Gromril

Fictional record. This page describes a mining commodity from a fictional setting, not a real material. Information is based on the cited canon, with adaptations and interpretation distinguished where necessary. It is kept separate from the real MineArchive corpus — see Fictional.

The meteoric iron of the Dwarfs of Warhammer Fantasy, also called star metal, silversteel or silverstone: the hardest metal of the Known World, worked only by Dwarf smiths and holding runes better than any other substance.

Where it occurs

Gromril came to the world from the sky. In the distant past a great meteor struck the Worlds Edge Mountains and left a crater that filled with glacier meltwater to become Varn Drazh, the Black Water; valuable ores, gromril chief among them, lie all around its shores, and the Dwarfs founded holds there to mine them. Karak Varn, hewn from the cliffs above the lake, was the richest source the Dwarfs ever found, and its ore went to Zhufbar to be smelted. A second find was made in 657 IC by Thori Gundrikson in the caves west of the Black Water. Lexicanum adds that gromril is found only where warpstone is also present, though the reverse does not hold.

How it's obtained

Gromril lies at depths that only Dwarf mine engineering reaches. Karak Varn followed its original vein for more than a thousand years until the earthquake of the Time of Woes, in 1499 before the Imperial calendar, opened fissures that let the lake into the lower workings, drowned thousands and washed a treasury of runic artefacts into the deep; the Skaven then struck from below and the Orcs from above, and within a year the hold had fallen. Prospectors kept going back. Three centuries later the Runesmith Kadrin Redmane led an expedition from Zhufbar that drove the Skaven down and mined what gromril remained above the floodwater, until Orcs ambushed and killed him on the shore in 1136 before the Imperial calendar and the Dwarfs were forced out within a decade. Diving machines were devised to reach the permanently flooded workings and search the lake bed. Gundrikson's western mines yielded great quantities until the Skaven found and destroyed them, and no large-scale working has been heard of since, which is why the metal is now so scarce. Lexicanum, drawing on the first-edition roleplaying books, gives three refinements of the raw metal: smelting removes most impurities to give the common refined form, a jealously guarded second process yields magic-inert adamant, and a legendary third yields crystalline laihtero.

Properties

The hardest metal ever discovered in the Known World, impervious to weapons of lesser ore and, in the common refined form, twice as durable as steel at a fifth of the weight. A gromril weapon cannot be broken by normal means. In its purest form it holds runes better than any other substance, and armour runes can only be struck on gromril. Only Dwarf Runesmiths know how to work it, and only the Ancestor God Grungni is said to have had the skill to make it into chain mail; Dwarf gromril armour is always plate, and made to fit Dwarfs.

Why it's valuable

Many times more precious than gold, and never traded: the Dwarfs do not sell gromril goods to other races, and wars have been fought for the possession of a single suit of the plate. It is the armour of the Dwarf nobility, of the Ironbreakers who hold the gates of the Underway and of the Irondrakes, whose runed suits were developed to withstand the heat of their own drakeguns. The Runesmith Kurgaz melted gromril to forge the Anvils of Doom in Thunder Mountain. Gifts of it mark the greatest alliances: the twelve Runefangs of the Empire's Elector Counts were forged from solid nuggets by Alaric the Mad, the Armour of Meteoric Iron in the Imperial armoury at Altdorf was made long ago by the smiths of Zhufbar, and Bretonnia holds a runed Gromril Great Helm given by a Dwarf High King. In 1222 before the Imperial calendar the necromancer Nagash forged his armour and the Crown of Sorcery from gromril stolen for him by the Skaven.

Uses

Plate armour and shields first, then the axes and warhammers of the Dwarf lords and their Hammerers, always rune-inscribed. Anvils of Doom, lance points, ordinary anvils and even candelabra have been made of it. A small sample of pure gromril is the key element in striking the Master Rune of Gromril, and the rune fails if the sample is flawed.

Canon & adaptations

The army books present gromril as a single metal; Lexicanum, following the first-edition roleplaying line, describes three refined states and calls the common one mithril and the second adamant, names that belong to other fantasy metals elsewhere. The sources also differ on origin: a meteor from the sky in the army books, a metal from outside the universe falling through the polar Warpgates in the roleplaying material. Lexicanum's claim that gromril occurs only alongside warpstone is not in the Fandom account.

Related fictional records

Warpstone

Recorded claims

Each claim is marked with its basis — explicit canon, MineArchive inference, adaptation only, or fandom interpretation — and attached to the source(s) below. Where tellings disagree, both are kept.

• Gromril is meteoric iron found around the shores of the Black Water, the crater lake of the Worlds Edge Mountains, and Karak Varn above the lake was the richest source the Dwarfs ever found. (MineArchive inference) ¹
• Karak Varn followed its original gromril vein for over a thousand years until the earthquake of the Time of Woes let the lake into the lower workings, and no large-scale mining has been heard of since the Skaven destroyed Thori Gundrikson's later mines. (MineArchive inference) ¹
• Kadrin Redmane of Zhufbar reopened the gromril seams of Karak Varn for about fifty years until Orcs killed him on the shore of the Black Water in 1136 before the Imperial calendar. (MineArchive inference) ^1,2
• Gromril is the hardest metal of the Known World, holds runes better than any other substance, and only Dwarf smiths can work it. (MineArchive inference) ^1,2
• Many times more precious than gold, gromril goods are never traded to other races; the Dwarfs give them only as gifts, as with the Empire's twelve Runefangs. (MineArchive inference) ^1,2
• Lexicanum describes three refinements of raw gromril, a common smelted form called mithril, a magic-inert adamant and a legendary crystalline laihtero; the army books treat gromril as one metal. (fandom interpretation, disputed) ²

Fictional mines producing this

Included only where MineArchive's own research gives a reasonable evidential basis.

• Zhufbar
  Karak Varn's gromril was smelted at Zhufbar, whose Runesmith Kadrin Redmane led the expedition that reopened the seams; the Armour of Meteoric Iron at Altdorf was forged by Zhufbar's smiths.

Sources

1. (interpretation) Gromril — Warhammer Fantasy Wiki — Warhammer Fantasy Wiki (Fandom), citing Warhammer Armies: Dwarfs (4th, 6th, 7th and 8th ed.), Warhammer Armies: The Empire (4th, 6th, 8th ed.), Warhammer Armies: Bretonnia (5th, 6th ed.), WFRP Dwarfs: Stone and Steel, WFRP Old World's Armoury and the novel Lords of the Lance; read through the wiki's MediaWiki API
2. (interpretation) Gromril — Lexicanum — Lexicanum (Warhammer: The Old World), citing Dwarfs: Stone and Steel, WFRP 1st ed. rulebook, The Horned Rat Companion p.82, Rise of Nagash, White Dwarf 152, 165 and 283, Monstrous Arcanum p.19 and the Dwarf Players Guide p.90; read from a 2024 Wayback capture
3. (interpretation) Zhufbar — Lexicanum (Warhammer - The Old World), citing Warhammer Armies: Dwarfs (8th Edition), Dwarfs: Stone and Steel, White Dwarf 300 and other Games Workshop-published sourcebooks

Record created: 16 October 2026 · Last researched: 16 October 2026