Bring your adventure to life

A double-bitted dwarven battle axe token or prop asset featuring dual broad blades engraved with geometric rune-like patterns

Double-Bitted Battle Axe

battle axe
axe
weapon
double-headed axe

Monsters · Characters · Mounts & Pets · Battlemaps & Tiles · Sets · Tokens · Scenes

The Varkûn

The School of Four Blades

The dwarven double-bitted axe strikes coming and going, without ever being turned in the hand, and carries an answer to two armors on a single iron. The price: it is head-heavy, tires the arm, and its second edge, live behind the shoulder, bites its bearer as readily as the enemy.

Two edges on one haft, to a dwarf, should be waste: why forge twice what one edge already does? The dwarven answer lies in the forging: the two are not alike. The rock-iron is poured double, then tempered in two passes. One edge is drawn keen and hard, the edge that opens, honed for leather and flesh; the other is left thick and soft, the edge that breaks, which will not chip on a helm or a shield and cracks bone through the mail. Two tools, then, on one arm. And the smith takes a further pride in it: the two heads must weigh true to the grain, or the weapon lies in the hand and turns crooked.

Wielding two of these axes at once, one in each fist, four edges moving around a single body, is learned at the Varkûn, the School of Four Blades, and nowhere else. No one enters it with metal. For years the student trains with moltstone, a grey and dull stone cut to the exact weight of rock-iron but never sharpened, which splits and crumbles under a mistimed blow instead of cutting. It forgives clumsiness by breaking in place of flesh, and they say a student wears out a hundred pairs of stones before a single blade is entrusted to him. To wear out one's stone has become, among dwarves, a way of saying one learns the hard way. The day the master judges the motion sure, the student receives his first axes of Dürn, and the contrast of the dark veined metal after years of grey stone is a moment no one speaks of lightly.

What the Varkûn teaches comes down to one word: the wheel. These weapons roll, each edge starting the other's return, so that the fighter never stops and offers no pause. One edge opens the flesh, the other breaks the bone, the two hands alternate while the body never stops turning. This dance has but one price: the four edges pass endlessly close to their own bearer, and the slightest wrong motion wounds him. This is why the Varkûn does not take everyone, and why those who leave it resemble no other dwarven warrior: the Ravagers, that caste which terrifies the battlefields, all come from it.

Here lies the whole nature of this weapon: alone it has two good sides; in a pair it has four, all turned toward the enemy.

A double-bitted dwarven battle axe token or prop asset featuring dual broad blades engraved with geometric rune-like patterns inlaid with gold, a leather-wrapped handle, and a fur-trimmed sheath resting on a stone surface framed by iron-banded wood with Celtic knotwork borders. This asset functions as an item card, inventory prop, or loot token for fantasy tabletop RPG encounters centered on dwarven warriors, berserkers, or melee combat scenarios. Compatible with virtual tabletop platforms such as Foundry VTT, Roll20, and Owlbear Rodeo, it suits systems including D&D 5e, Pathfinder, and other fantasy RPGs. The dual-blade design and runic detailing make it well-suited for dwarven faction loot tables, artifact reveals, or weapon shop inventory displays.

Open in the gallery