Hreidmar

Hreidmar is the villainous director of The Red Axe, a company that had positioned itself as the most powerful company in the Dwarven Consortium in an attempt to achieve dictatorship over Keldagrim, and the true heir to the throne. He follows Zamorak and is the main antagonist of the Rise of the Red Axe quest series. Hreidmar lived in Keldagrim, the dwarven capital city, until his company left the Consortium, which is when he resorted to hiding in Red Axe bases in abandoned mines. The dwarf owns a pet cat, whom he allows to roam his office freely.

Background
Hreidmar was born in 21 or 22 of the Fifth Age to the director of the Red Axe. His family were presumably rich, living in Keldagrim West, due to the large influence and wealth of the company. Hreidmar also got a pet cat for himself.

Around 149, Hreidmar somehow broke into the records chamber of Keldagrim and discovered that he was the true heir to the throne of Keldagrim, whose monarchy was abolished centuries prior due to the death of King Alvis and the Rise of the Consortium. He learnt that the long chain of Red Axe directors, a position passed on through Hreidmar's family, descended from the secret son of Alvis, whom one of the first Red Axe directors had adopted. He went to a crumbling statue in the Ancient Keldagrim ruins north of the city, where he believed he was talking to Zamorak. His hallucination told him that he should use the power of the Red Axe to take over the city and establish himself as its new king, which would become Hreidmar's sole goal.

At some point, the dwarf inherited leadership of the Red Axe from his father and, under him, the company would expand massively. Hreidmar ruled with an iron fist, eliminating opposition whenever it arose. Many small companies may well have been forced out of business by his actions, and many dwarves left unemployed. However, many dwarves flocked to his service, feeling that his method of rule was superior to that of the other companies. Before long he had gained a very significant following within the city, although his power was not so great that he could oppose the rest of the Consortium.

Formation of chaos dwarf army
However, Hreidmar secretly plotted against the city, gradually formulating a complex plot to claim what he deemed to be his birthright. He found out about the existence and nature of chaos dwarves: those dwarves who succumbed to a curse Zamorak had placed upon them in the Third Age which would turn them into mindless and dangerous monsters of chaos. The Elders of Keldagrim had worked around this curse at the cost of losing magic permanently, but Hreidmar was able to find out that the cure could be undone, allowing the curse to take over a dwarf once more and enabling him to create an army of chaos dwarves.

Towards the late Fifth Age, he forged a secret alliance with the dark gnomes of Arposandra and received special warping machines used by the Arposandrans through their cruel emissary Laneel. These would turn his victims into chaos dwarves. However, the method was imperfect, because the chaos dwarves were still unable to use magic. Hreidmar discovered a spell which would return Zamorak's curse completely, but this would turn him and everyone in the vicinity into a chaos dwarf as well, effectively becoming a suicide method. He established a network of spies in and around Keldagrim, such as Vigr, owner of a warhammer store in the palace, and Grundt and Brendt, ore traders on Jatizso. He also built a very large network of caves and storerooms to serve as the Red Axe base in abandoned mines south of the city, using special mine cart tracks to prevent access to them. The caves covered a massive area, with connections to the old mines south of the Keldagrim mine cart tracks, Barendir and the Keldagrim south-west mine.

After the gruesome Battle of Barendir, Hreidmar took the mentally unstable Colonel Grimsson under his wing. Laneel then provided them with Grunsh, a particularly powerful ogre shaman he had brutally kidnapped from Gu'tanoth and forced to erase his own memories. On the gnome's advice, Hreidmar convinced the ogre that he had been rescued from Trollweiss Mountain, where he had been found frozen, to which Grunsh swore loyalty to the Red Axe in gratitude, wiping the Red Axe's victims' memories before their conversion to chaos dwarf.

With two new allies, Hreidmar began kidnapping dwarves from the poor Keldagrim East, knowing they would not be missed. By having Grunsh wipe their memories before warping their bodies using Arposandra's machines, he was able to create a massive chaos army, which he soon expanded with chaos dwogres, terrifying hybrids of chaos dwarves and ogres, able to use magic. Meanwhile, the Red Axe became the largest company of the Consortium, though still not large enough to outweigh the other seven. Hreidmar also used Grunsh's powers to alter Grimsson's memory on his request, making him forget his traumatising actions at the Battle of Barendir, and used them on himself to create the illusion of having talked to Zamorak himself at the ancient Keldagrim ruins, rather than a statue. He also had Grunsh erase the memory of any dwarf who would find out their plans, filling their mind with only beer and kebabs.

