The Fardrimm is the dwarven deep road beyond the Fardrimm Gate, miles beneath Argentum.1 A prayer stone in a dwarven shrine in the sealed Underforge Vaults asks: “Let gold flow through the Fardrimm once more.”2
Name
The name comes from farad-dûm, the words carved over the Fardrimm Gate. Dûm literally means a mine or an excavation, and more commonly deep. Farad means something like travel by road, specifically a road that runs underground. Farad-dûm is the deep road, and Fardrimm its proper name.1
Farad has fallen out of common use among the dwarves of Argentum, who no longer travel below ground much, and their word for a road on the surface is a different one.1 A proper noun does not translate into Common, and until Luma read the gate’s inscription the party had only the name.21
Speculation
Before the party knew what the Fardrimm was, Hazel guessed that it might be the name of the city that stood before Argentum, or of the dwarves’ mine and town, since the prayer sounded like something a dwarf would say of a mining home.2 Later she took the deep road for a road through the Underdark, which begins about three miles below the surface, the depth of the gate.3 At the gate she guessed that the Elder Exodus had gone through it into the deep road. There are firsthand accounts that contradict that, one of which Luma knew: Mathas Drace watched his father walk out.1
History
Session 12
Luma read the prayer on the Vigil of Remembrance, 1714 PSF.2 Hazel suggested asking the old dwarf who had shown her a crescent-moon coin what he knew about the Fardrimm.2
Session 13
The party reached the Fardrimm Gate on the Vigil of Remembrance, 1714 PSF, and Luma read its inscription: “Here lies the farad-dûm. May the Everfire light the way through the long dark.”1 Nobody tried the doors.1 That evening Hazel suggested leaving out candles for the dwarves of the Fardrimm, or sharing a drink in their name.1
Session 14
When Hazel asked Dalric Ironmark what the name Fardrimm meant to him on 1 Nightdeep, 1714 PSF, his eyes darted around. It was, he said, a little more than a little coin.3 That evening Luma recalled that Eliath Drace’s letter asked Mathas to walk the old paths.3