The Great Forge

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At the top of the world, at the Skyrending Peaks, there exists a place no longer remembered by many mortals. Ravali, the Great Forge. One of the Great Cities of Ortega. Time has left the heart of the city mostly undisturbed, as the stone construction was overlaid with supports of adamantine and orichalcum over time.

The layout of the city is as as a wedge rising from low points at the broad end to a higher place at the point. At the highest position is the Great Forge itself, the only obvious access point a bridge with many strong supports keeping it intact despite the high winds. Similarly, the city has high walls reinforced to withstand the winds and to keep the interior of the city mostly intact. The tops of the walls do not have battlements or crenelations, instead there are small windows regularly spaced which would be just wide enough to fire a bow or crossbow through.

Despite being called a "Great City", the population which would have lived here inside the city limits is relatively small compared to cities of more recent years. Even including the underground tunnels which served as storm shelters and storage, the numbers would be in the low thousands.

Purpose / Function

Ravali was founded for the purpose of studying metalcraft, investigating new potential alloys and methods of working metal. To that end, they developed numerous procedures still in use today and many other metals which aren't known anymore. Late in the empire's age, they managed to properly recreate orichalcum. However, after devoting almost all their time to producing it and leaving no notes on the process available outside the city, this knowledge became lost when the city fell.

Alterations

Over time, the city's walls have remained perfectly intact but the interior buildings have deteriorated into ruin and rubble. The Great Forge, on the other hand, remains almost entirely intact structurally. Most of the normal furnishings and decorations have long since turned to dust, and only a few containers and furnishings enchanted to protect their contents (as well as their own forms) remain intact.

Architecture

The design of the Great Forge itself is simple, being integrated into a large keep structure on the edge of a cliff where accessing it would be difficult if not impossible. It was built primarily by shaping stone to make the foundations, then using cut blocks from the same native stone of the mountain. Over time, the exterior was adorned with supports and decorations of orichalcum and even adamantine which overall made it a very difficult structure to damage. Enchantments were layered on it as well, hardening the stone and making it resistant to wind and weathering, making it impossible to use magic to enter the walls through teleportation, and dampening the power of any magic attempted to be cast through the boundaries of the keep itself.

The city was not given quite the same care in the construction of its buildings, mostly done by the lesser craftsfolk after the Forge entered operation. However, the city walls were likewise reinforced with metal and magic as the city developed and the Empire grew wary of others who might attempt to steal the secrets of their metalcraft.

History

During the heyday of the Ortegan Empire, Ravali was built on a site as close to the top of the world as the Mystics could find supported it. The isolation would give a moderate amount of safety for what they wanted to do with the Great Forge. So it was the construction began of the forge and the enchantments layered onto it to allow it to function as a place vast magical energies would be channeled. After construction of the forge itself, other buildings were built to replace the temporary housing which had been for the workers. Then the forge's heart was constructed with magic, channeling elemental fire into a single place which would serve primarily as the source of heat to work metal and secondarily as a source of elemental fire to create orichalcum.

For several generations the Great Forge turned out wonderful works of metal and was the only place in the world which had the means of allowing mortals to harness elemental fire. The crafters grew more skilled, going from creating simple but effective products to what would be masterpieces for any other smith. Ornate, wonderful tools and weapons would be made by the smiths and enchanted by Mystics who resided there to be truly spectacular pieces. The Ortegan Empire was setting a new bar for what it meant to be excellent at metalcraft, even managing to begin crafting adamantine and later orichalcum.

In the end, it is not known what happened to the Ortegan Empire to make it fall, but abruptly the Great Forge ceased to make deliveries to other cities and villages around the same time as the other Great Cities failed to respond and the Mystics vanished from the world. The location of the Great Forge also became lost, as attempts to find it either to determine what had happened or to plunder it failed to locate where it should be.

Type

Foundry

Parent Location

Gilvonnaie