| Category | Strongholds |
| Continent | Karterus |
| Region | Azrik |
| Owner | Ba'lith |
| Built | 12 Bloom 951 |
| Map | Vetoubahr |
When Merorarg fell in 816, the northern minotaurs of Azrik knew their time for war was near. The nascent empire of Ba'lith, expansionist minded, with ideas of one minotaur nation, pushed against the borders of the then city-state of Ilfongrak. The minotaurs of the north, centered on Ilfongrak, battled for control of the coastal road between lake Torgilm and the Carodrak foothills.
At what are now the foundations of the stronghold Hoof Barrow, the dead of many battles ended up in this area. They were committed to funeral pyres or interned in barrows. Legends grew of warrior spirits and ghostly apparitions, and a belief that these wandering spirits were honored by the warrior spirit of the living. A product of imagination and witchery, such thinking by both sides, was exploited for its military value. The planners of Ilfongrak built a bastion over the barrow, protecting the "wandering spirits". Instead of going around what had become known as Hoof Barrow, well-nigh unassailable from the southern approach, driven by spiritual beliefs, Ba'lith wasted a lot of soldiers and resources besieging a place that never fell; further emboldening the belief in the place's ghostly heroes of the past.
Another legend of Hoof Barrow came from a unit buckling under a long siege. Defenders dug up the dead, using ground-down hooves in the making of mortar. Furthering the mystic of Hoof Barrow, it is said this mortar made the walls impervious to siege; for the minotaurs of Azrik, sanctity of the dead applies only to the horns and arms. Today, it is common practice across the Ba'lith Empire, honoring fallen minotaur warriors by committing their hooves to the making of walls and towers.