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The Rise of the Red Axe quest series is a series of quests that centres around Keldagrim, the dwarven city, and the attempt of a hostile takeover of the city by the Red Axe company.

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The Rise of the Red Axe
The series' signature theme that plays at the title card of the first three quests

Storyline[]

The Giant Dwarf[]

Main article: The Giant Dwarf

The dwarves of Keldagrim opened up their city for the first time since the God Wars. The quest starts when the player enters the city. They take the boat to cross the River Kelda and breaks the statue of King Alvis, a dwarven king who lived 500 years ago, after the boatman claims to lose control over his boat. The player has to repair the statue requiring some clothes, an axe and some boots. They can choose to join any company of the Consortium except The Red Axe, because they don't accept humans (and The Yellow Fortune or The Brown Engine depending on their gender). After doing some work for a company, the player may join them and even go with them to a consortium meeting, where the company directors discuss about the statue and the head that should be carved on it. The Red Axe Director argues that his head should be carved on the statue because his company is the largest and the wealthiest, but the player interferes and chooses their own company director. The Red Axe Director then becomes furious and leaves the meeting, while shouting at everyone that they will regret this.

Forgettable Tale...[]

Main article: Forgettable Tale...

Hreidmar, the Red Axe Director, left the city and took the whole Red Axe with him. Commander Veldaban, the head of the Black Guard, asks the player to find out what his further plans are. The only clue they have is a drunken dwarf. The player needs to make some Kelda Stout for him. They need to find four of his friends to get Kelda seeds. Once they have those four seeds, the player can farm them into Kelda hops, which can be brewed into the Stout. The drunken dwarf then tells the player about a boarded up Mine cart trail. The player takes that Mine Cart, after asking their Company Director to have the boards removed. They arrive at a Mine Cart puzzle and have to complete it to go further with the Mine Cart, arriving in a cave where they see a conversation between Hreidmar, an Ogre shaman and a henchman. They find out The Red Axe paid the boatman to crash into the statue of the giant dwarf. After another puzzle, the player lands into a storeroom where they find some interesting documents about The Red Axe. Finally, a last puzzle has to be done and they will enter a cave where they see Hreidmar, the henchman and some gnomes of Arposandra. They are discussing about some experiments and Hreidmar presents an army of Chaos Dwarves to the gnome emissary. The player wants to return to tell Veldaban what they saw, but the Ogre shaman erases what they have seen of their memory. The player finds themselves at the entrance of the same Mine cart trail, which is boarded up again, without any memory of the Red Axe plans. They tell Veldaban they want a kebab and go to the Laughing Miner Pub.

Forgiveness of a Chaos Dwarf[]

Commander Veldaban tells the player that more and more people are missing from Keldagrim. After talking, the player suggests that the Red Axe may be behind the missing people. They are interrupted by a Black Guard that informs Veldaban some Chaos Dwarves are attacking the watchtower. Commander Veldaban and the player then hurry to the watchtower to defeat the remaining Chaos Dwarf atop the watchtower. The Chaos Dwarf drops a Grand Exchange slip and the player discusses it with Commander Veldaban. He tells the player to go to the Grand Exchange to ask about this request. When they ask about the slip, they are given a package with some seemingly random and useless items in it. When they return to Keldagrim, the player finds Commander Veldaban drinking in the Laughing Miner bar, in Keldagrim East. He says he is angry because he has been taken off the investigation of the missing dwarves, due to the fact that all the dwarves missing are from Keldagrim East (The East side is where all the poor dwarves live, while all the rich ones live in the West side. Since the rich invest in the Consortium, and the Consortium finances the Black Guard, the Black Guard spends more resources into protecting the dwarves from Keldagrim West). The investigation is handed to Lieutenant Brae, who, according to Veldaban, is just "a girl with a weak will" that simply does whatever Supreme Commander Bisi tells her to do. The player talks to Veldaban about the random items in the package and gives him a Guardsman's stout, a very strong ale only given to dwarves from the Black Guard. The beer gets him drunk and he decides to confront Supreme Commander Bisi.

