The Great Book of Grudges — Dammaz Kron in the dwarf tongue — is the vast, iron-bound ledger in which the dwarfs record every wrong ever done to their race. Kept in Karaz-a-Karak, capital of the Dwarfen Mountain Holds, it has been maintained since the days of the first High Kings; each entry names the offence, the offender, and the price of settlement, and by tradition new grudges are set down by the High King's own hand, in ink mixed with his blood.
To dwarfs this is not literature but law and scripture at once. A grudge entered must be answered, no matter how many centuries pass; sons inherit their fathers' grudges as surely as their beards, and striking a settled entry through is cause for holdwide celebration. The Book has started wars. The bitterest, the War of Vengeance, began when a Phoenix King of Ulthuan had a dwarf ambassador's beard shaved rather than pay recompense for raided caravans — an insult the Dammaz Kron remembers, elven apologies notwithstanding, to this day.
Every hold, clan, and family keeps grudge-books of its own, but the Great Book is the master record of the race's unpaid debts. Its pages fill faster than they are ever crossed out — a fair summary, dwarfs will grimly admit, of their people's fortunes.