Smithen

"What do you call a dwarf that can't mine? A Smithen."

- Dhoggerlug Runechin

Smithen is the smallest of the August Elementals and the most docile, acting almost like a pup whose still getting use to its growing paws. Veins of ore, ranging from precious gems, rare metals, and industrial necessities, continually grow all over Smithen. These growths need to be mined or else Smithen would be immobilized within a year, a job the dwarves who found Smithen are happy to endure.
Smithen was not the first elemental colonized simply because the dwarves didn't find it first. The camouflage an un-mined Smithen creates is likely how it survived the battle royale of the August Elementals in the previous age despite its gentle nature. Scholars believe that when Smithen was created, the veins were allowed to grow exponentially until Smithen looked more like a mountain than an August Elemental.
Because of its small size and almost childlike enthusiasm, Smithen is the most targeted August Elemental by raiding parties and pillagers. Its precious metals are hard to ignore and the relative size of Smithen is deceiving. Those who are foolhardy enough to mount an assault quickly realize that an August Elemental is still an August Elemental no matter its size. Large pillars of rock gently float around Smithen, houses and small mansions dotting the tops during times of peace. During war, these houses are abandoned since Smithen calls these pillars down on the charging fools. Not even battle can dampen Smithen's humor. A favorite tactic is to create wide chasms in the Wandering Fields so that those riding too fast simply fall to their deaths. Old stories of battles with the diminutive elemental tell of a low rumbling laughter preceding meteoric crashes and sundering lands.

Demographics

Genasi - ~20%
Genasi of the earthen persuasion often find themselves making a pilgrimage to Smithen if not resettling there for two reasons. The lively spirit of the elemental compliments the fiery and intense personalities of these humanoids and earth genasi experience a curious symbiosis with the elemental. Earth genasi find their minor elemental abilities augmented when near Smithen. Earth moves much more easily for Smithen genasi, allowing them to carry their characteristic mauls. These mauls are made of pure stone and should not be able to be lifted let alone swung, yet these genasi show little strain when using them in battle. They have now become the shock troops of the town if pillagers make it past Smithen's maze of ravines.
Dwarves - ~70%
Dwarves were the first to colonize Smithen and have remained ever since. The ease of mining such precious metals suits the dwarves' greed nicely, overcoming their discomfort with open skies and green fields. Now the dwarven community acts more as a mobile merchant guild, selling their easily gained and highly sought after minerals whenever they come close enough to another town.
Humans et al. - ~10%
Other humanoid races aren't exactly shunned but highly discouraged by the dwarves. The genasi have created a spot for themselves only because the dwarves would have to resort to open war to prevent it. Humans are the most common race, but the other intelligent races of Corvayn may be found here as well. The dwarves see them as long term guests or merchants with a finite lease rather than true inhabitants, but few humanoids are removed from Smithen outright.

Government

There is no formal government most of the time on Smithen. The villagers generally get along well enough and disagreements are typically minor and smoothed over between the affected parties. When larger matters arise, the affected parties and the things closely associated with the incident are held, and assets are frozen until the next Naming.
A Naming happens when Smithen decides it fancies a swim. The population of Smithen leaves the elemental's back and camps on the ocean shore waiting for their home to return. During this time, unmanageable disputes and town proclamations are decided by naming a dwarf the merchant czar, effective until Smithen re-emerges. The czar quickly decides matters, since no one is truly certain when Smithen will be back. This happens typically once a year so grievances are not held for too long.
This sporadic swimming lesson gives the village a chance to take a step back from the petty squabbles that inevitably boil over in a small community. Naming's are typically happy occasions, since most are happy to see disagreements over and done with. It also gives the village a chance to reassign the mansions on the floating pillars Smithen keeps. Historically this was the purpose of a Naming. The mansions are highly prized but are a risky investment. A family can enjoy high yields from the untapped ores on the pillars, the sprawling manors with airy walkways, and breathtaking views. But most don't tend to stay for more than one Naming. Smithen has been known to throw a pillar into the ocean and see how big of a splash it can make or throw a pillar against a mountain to feel the ground tremble. Most of the time, the families are given enough warning to escape.

