists.
| Durûm | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Kuldun ar-durûm; durûm ar-khaz. | Speech is a cutting; the cutting is stone. |
| Dur ar khaz, ne dur ar virk. | Cut on stone, not cut alive. |
| Dur-ûr na-zar. | The cut-eternal does not sunder (cannot be broken by force). |
| Brun grun-um-eth, brun grun-a. | By holding the throat, one holds the pass. (A pun: brun is both.) |
| Nâm durn-ul thun ar-ûr. | A hall's name is its first stone, forever. |
| Khaz dur-on, kuld dur-a. | Stone is cut to stay; voice is cut to pass. |
| Kuld-on. | Thanks ("voice given and sealed"). |
"Dur ar khaz, ne dur ar virk." ("Cut on stone, not cut alive.")
Before any new name is set in stone, walk it past five gates. Pass all five and it is Durûm; fail any and it must be repaired or marked deliberately non-native. Violations are simply invalid: no narrative workarounds.
"A Durûm carver does not undo a working once the seal-stroke is set; the same discipline applies to language. Repair at the bench. Carve only what holds."
Durn-Khazak, Khor-Udul, Khar-Dûm, Brom, Tharn, Kald, Thungrolim, Gul'durak, Thûndurak-ûr.
| Proposed | Failure | Repair |
|---|---|---|
| Durn Brunn | -nn is forbidden | Durn-Brun |
| Durn Skar-Vorr | sk- is an initial cluster; -rr is forbidden | Durn-Khar-Vor ("the weight of the deep at the high place") |
| Durn Naem | the diphthong ae | Durn-Nâm (collapsed to sacred long â) |
| wirk | w (test 1) and -rk (test 4) | virk; -rk admitted to the finals |
| Khaz-Silv | -lv is forbidden | Khaz-Sil |
| Karn-Vorr | -rr is forbidden | Karn-Vor (the range's name remains provisional) |
| Thrain | the diphthong ai | Tharn ("Thrain" survives as the human exonym) |
Durn- plus root or genitive: Durn-Khazak ('Hall of the Enduring'), Durn-Brom ('Forge-Hall').Khor- or Khar- plus root: Khor-Udul ('the unstopping heart of the deep'), Khar-Dûm ('Deep of Weight').Khaz- plus root: Khaz-Grun, Khaz-Mâr, Khaz-Sil.Thun- compounds (Thungrolim).-ûr or plus gul-: Brom-ûr, Tharn-ûr. A line may carry one honour-name from head to head (Thûndurak-ûr).| Durûm | Meaning | Literal, and why it fits |
|---|---|---|
| thun gul | primary duty, mandate | first debt: a duty is a debt |
| dur-a (of a ledger) | is recorded | is cut: logging and carving are one verb |
| nâm dur-on | appointed | the name has been cut |
| dok-dur | accord, treaty, the Compact | a paired cut: two parties carve one record |
| dur-on-um tak-gat | licensed trade-post | a trade-post that has been cut |
| rag dob | cursed cairn | hungry cairn: a curse is a hunger |
| mun-kuld | spell (outsider magic) | mana-voice: spoken, so it fades |
| mar (counted) | person, soul | hand |
| dok-thri | a few | two-three: even a vague dwarf gives a count |
| kuld-a | is alive | breathes |
| lem-on | knows | has been taught |
| grun-a (a belief) | believes, holds that | holds |
| dur-tak | read | take the cut |
| kuld-tak | listen, hear | take the voice |
| kuld-hen | answer | give voice |
| durn-hen | hospitality | give the hall |
| kuld-gad | debate, quarrel | voice-fight |
| thun kuld | legend, tradition, idiom | old voice |
| nâm hûr | renowned | great name |
| nâm-grun | pride; to be proud | name-holding |
| nâm-hen | respect, courtesy; to honour | name-giving |
| nâm-zek | mistaken identity | name-crookedness |
| toth-tak | salvage | taking from the dead |
| khor-hen | bury | give to the deep |
| gul-ul | dangerous; costly | of death; of debt (one word for both) |
| rag | eager; to want (X-um-im rag) | hungry |
| khaz-um | patience | enduring: the same root as stone |
| pom- | to file (a report) | to store |
| dur-um-eth / mar-eth | officially / in practice | by the cut / by the hand |
| khaz-or ar-a ek mar-or na-ar-a | physically present, functionally inaccessible | in the stone and not in the hand |
