Herbological Codex V: The Doctrine of Stone and Root

By Olar Stonesalve, Dwarven Philosopher of the Deep Gardens of Dûn-Borhal

“A seed may be life, but the stone remembers longer.”
— Olar Stonesalve, The Doctrine of Stone and Root

I. The Silence Beneath

Olar Stonesalve was a philosopher-healer of the underhalls, a dwarf who tended not to mines but to the living rock itself. Where others saw cold stone, Olar saw a slumbering soul—the slow, ancient heartbeat of the world. He believed that plants drew not only water and sunlight, but memory from the bones of the earth, and that to truly heal, one must first learn to listen to that deep silence.

He taught that beneath every mountain lies the memory of the ages: crushed forests, buried bones, forgotten rain. To dig is to converse with the dead.

II. The Root and the Vein

To Olar, roots and ore were twin veins of the same pulse. He noted how roots seek minerals, curling around veins of iron and quartz, and how stone feeds the plant even as it anchors it. His great thesis, The Root and the Vein, argued that “life is only half the world’s story—the other half is endurance.”

He founded the study of Lithoherbology, the discipline of earth-bound healing, combining botany with geology. Practitioners cultivated plants in mineral-rich soils or even hollowed stone beds, infusing their tinctures with powdered gemstones or crystal dust.

Each mineral, Olar believed, carried a distinct virtue:

Ironroot – courage, resolve, and blood.
Quartzleaf – clarity and truth.
Copperfern – vitality and nerve.
Onyx moss – grief and grounding.
Silverthorn – purity and endurance against corruption.

“Every wound,” he said, “is a fracture in the stone of the self. The right mineral fills the crack.”

III. The Patience of Stone

Olar taught that haste was the enemy of true healing. “The mountain does not hurry to rise,” he wrote. “It simply refuses to fall.”

His methods were slow but precise—salves aged for years in subterranean humidity, poultices compressed between rock plates, teas brewed with heat drawn from magma vents. He called this practice Stone Patience, believing that time itself was an ingredient in all medicine.

He often mocked surface alchemists for their speed. “A leaf that grows in a day dies by dusk,” he would say. “Only the slow endure.”

IV. The Deep Gardens

Beneath Dûn-Borhal, Olar carved the Deep Gardens—a network of caverns lit by glowstone, filled with mosses and root systems nourished by mineral springs. These gardens became both monastery and hospital, where the wounded were entombed in warm stone alcoves to meditate as they healed.

The gardens were said to hum with a low vibration—the breathing of the mountain itself. Olar taught his disciples to meditate upon that sound until their heartbeats matched it. “If you can hear the stone breathe,” he said, “you have found the rhythm of eternity.”

V. The Ethics of Extraction

Though dwarves were renowned miners, Olar condemned careless excavation as sacrilege. “To take from the earth without respect,” he wrote, “is to tear the skin of the world.” He demanded balance between taking and tending: for every gem mined, a crystal seed must be replanted in its place; for every herb plucked, three must be sown.

His students were often conflicted between tradition and faith. Some miners dismissed him as a dreamer. Others called him the Stone Prophet. Even today, miners of Dûn-Borhal whisper his prayer before striking their first blow into the mountain:

“Forgive this wound, O Mountain.
May what we take serve life, not greed.”

VI. The Stone Apotheosis

In his final years, Olar spoke of feeling “the pull downward”—a sense that the mountain itself was calling him home. He withdrew into the lowest cavern of the Deep Gardens, sealing himself within a crystal chamber.

When his disciples broke the seal a century later, they found no body—only a vein of stone shaped faintly like a man, roots curling through its ribs, veins of quartz glimmering beneath its surface. The air smelled faintly of moss and iron.

To the dwarves, this was not death, but Stone Apotheosis—the moment a soul merges with the enduring heart of the world.

VII. The Philosophy of Endurance

Olar’s writings remain cornerstones of dwarven ethics and medicine. His central doctrine is etched above every infirmary door in the deep holds:

“All strength is borrowed.
All healing, patience.
The stone waits for us all.”

His disciples, known as the Order of Root and Vein, wander the realms bearing carved stone tablets and portable gardens. They heal both wound and pride, preaching humility through endurance.

To them, the soul is not a flame, nor a current—it is bedrock: heavy, steadfast, and eternal.