Leaving the Consortium
Hreidmar's plan to become king of Keldagrim required the destruction of King Alvis' statue, a massive dwarven monument that stood at the city's entrance, so that it could be rebuilt to bear his own visage. Rising up from the bustling River Kelda, the dwarves had long seen it as a symbol of their prosperity, for it had been King Alvis who, inadvertently, led them from the dark Age of Kings into their Golden Age.

Keldagrim had only recently been opened to humans, and many dwarves did not trust them fully. Taking advantage of this, Hreidmar bribed a boatman to assist him in the destruction of the statue. The dwarf was instructed to ferry a human to the city from the mines; a common occurrence since the city's opening. When they would near the statue, the boatman was to pretend that there was something wrong with his boat and crash into the statue, with the human taking the blame. Indeed, a visiting human soon arrived and boarded the boat, which subsequently crashed into the statue. The human, an adventurer, was arrested by the Dwarven Black Guard, accused of destroying it.

However, the Black Guard's Commander Veldaban did not feel the adventurer was responsible and, instead, asked that they help reconstruct the statue. They gratefully agreed and aided Blasidar the sculptor in the creation of a new statue. When it was nearly finished, however, a debate arose amongst the Consortium directors as to whose head should be carved on it. Seizing the opportunity as planned, Hreidmar argued that, as the most powerful company director, he should have his head put atop the statue. The adventurer, who had joined Veldaban to witness the meeting, however, was given the choice as an outside party, and chose another director instead. Hreidmar was infuriated by this turn of events and promptly left the meeting, threatening the other directors.

Shortly after, the Red Axe left the Consortium altogether, and abandoned the city. They were replaced by the Orange Flame company.

Attack on Keldagrim
As Hreidmar continued the expansion of his army using kidnapped dwarves, Veldaban and his new human friend began investigating the Red Axe based on a lead obtained from the mad ramblings of a drunken dwarf, whose mind had, unbeknownst to them, been erased by Grunsh when he accidentally discovered the Red Axe Base. The human adventurer ventured into the abandoned mines south of Keldagrim and managed to use the mine carts to travel across a large chasm. They appeared in a cavern where they were able to eavesdrop on a conversation between Hreidmar, Grimsson, and Grunsh, and found out that the destruction of Alvis's statue had been a plot orchestrated by the Red Axe.

They continued only to find another chasm, which they subsequently crossed as well. They next found themselves in a secret archive chamber, and found a letter from Grimsson addressed to the dwarven boatman, where he was informed of his task. They also found the employee records of Grunsh and Grimsson, as well as a report of how the aforementioned drunken dwarf's mind had been wiped. After crossing yet another chasm, the adventurer witnessed a meeting between Hreidmar and Grimsson and Laneel and his lackeys. The dwarves showed him their chaos dwarf army, and asked Laneel to return to Arposandra to inform his superiors of this partial success. At that moment, however, Grunsh took notice of the adventurer and cast a spell on them, removing all information found in the mines and replacing it with beers and kebabs. The adventurer returned to Veldaban only to report nonsense before proceeding to get completely drunk in the Laughing Miner, to Grimsson's satisfaction, who was watching the scene.

Over the course of the following weeks, chaos dwarves would be spotted in the streets of Keldagrim multiple times, as more dwarves from Keldagrim East continued to disappear. Veldaban attempted to convince Supreme Commander Bisi to investigate these, but he refused on the ground that nobody cared about the poor east. Veldaban and his new girlfriend from the east, Hilda, soon discovered the part of the Red Axe's base where the conversions take place - however, they were spotted and dealt with by Grunsh. Hreidmar figured Veldaban was too important to disappear, and therefore had him return to Keldagrim unharmed, but without memory of what had happened, while Hilda was turned into a chaos dwarf hand cannoneer.

