Angolon’s was pleased with the name of the realm, for as a man of great beard, dwelling in a place called Beardsgaard was proper. His fingers moved to scratch his chin in the manner all content men of beard do. And then his fingers became stuck.

With aid of his pipe stem he worked to loose his hand, and after a time was able to free himself. But this was troublesome. A man of learning has no time for such entanglements, he thought. But he was also a man of many vials, with samples of plants and rock and earth, bits and bobs, substances from all over the lands. And the lands provide.

So he read the words of the illustrated tomes he himself had written, and he searched the clear and amber and opalescent glass vials he had forged until he came upon something intriguing. Inside the vial rested mounds of soft, parchment colored butter, much like the creamy whipped clouds of milk he enjoyed on bread from his ovens, but it did not taste of such.

On its label, affixed to the glass with a light coat of sap was penned, Mountain Butter. He remembered a time long ago, deep beneath the cavernous underground kingdom of the dwarves where he had come upon it and filled his vial, but had not thought upon it for many ages. With curiosity, he dipped a finger into the vial and scooped out a small pillow of gold.

After mere moments in his hand, the cloud melted, and his face along with it. Discouraged, he searched for a cloth on which to wipe his hands, but found none. But his beard was there, that would make a fine substitute, as it always caught spilt ale rather well.

But as Angolon ran his oily hands over his beard, everything changed and he knew - he must go to the mountains again.

And so he went, from his tall peak Maegoroben, over the ranges and through the valleys north to the craggy peaks where the dwarves made their home. But while Angolon made his home upon his mountaintop, the dwarves dwelled beneath miles of rock in vast caverns carved by nature and chisel.

After many leagues, he came upon a massive door carved into the living rock of the mountain, lit on each side with ensconced torches made of entire trees, burning with cracking fury. As he approached, the doors swung open with a creak that shook the earth and sent shale skittering down from above.

Before Angolon stood Mainor Darkmine, the dwarven king, and friend of many years. Angolon had a hand in dreaming the dwarves to life, as he did all of the speaking creatures of the world, and his face on your doorstep was always a welcome sight in the realm. The bearded brethren embraced, and entered the hall to share stories and meat and mead.

They ate and drank and laughed long into the night (although who can tell the hour under the mountain), but at last Angolon admitted that his visit was not strictly meant for the hearty pleasures of dwarven company. He told Mainor of his troubles with his beard, and of his findings of the butter of the deep mountain.

The dwarves knew it well, and used it for a great many things that required making hard things soft, from their beards to their rough, leathery skin to oiling the joints in their armor. Angolon asked Mainor if he would be willing to share this treasure with the realm, for the giants and men in particular would make great use of the butter.

But although Mainor had a merry spirit in his heart, he was still a dwarf, and dwarves have never been known for their generosity. The king would allow the export of large quantities of butter to Angolon’s tower, but not for nothing. If he was to spread the riches of his kingdom throughout the realm, he expected reciprocity. He expected gold.

Angolon agreed heartily. Gold. The oldest alchemist trick in the book. And so he set off back to his tower, trailed by a hundred sturdy mountain goats, packs laden with butter and possibilities.

In his workshop, Angolon spent months studying the mountain butter. He noted, however, that butters from beneath each mountain that the dwarven realm spanned, each had unique properties. Some stayed soft even with the nighttime chill, near melting in the daytime, some were firmer and with cold became like rocks.

Melting and combining them in multitudinous variations, he finally arrived at the perfect recipe, with the ability to hold its shape but for a hairsbreadth of direct heat from the body, which melted its creaminess almost immediately. And with so much of it on his hands (which were always cleaned on his beard), before long the dense thicket on his face no longer trapped stray fingers and instruments. He had it.

With excitement bubbling over, Angolon called to Êl across the land, and soon they met upon his mountaintop. Êl was overjoyed to see the bounty to the realm made to greater than the sum of its parts, and knew Angolon’s creation must be spread throughout the lands. And who knows what else might be made from the other treasures of the earth and sea and forest?

And so they agreed, Angolon would open up shop, and because it sat on the highest peak over the mightiest river of the land, they would name it River Peak Apothecary. But neither desired profit, they only cared to explore, create and help the inhabitants of the realm. Fair, they would accept gold and gems with which to trade, but far more they desired the resources to make more and to do more.

And so it came to pass that Êl and Angolon dispatched messenger dragonflies throughout the realm with an asking of its peoples. The message asked simply for folk great and small from far and wide to journey to Angolon’s apothecary and trade.

For his creations, made with his own two hands, he asked in exchange for items which may seem of little worth of significance, barks and muds and flowers, roots and leaves and more. For one never knows what will be the key to the greatest discoveries.

Sometimes, it is little more than a story.

Êl and Angolon watched as their people returned to their kingdoms of Manegaard, Beardenheim and Shavehalla, positively buzzing with the thought of what else they might create from the bounty of the world. But as they spoke of the lands of giants and dwarves and men, all three in the kingdom of Beardenheim, they came to realize that they had no name for the lands of each of its peoples.

Names are a creation of vanity, in a fashion, but they also hold a power of sorts. Names can lift or ground a thing they are given to, but they can also focus purpose, secure belonging, and carry on when all else is forgotten.

As so, as often came to pass when Êl found itself lost to pondering, it thought back again to the stories of the void. Some of its favorites echoed from the voices of the Norsemen. Perhaps they are why the first creation of Beardsgaard was a great tree. Tales of Yggdrasil, the tree of life of the Norsemen, had floated across Êl’s imagination just before the first touch that brought Eredh to being.

And then Êl noted the beings in its world, the beings it and Angolon had brought to life. Giants. Dwarves. Men. Elves of different sorts. And gods. In the words of another story: this has happened before…and it will happen again.

Some stories hold greater sway than others, it seems. Some stories bring reality to bear.