After a heated argument, Commander Veldaban goes to bed and falls asleep. The player decides to figure out the secret link between the recent Chaos Dwarf activities and the missing dwarves. They investigate the area around the watchtower and coincidentally, all items from the package help them to find and track down clues, eventually leading them to a secret mine cart cave with a control panel that looks strangely familiar (they controlled some minecarts with a similar control panel during Forgettable Tale..., however near the end of the quest they were brainwashed so they couldn't remember anything they found in the cave), and realises that the green and yellow stones found in the package are used to control the Mine Cart rails. Since they can't control all the rails at the same time with just 2 stones while riding the Mine Cart, the player leaves and comes back with Veldaban to solve the maze. They get to the other side of the maze, revealing a cell with all the missing dwarves inside. When they set them free, one of the dwarves refuses to leave until they find her husband Brunolt, who was taken from the cell by Chaos Dwarves. After going through a tunnel, the player and Veldaban arrive at a cave, just in time to see Brunolt being brainwashed by Grunsh and turned into a Chaos Dwarf.

Upon seeing this, Veldaban screams "Hilda!" and blows their cover, resulting in the player and the Commander being spotted. After hiding in a safe room, Commander Veldaban tells the player about him and his love interest Hilda, who stumbled in here searching for her brother. However, they were caught, and while Veldaban's memory was erased, Hilda was transformed into a Chaos Dwarf (because she was from Keldagrim East, while Veldaban was too important to disappear unnoticed by the Black Guard, which would lead to them finding the secret cave unless The Red Axe released him). Colonel Grimsson reveals that Hilda was amongst the Chaos Dwarf battalion that attacked the watchtower earlier, and since none of them had returned, it is implied that Hilda was unknowingly killed during the battle, even going as far as to suggest that she was the Chaos dwarf hand cannoneer killed by the player and Veldaban atop the watchtower. Upon hearing this, Veldaban vows to take his revenge on Grimsson. Using another tool from the package, now obviously ordered by Hilda, the player and Veldaban manage to find another escape route out of the cave. They then immediately hurry to the Consortium to report the situation. During the meeting, the Company Directors decide to post Colonel Grenda's Black Guard division in the entrance cave to the Red Axe base to stop the Chaos Dwarves from entering the city. While Veldaban thinks the Red Axe must be stopped at once, the directors don't think the problem is serious enough to launch a full-scale assault on the base, since "no one important" went missing. Veldaban replies that Hilda was brainwashed and transformed into a Chaos Dwarf and that they should be in charge of investigating the Red Axe. Before the Supreme Commander Bisi can reply, Veldaban resigns from the Black Guard and throws his commander insignia to the floor in anger. He now tries to investigate the Red Axe on his own.

King of the Dwarves[]

Main article: King of the Dwarves

The player saves a group of miners from an explosion in the Lava Flow Mine. It turns out that a chaos dwarf had caused the explosion, causing a riot to arise in Keldagrim. Hreidmar convinces the crowds of protesters that the age of monarchy must return.

Together with Veldaban and Meike, the leader of the Monarchist Society, the player manages to discover the rightful heir of the throne. Unfortunately, this heir happens to be Hreidmar. While Meike alters the family tree, the player and Veldaban are confronted by Colonel Grimsson in a cave on the other side of the River Kelda: the Barendir cave. Colonel Grimsson mocks Veldaban with the loss of his girlfriend and it dawns on Veldaban that Grimsson had been brainwashed by The Red Axe, with which they starts to tease him. This makes Grimsson very angry and he begins to attack Veldaban. Together, the player and Veldaban defeat Grimsson (who then runs back towards his army of chaos dwarves, further into the cave) and realise they must find reinforcements. The player visits the trolls, meets up with My Arm, and passes a test of strength. Finally, the troll warlord Pretty Flower agrees to assist in the fight against the chaos dwarves.

When the player returns to Keldagrim, the Consortium announces it steps down and becomes an advisor body under the new king. Veldaban is crowned king instead of Hreidmar. Furious, Hreidmar threatens to take over the city with his army, but a black guard arrives and announces the trolls have defeated it. Veldaban orders the black guard to arrest Hreidmar, but he escapes through the crowd. Veldaban then grudgingly takes the crown from Meike and becomes the king of the dwarves.