Defences

Rarely are guardsmen needed. No one is foolish enough to assault an August Elemental and those who are become toys for the playful apocalypse. When the occasional raider does slip by, Smithens prefer to send extremely well armed genasi or dwarves to fight rather than their elementals. Guardsmen come in one of three varities: genasi shocktrooper, genasi stone-thrower, or a dwarven sentinel.
Shocktroopers wield massive, imossibly heavy stone warhammers and decorate themselves with sharp, piercing stalagmites. Their improved ability to manipulate earth when near Smithen allows them to swing the warhammers with ease or barrel into an opponent, impaling them on their armor.
Stone-throwers are earth genasi who prefer ranged attacks over the brutal barbarism of the shocktroopers. They form stalactites from the ground around them, shaping them into narrow, unbelievably sharp spears. These spears pierce the very air they fly through. Many don't see the spears in flight for their speed and no one hears them coming; the spears make no noise since sound means the air was torn through. These spears are too sharp for noise.
Dwarven sentinels are not so magically inclined. They are instead outfitted with what's likely the best uniform a village guardsman has ever worn. Plate mail looks like paper compared to the layered adamantium that line the dwarven shoulders and back. The chest plate is lined with Living Metal that traps blades then snaps them. Greaves and gauntlets are lined with more of the Living Metal, cushioning the long falls off of Smithen's back and forming the axes and shields that flow from the gauntlets when they're needed.

Industry & Trade

Smithing is the largest and most vibrant industry on Smithen. Seemingly every other house on the August Elemental is a blacksmith or smelter. These goods are traded with other settlements in Itand or with the occasional merchant caravan that is brave enough to wander near the Wandering Fields. The largest import Smithen needs are water, fire, and air elementals; air elementals being the most rare highly sought after. Smithen does not trade Living Metal.

Infrastructure

Neat, orderly roads criss cross the elemental's back with the familiar squat and sturdy dwarven stone homes rising up between intersections. Cleaving ensures an impressive number of lesser earth elementals are available for public works and the vast mining operations on Smithen. Trading with other mobile cities gives the settlement access to fire, water, and air elementals. Water elementals provide adequate plumbing, fire and air elementals are used for massive blast furnaces that smelt the astonishing variety of ores pulled from Smithen's unfortunate malady. Air elementals also ferry families to and from the floating pillars circling Smithen.

Assets

If some unfortunate attacking sod makes it past Smithen's fun and games, they will quickly find themselves toe to toe with one of two things, possibly both if he's unfortunate: a genasi shocktrooper, carrying a comically large stone warhammer and wearing stalagmites from their shoulders and hands or a dwarven defender, whose armor and tower shield make them look more like a siege tower than a spearman. The smithies provide their guards with weapons that would rival any found in Corvayn.
No settlement in the world has more smithies per capita than Smithen. The unending and terrifically varied sources of ore have allowed Smithen smiths to experiment and craft weapons and armor that won't be found anywhere else. Smithen is the only settlement that has the experience to craft a suit of armor or weapon that uses multiple, rare, and difficult to handle metals, if an adventurer is so inclined. It is unlikely that an adventurer will find Living Metal anywhere else but on Smithen.

