Brockenborings

Brockenborings was a village and clan hold set on the western side of the Hill s of Scary. The site of copper-holes, some dating back to Dwarven miners of the Second Age. The area had long been avoided by Eriadoran miners, as it was said to be haunted. Harfoots, led by the Bolger clan , paid no attention to these stories when they first entered the borings ; they saw them chiefly as prime possibilities for smials , a useful haven from the rowdy mine guildsmen at Scary. Unfortunately, the ghosts of the Borings seemed to be making a comeback ; Hobbits were hearing sounds in their walls , feeling a touch on the backs of their necks while leaning against solid rock , and seeing faces down dead-end passages in their homes. These reports had been increasing and some of the Borings had gone uninhabited for too long. The creatures haunting the Borings were not, strictly speaking , ghosts or any other undead. Rather, they were Neblins , fairy creatures , spirits of earth who merged with the souls of Dwarven miners who loved their work more than the more distant possibility of joining Mahal (Aule , the Vala who created Dwarves) at his forges beyond the world. The Dwarves of Khazad-dum avoided having Neblin problems through careful placement of protective runes in their mines and elaborate burial ceremonies for their dead. The Neblins of the Hills of Scary spent much of their time drifting through the rock strata of the hills, occasionally playing at being miners again in the deeper holes. The Hobbits, unfortunately , had attracted their attention by trying to civilize the mines. The Neblins were not sure what to do about this, but they were capable of being either a nuisance or a serious threat if the proper magics were not said over the borings. A Dwarvish burial ceremony expounding on the joys of being with family and the home forge would have worked, but Durin's Folk were not in the habit of sharing rituals of this sort with outsiders.