Once his army had grown large enough, Hreidmar launched his second attempt to take over the city and ordered an attack on Keldagrim. A party of hand cannoneers attacked from the mines, to which the Black Guard immediately sent Colonel Grenda and the First Division to deal with them. Commander Veldaban and the adventurer arrived to help, killing the last chaos dwarf on top of the watchtower, not realising that it was actually Hilda. Using various tools Hilda left behind, the two managed to discover the Red Axe's base again and freed a group of prisoners who were being held in the cave. One dwarf, Fjoila, refused to leave without her husband Brunolt, and Veldaban and the adventurer continued in order to search for him. In the next chamber, they witnessed how Grunsh wiped Brunolt's mind and a gnome technician proceeded to turn him into a chaos dwarf, while Grimsson and Hreidmar watched.

At that moment, Veldaban's memory returned to him and he shouted Hilda's name in agony, to which Hreidmar sent two cannoneers after them before leaving with Grimsson and Grunsh. The commander and the adventurer escaped with their memory intact, however, and called for an emergency Consortium meeting. To Veldaban's great dismay, the directors dismissed the Red Axe kidnappings as a low priority matter and refused to listen to his pleas. Veldaban consequently resigned from the Black Guard, swearing to continue the battle against the Red Axe himself.

Claiming his birthright
A few weeks after these events, Hreidmar perpetrated a devastating attack on Keldagrim's Lava-flow Mine by sending a chaos dwarf into the mine to commit suicide by magically causing a massive explosion. The explosion severely damaged the mine's boilers in addition to causing a cave-in. While the adventurer, who had been having a tour of the mine when the explosion happened, attempted to free caved in miners, the Black Guard soldiers who arrived refused to help, stating that the Consortium had ordered them to fix the boilers only. When news of this got out, a crowd of protesters, amongst whom Veldaban, gathered outside the mine to riot against the Consortium.

Hreidmar openly appeared in the crowd and appealed to the monarchists by stating that the Consortium had failed as the city's rulers, referring to the Azdaran fragment. Under cheers from the protesting crowd, Hreidmar demanded that the records chamber be opened to find out who the heir to the throne is, so that they could be instated as king. Only he, however, knew that he himself would be revealed as Alvis's last descendant. With the help of Meike, leader of the Monarchist Society, Veldaban and the adventurer were able to break into the records chamber in order to attempt to change the records, since Meike realised that the villainous Hreidmar would become king otherwise.

While Meike began to alter the records to make it look as if Veldaban was the heir, to the latter's annoyance, the adventurer and Veldaban went to the Barendir caves, where Colonel Grimsson and a massive army of chaos dwarves, dwogres, and multicannons were waiting to invade the city. Grenda and her soldiers had barricaded the entrance, but were heavily outnumbered. Veldaban and the adventurer confront Grimsson. During the encounter, Veldaban laughingly concluded that Grimsson's mind had been altered to, to which the latter attacked. He was defeated in the skirmish, however, and retreated deeper into Barendir with his dwarves. While Veldaban returned to the city, the adventurer visited Barendir's troll colony and convinced their leader, Pretty Flower, to attack the chaos dwarves by convincing him that Grimsson had made fun of his name.

Upon the adventurer's return to Keldagrim, the Consortium directors appeared and spoke to the crowd. They stated that they had checked the records chamber and agreed to reinstate the monarchy. As Hreidmar eagerly awaited his own name to be revealed, the Consortium general secretary declared that, in accordance with Meike's plan, Veldaban would become the new king of Keldagrim. To make Hreidmar's fury complete, a Black Guard soldier arrived to inform the new king that the Barendir trolls had defeated a chaos dwarf army. Veldaban immediately ordered Hreidmar's arrest, but he managed to slip away through the crowd and fled back to his base. Afterwards, Veldaban was officially crowned king, albeit with great reluctance.

When Hreidmar returned to his base after the failed attempt to become the new king of Keldagrim, he decided to give up. The two tunnels where he was sending the chaos dwarves to, the battlefield where his initial attack had taken place, and Barendir, were being defended by Black Guard and trolls, respectively. Realising that he was 148 years old, which meant that even if he did ascend to the throne he would only be king for two years, he decided to refrain from attempting to do so anymore. Hreidmar turned the Red Axe base into his own city, with a massive golden statue of himself, his own palace (complete with a Trade Octagon used by chaos dwarves), his own lava-flow mine and his own chaos dwarf people who would be loyal to him and Zamorak. He broke off all contacts with Red Axe agents inside Keldagrim as well, and stopped kidnapping dwarves from the city. Additionally, he severed his ties to Arposandra. Over the course of the following months, he and his cat would live in the palace without any further plotting against Keldagrim. Meanwhile, King Veldaban, whose reign was rather problematic due to various issues, became more and more nervous about the declined Red Axe activity, fearing another attack.