Birthright of the Dwarves[]

Veldaban is concerned about what to do now that he is king of the Dwarves. He makes the decision to wipe out the Red Axe once and for all, and end the threat to the city that they and their chaos dwarf armies pose. He asks the player for help in this crusade. He first sets the player three tasks; interrogate three Red Axe infiltrators and a Monarchist Society member captured inside the records chamber, find out if the chaos dwarves of Taverley Dungeon have any information, and discover some protection from the magic of the ogre shaman, Grunsh. Once these tasks are completed, Veldaban and the player travel to meet the Black Guard, Nulodion, and the mountain trolls at Barendir.

The army enters the Red Axe base through a hole blown in the wall. The player uses some explosive gears to destroy the Red Axe's own cannons, at which point Colonel Grimsson flees the battlefield in a mine cart. Veldaban and the player give chase, leaving the rest of the army to mop up the chaos dwarves. Grunsh the shaman attempts to use his memory-altering spell on Veldaban, intending to make him loyal to the Red Axe, but the player defends him. Their interference causes Hreidmar, Grimmson, Grunsh, and Veldaban to all fall into their memories, which the player must fix. Doing so leaves the player and Veldaban in the Red Axe base, along with a de-brainwashed Grunsh, whose own memories had been erased in order to manipulate him.

Veldaban and the player continue further into the base, and find themselves in a strangely empty copy of Keldagrim, where there is no river, the statue is of Hreidmar and the only building is the palace. The directors in the palace are all chaos dwarves, and Veldaban and the player have to pretend to join the Red Axe in order to go into the throne room. There they find Hreidmar, who explains that they are in the Red Axe's base, and he has given up on conquering Keldagrim; all his plans have been foiled, and his tunnels are all blocked. Instead he has made a copy of Keldagrim to rule, one where he could rule without being forced to step down in two years because he's turned 150.

Hreidmar sends Grimsson to attack the player and Veldaban, but he is defeated. As a last attempt to win, Hreidmar casts a spell over himself, Grimsson, and Veldaban to turn them all into chaos dwarves. Hreidmar and Grimsson attack the player, while Veldaban struggles against the spell. After emerging victorious, the player has to choose whether to put Veldaban out of his misery, or urge him to resist the magic until the spell breaks. The Black Guard invades the false Keldagrim and topples the statue of Hreidmar, and the player is called into meeting with the Consortium. The quest ends with either Veldaban still ruling, the consortium ruling Keldagrim, or King Drunken Dwarf III taking the throne.

Personalities[]

CharacterQuests
The Giant Dwarf icon
TGD
Forgettable Tale... icon
FT
Quest Icon Crest
FoaCD
King of the Dwarves icon
KotD
Birthright of the Dwarves icon
BotD
AlvisRR
Supreme Commander chathead BisiF
Black Guard Berserker chathead Black GuardFRF
Blue Opal Director chathead Blue Opal DirectorF
Lieutenant Brae chathead BraeF
Brown Engine Director chathead Brown Engine DirectorF
Chaos dwarf chathead Chaos dwarvesF
Green Gemstone Director chathead Green Gemstone DirectorF
Colonel Grenda chathead GrendaF
Colonel Grimsson chathead GrimssonF
Grunsh chathead GrunshFF
Hilda HildaFR
Hreidmar chathead HreidmarF
Librarian chathead HugiFF
Klaas chathead KlaasF
Gnome emissary chathead LaneelFF
Meike chathead MeikeF
Pretty Flower chathead Pretty FlowerF
Purple Pewter Director chathead Purple Pewter DirectorF
Silver Cog Director chathead Silver Cog DirectorF
Veldaban chathead VeldabanF
White Chisel Director chathead White Chisel DirectorF
Yellow Fortune Director chathead Yellow Fortune DirectorF
Green with the letter "F" denotes a character featuring in that quest.
Orange with an italicised "R" denotes they are only referenced.

Current Rewards for Series[]

Experience
Items
New Locations
Other
Music unlocked

Related quests[]

These quests are not directly part of the series, but feature plot elements of the series or tie into it indirectly.

Main locations[]

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