History

The dwarves are not bashful about how their ancestors first came upon Smithen. The story goes, that a band of dwarves were bringing a caravan of goods from Efox to Ogavix. One night between destinations, they decided to crack open one of the casks of Frostberry Wine. Then another. And another after that. Their tongues blue and the courage of 20 dwarves working its way through their livers, they decided Ogavix could wait not longer for their merry company and took off again in the middle of the night.
One by one, the carts pull off the road as their drivers passed out. Some carts didn't stop. The oxen leading the carts wandered further and further from the road enjoying the excessive amounts of grass that were growing to the northwest. Without a whip to keep them in check, a few carts wandered miles off the road and away from the rest of the caravan. When the dwarves awoke, miles of grass towered over them. They couldn't tell the night from day, so tall were the blades of grass. The oxen, happy as clams, were still eating the dense tangle of Champion Bindweed and refused to look even the slightest bit ashamed.
The wagoneers managed to find each other in the tall grass, so that the once 20 cart carvan was now whittled down to four. Things were looking dire for the dwarves. The carts they had were filled with trade goods, not food or water and the dwarves couldn't survive on the grass alone for very long. Without a better course of action, they chose a direction to start wading through the grass, picking whichever way had the fewest cow pies. It took 20 days for the caravan to make it half a mile and by that time, the oxen had been eaten and what little water they had was gone. The dwarves carried only what they needed to survive and their picks, then sauntered on in the least smelly direction.
Five dwarves were all that were left. The rest had gotten lost in the grass or fallen to starvation. It wasn't until the first dwarf fell over that they noticed they'd been walking uphill. It was the third dwarf that fell that noticed the ground under their feet was sparkling. It was the fourth dwarf that fell that finally mentioned it, and it was the fifth dwarf that finally swung his pick first. He pulled away a diamond the size of a chicken's egg from where his foot had been but a moment ago. Looking at the ground, he could see silver, copper, coal, rubies, emeralds, and gold - so much gold! As tired as he was his greed would not let him give up. He prayed to Moradin, asking the dwarven patron to give him enough time to fill his pockets with as much gold as the mountain had. Moradin took pity on the dwarf, amazed that the power of his greed could keep him alive for so long. The lone dwarf stood, gripped his pick in both hands, and with Moradin's blessing, shattered the mountain in one swing.
Resting beneath the mountain was Smithen, finally freed from his prison. He sought out his unexpected benefactors, picking each dwarf up as gentle as a babe. He nursed the dwarves back to health by stomping his massive foot into the Champion Bindweed and dropping the dwarves into the grass pulp he'd made and the pools of water he'd squeezed from the grass. Smithen eventually found all the dwarves that had drunkenly waded into the Wandering Fieldss and thus Smithen was colonized.
It's often rumored that the dwarf who wanted enough time to line his pockets with all the gold under the mountains still draws breath since Smithen never stops creating gold. Other rumors have spun from this story as well. Stoneheart dwarves have a fable about a mountain riddled with riches and how dwarven determination won the day against the dragon beneath the mountain that guarded its hoard. This fable is likely based off the founding of Smithen, making the scorn the @Stoneheart dwarves have for their elemental riding cousins rather ironic. To this day, Frostberry Wine is not allowed in Smithen. The dwarven saying, "Which way did the cows go?" used when no information is available to inform a decision so any decision is equally likely to be correct, stems from this story as well.

Tourism

The legendary smithies and unexplained connection earth genasis have with Smithen are not the only major attractions Smithen has. Its lovable nature draws people from all over Yodren. When new caravans are spotted, Smithen likes to throw boulders laden with sulfer, phosphorous, and a furnace plucked from it's back into the air so that they explode, give a fantastic, extremely dangerous fireworks display. New visitors are often shocked when Smithen lays down in the Champion Bindweed so that his head is as close to them as possible to get a better look at them. The villagers hate this. They have to use all their fire elementals to continually burn off the Champion Bindweed that immediately begins to race across the elementals back. When Smithen meets another August Elemental, it, without fail, forms a boulder the size of a small castle and tries to get the other elemental to play. Not a single one has passed the ball back in recorded history.

Architecture

Since Smithen has never gone Rogue, the houses and mansions, furnaces and smithies have never had to be rebuilt. Few places in Yodren can boast as many building built in the tradition of the first age of Dwarven Architecture as Smithen. There is one furnace that is not built with any architecture in mind whatsoever. The owner has gotten tired of putting in the effort to build the building with any care since it's the furnace Smithen likes to pluck to make its fireworks.

Geography

Smithen's back is mountainous, with craggy ledges, deep canyons and jagged peaks striking quite the skyline. Roughly speaking, Smithen's body is egg-shaped, with the peak of the egg point straight up nearly half a mile. This gives the dwarves a half mile in diameter circle to build their homes and businesses.

Natural Resources

Any mineral, metal, or common gem can be found on Smithen at some point or another. The amount and timing of when those resources are available may not be consistent though. As one vein is mined, the mineral that regrows may not be the same. The most notable resources that cannot be found on Smithen are Spectrite, Stormsteel, and Voidform whereas Living Metal can only be found on Smithen.

Type

Town

Population

~400 humanoids and 300 lesser elementals

Inhabitant Demonym

Smithen

Location under

Yodren