At some point, Hreidmar's experiments led to the creation of massive chaos giants. However, they became uncontrollable, so he locked them inside a cave deep in the base.

Last stand and defeat
By the beginning of the Sixth Age, Veldaban's anticipation of a Red Axe attack had prompted him to launch an assault on their base himself, hoping to end Hreidmar's criminal activity once and for all. He ordered the arrest of several suspected Red Axe spies and asked the adventurer to deal with them. Additionally, they received a special wand from the Watchtower Wizard in Yanille that was able to counter Grunsh's mind magic. They also found out that the Red Axe had not originally created the chaos dwarves from Ikadia, a chaos druid in Taverley Dungeon. Veldaban, in a loose alliance with the Barendir trolls, gathered a Black Guard army in the cave where Grimsson had been stationed earlier. The dwarve used dwarf multicannons to blast their way into Hreidmar's Lava-flow Mine, where a battle commenced.

Grimsson responded by lowering the bridges over the lava streams, thus preventing Veldaban's troops from advancing, while exposing them to the missiles fired by multicannons and hand cannoneers. The army retreated, with the exception of Veldaban and the adventurer, who tactically used the incoming cannonballs to topple pillars, allowing them to cross the lava streams. Fighting their way through the chaos troops and destroying the cannons, the two reached the other end of the mine, where Grimsson admitted defeat and fled deeper into the caves using a mine cart. Veldaban rapidly followed, with the adventurer on their tail.

They eventually ended up in the conversion chamber with the Arposandran machines, where Hreidmar angrily ordered Grunsh to wipe the memory of a subdued Veldaban. Instead of simple associations with beer and kebab, he demanded that Veldaban be made to believe that he served the 'Royal Red Axe', led by King Hreidmar. Upon noticing the adventurer, he ordered Grunsh to attack them, but their wand caused his spell to backfire and hit everyone in the room, allowing the adventurer to enter their minds. After correcting altered memories in Veldaban's mind, who was being led to believe that he and Grimsson had fought for King Hreidmar at the Battle of Barendir, and restoring Grimsson's memories of the same battle, causing him to remember killing his own men and collapse to the ground, weeping, they entered Hreidmar's memory of speaking to Zamorak in the ancient Keldagrim ruins. They dispelled Grunsh's magic, causing Hreidmar to realise he had been talking to a statue, instead of Zamorak. Next, they appeared in Grunsh's memory of being handed to the Red Axe by Laneel, which they also restored.

After these events, the adventurer returned to reality, to find that Grimsson and Hreidmar had escaped. After dealing with Grunsh, who, his memory restored, felt betrayed and miserable, Veldaban and they gave chase to the two dwarves, who had become suicidal by this point. They found themselves in Hreidmar's personal palace, and posed as chaos dwarves to proceed to the throne room. There, they confronted Hreidmar and Grimsson, who revealed that the Red Axe had already given up on conquering Keldagrim. Grimsson declined the offer to repent and, hoping to either be killed by Veldaban or by his approaching army, began to duel his nemesis. The skirmish ended with Grimsson's death, after which Hreidmar made his final move as well.

Using a dragon battlestaff, he cast a powerful spell that turned himself, Grimsson, and, albeit partially, Veldaban, into chaos dwarves. He and Grimsson began to fight the adventurer, summoning chaos dwarves to his aid. With great effort, the adventurer managed to defeat both Hreidmar and Grimsson, ending the Red Axe's activities for good. After they helped Veldaban overcome the chaos curse, the Black Guard marched into Hreidmar's city and tore down the statue of him.

Trivia

 * Hreiðmarr (anglicised Hreidmar) is the king of the Dwarves and father of Otr, Regin, and Fafnir in the Völsunga Saga.
 * According to Hugi, Hreidmar showed interest in his lineage in 149 of the Fifth Age. However, his memory, viewed during Birthright of the Dwarves, suggests he was much younger when it happened.