| mor-um-im gat-dur hen- | to accept the cooling as final | give the cooling its seal-stroke |
| X-ul mar-or | with X (in company) | at the hand of X |
| udul-or lem-on | know by heart | taught in the heart |
| lam mar-on | suspended (of laws) | made to sleep |
| sem mar- | to blur | make into mist |
| gu-gul | grudges | debts |
| hûr kat | advantage | a step more |
| dûm sam-or | often | in heavy seasons |
| an-an | now and then | one and one |
| ar-um-im rud ne | has no business existing | not straight toward being |
| tum-or | neutral | in the middle |
| dûm-ul kuld-gat | pressure-release valve | a breath-hole for the weight |
| # | Date | Decision |
|---|---|---|
| D1 | 2026-10-11 | udul is a root: the heart that does not stop; the utter core. khor stays deep, under, with "deep-fire" as its sacred secondary sense. |
| D2 | 2026-10-11 | The demonym suffix is -rakh; -ak stays the ergative. |
| D3 | 2026-10-11 | wirk → virk; -rk admitted to the permitted finals. |
| D4 | 2026-10-11 | Map data key fields (kingdom, governmentType, biome, POI type, size, faction) stay English; free text carries the Durûm. |
| D5 | 2026-10-12 | New root tharn, burden, the load that is carried (against dûm, the weight a thing has). Thrain is the human exonym of Tharn. |
| D6 | 2026-10-12 | The Gul'durak treatise was set down by the travelling Kenku scribe; its "I" is a carried voice. Thûndurak-ûr is the honour-name of the hidden Gul'durak line, first borne by the ninth, uncounted heir who survived the murder night. |
| D7 | 2026-10-12 | New root kald, gate-lintel (CVCC, final -ld). Kald is the name of the last hereditary king, who died at Emberdeep's inner gate in 1020 a.S. Dates in Durûm texts follow the Calendar, counted from the Shattering. |
| Durûm | Literal | Layers | Common / exonym |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mor-Udul | the banked heart | Brom-Udul (the forge-heart) → Mor-Udul | Emberdeep |
| Khor-Udul | the unstopping heart of the deep | Boulder; the Heart of Fire | |
| Durn-Khar-Vor | the hall of the deep's weight at the height | Heavens Pillar; epithet Sky-Reach (Lom-Vor) | |
| Durn-Nâm | the hall of names | Names-Hold | |
| Durn-Brun | the hall of the throat | Frosthold; Throat-Hold | |
| Durn-Khazak | the hall of the enduring ones | epithet Iron Hold (Bek-Durn) | |
| Brom-Kuld | forge-breath (the bellows) | Brom-Kuld → Kuld-Toth (dead breath) | The Hollow Bellows |
| Durn-Grun | the hall that holds | Foundation-Hold | |
| Durn-Khaz | the stone hall | Stone-Hold | |
| Khaz-Mâr | the stone hand | ||
| Durn-Dûm | the hall of weight | Boulderkeep | |
| Khaz-Kuldun | the stone-speakers | Stoneculling (also spelled Stonicullin) | |
| Khaz-Sil | silver-stone | Silberbrook (dressed: Silbaruk) | |
| Gul-Mor | the darkness of the debt | ||
| Durn-Rûk | the wyrm-hall | Ruins of the Green Dragon | |
| Khaz-Grun | the stone foundation | ||
| Durn Gurihm | the hall in the storm | Sturmheim (capital of the Fürstentum Stormpeak) | |
| Durn-Gur | the storm-hall | Durn-Gur → Ghurrzakh (demonic) | |
| Rûk-Gul | wyrm-death (dwarven layer) | elven first name pending → Rûk-Gul | Wyrmwake |
| Karn-Vor | (provisional range name) | the Karn-Vorr range |
Note: Khor-Udul is the mountain, Emberdeep (Mor-Udul) the dwarven city beneath it. The layer Mor-Udul, the banked heart, overlays Brom-Udul since the city's fall in 1020 a.S. Sturmfels (Gur-Khaz) is an ordinary basin town to the south of Sturmheim; the confusion of the two on foreign maps is a standing joke.
Source: Durum_Complete_Wiki.md (compiled 2026-10-12), merging Durûm_Wiki.md, the Durûm Language Reference Parts 1 to 8, the Lexicon Expansion and the Gazetteer of the Khazak; lore checks and timeline decisions of 2026-10-12. The 385 attested compounds remain in the project file.