North Iron Port
North Iron Port is a massive dwarven city on the Northern Coast of The Eastern Strait It and South Iron Port once made up the great dwarven hold of Ironguard Hold before the cataclysm. Today, North Iron Port enjoys profitable trade with many human cities, where the demand for dwarven made goods is high.
History
Before the Cataclysm, North Iron Port, along with South Iron Port, were known as Ironguard Hold. The Cataclysm split the mountain range known as the Spine right down the center, directly through the middle of the hold, shifting the northern section North and east by around 200 miles. This event was catastrophic for both halves of the hold as their underground portions abruptly became exposed to the inrushing waters of what would become known as the Eastern Strait. By the time the onrushing waters settled, over a third of the holds remaining population had perished.
After much deliberation, the dwarves, ever pragmatic, decided to make the best of their new situation rather than abandoning their ancestral hold. With the assistance of summoned elemental allies, they they rebuilt the exposed face of their hold into a massive port and then turned their engineering prowess towards shipbuilding. Today North Iron Port is regarded as one of the great wonders of the world, and the dwarven trading fleets are a massive economic power.
Demographics
The population of North Iron Port is overwhelmingly Dwarven, with nearly all exceptions being diplomatic posts and corporate postings.
Government
Like many dwarf holds, North Iron Port is ruled by a council of clans. Membership on the council is more inclusive than many holds, as all clans hold seats. The clan meetings are run by representatives from the 10 most venerable clans in the Hold, but representatives from any clan may stand and present before the council.
The Port
When the dwarves decided to build their port, they were immediately faced with a major issue: the lack of a sheltered harbor; the churning waters of the Eastern Strait would quickly batter a ship which was tied to an exposed dock to pieces. Recognising that most of the underground portion of the hold anywhere near the waters were already lost to flooding, they made the decision to write them off and carve a sheltered harbor out of the newly exposed face of the mountain.
The Harbor Wall
The imposing walls of the artificial harbor rise a hundred feet above the surface of the Eastern Straight. Fifty feet thick and half a mile long, the wall is crenellated along the top and dotted with a fort every few hundred feet, each sporting an impressive array of cannon. Behind the wall, a massive hole has been carved into the side of the mountain, clearly spreading out into a cavern far wider than the wall itself. The outer gates are Made of ornately carved stone ten foot thick and thirty foot tall, operated by a massive system of gears and mounted in a structure that resembles a fortress more than a gatehouse. The gatehouse is split into two halves, each two hundred feet tall, with a passage between them, sturdy drawbridges connecting them when tall ships arent moving through. The far end of the passage has another set of gates leading into the harbor itself.
The Docks
Once inside the protection of the harbor gates, imposing stone piers stretch out for a half mile in both directions, set a thousand feet back from the harbor wall. Rather than build docks out into the water, the dwarves chose to carve away the stone, leaving imposing stone piers jutting out from the shoreline. At the western end of the docks sit the drydocks, the hulls of several of the famously sturdy dwarven merchant ships being laid down. On the docks themselves, there are large cranes for the unloading of ships. The cranes are operated by a complex system of gears, the smaller ones being powered by large wheels with teams of dwarves or occasionally earth elementals walking in them. At some of the docks, much larger cranes have been built, driven by a hydraulic system fed by water stored at elevation, pumps powered by wave action keeping the tanks full.
The Hold
The hold itself, originally half of the ancient Ironguard Hold, has been expanded since the cataclysm. Unlike many dwarven holds, the downwards expansion has been limited due to the flooding of the original underground tunnels. As a result, the dwarves built upwards and outwards, resulting in a sprawling hold which climbs high into the mountain. In addition to a seemingly endless series of staircases, a series of elevators facilitate rapid movement of both people and goods between levels, powered by hydraulically driven winches.
Elemental Allies
Ironguard hold had historically good relations with a number of earth elementals, and in the aftermath of the cataclysm, their elemental allies invaluable. With the population of the hold so reduced, they summoned as many elementals as they could to help repair the damage and save as much of the hold as possible. Because they don't need to breathe, they were able to enter flooded tunnels and assist with sealing off as many tunnels as possible from the waters of the newly formed Eastern Strait. Once construction began on the new port, elementals were heavily used, their strength and tireless nature being invaluable to the depleted dwarves.
The Elemental Guard
While most of the elementals who assisted in the rebuilding returned to the elemental plane of earth, a number remained behind, choosing to make long term arrangements with the dwarves. The most prominent of these are known as the Elemental Guard, a number of huge earth elementals who serve as honor guards for the hold. They have assumed forms not unlike massive dwarves and allowed the dwarven artisans to decorate their forms. Runic script, decorative work, and inlaid metalwork cover them. When standing immobile at their posts, it would be easy to mistake them for massive highly decorated statues.
The Hydraulic System
Many of the complex mechanisms which make life in the hold easier, such as the cranes and elevators, are driven by an innovative gravity driven hydraulic system. Invented in 1743 (257 BTC) by a team of engineers lead by Vol Bronzeshot, the system uses the movement and weight of water which is stored at elevation to power all manner of mechanisms.
The core of the system is a series of pumps driven by wave movement which pump water up to a massive elevated central holding tank, supplemented by a series of Decanters of Endless Water. In order to power mechanisms deeper into the mountain, there are extremely shallowly sloping aqueducts which take water from the main tank once it reaches a certain level to secondary holding tanks further from the channel. From these tanks, pipes carry the water to the mechanisms in question, using the weight of the water in the tanks to provide enough pressure to drive the machines.
Hydraulic powered machines
- Dock Cranes - While the dwarves do use manually powered cranes, there are a series of larger cranes at the more important docks which are driven by the hydraulic systems, a complex gearing system enabling them to lift much larger loads than their manual counterparts.
- Elevators - From immense cargo lifts to small personnel elevators, the dwarves use the hydraulic system to enable easy movement between the many, many levels of the Hold.
- Waterwheels - from milling to operating the forge bellows, many individual smaller mechanisms are driven from long, geared shafts driven by waterwheels, a single wheel often driving many tasks. Clutch systems allow individual mechanisms to be turned on and off.
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