Zhufbar

Zhufbar clings to the walls of a vast chasm where a torrent of mountain meltwater plunges into the dark, and every hour of every day that falling water turns wheels: ten thousand of them, geared and belted and thundering, driving trip-hammers, bellows, and lathes in an unbroken industrial roar that has not fallen silent within living memory. It is the great engineering hold of the Karaz Ankor, a place of soot, steam, and ceaseless labour, where the forge-glow reddens the mist above the falls and the whole mountain seems to hum with the appetite of its machines.

From Zhufbar's workshops come the cannon, handguns, and clattering gyrocopters that arm the dwarf holds and their allies, and its Engineers Guild insists (loudly, and with the tallies ready to prove it) that no finer forges exist anywhere in the world. Its clans are the nearest thing dwarfkind has to radicals, forever tinkering, refining, and daring to improve upon the sacred designs of their grandsires. This being a matter of dwarfs, their radicalism remains more cautious and tradition-bound than the holiest dogma of any other race; but among a people who count novelty a mild form of treason, the soot-stained smiths of Zhufbar are as close to reckless invention as the mountains will ever permit.