The Sunrise Citadel
"This used to be known as "The Sunrise City", a great sprawling thing spreading out from the end of The Thunder Road. Trading caravans would travel huge distances to buy, sell, and enjoy some good dwarven hospitality. Damned snakemen ended that though, decided they wanted some thunder lizards of their own and sent whole armies to take them, and The Sunrise City was the first to fall."
He spits on the ground in disgust.
"After the snakes got what was coming to them, the ancestors took what was left of the Sunrise city and built the Sunrise citadel with it. Intact blocks went into the walls, broken bits became fill; what you see around you is what they left behind, the remnants of foundations and stone blocks which were far enough embedded in the ground as to not be worth pulling free."
Overview
The dwarves of the shield mountains have always defended both ends of The Thunder Road with imposing fortifications, but in the centuries following the fall of the serpentfolk, the dwarves seem to have resolved that the sacking of their holds will never happen again. Today, the fortifications at the ends of The Thunder Road, the only gaps in the seemingly impregnable wall of The Shield Mountains, have been build into mighty fortresses, and the Sunrise Citadel stands in defiance of any who would try to exploit the wonders of the Shielded Lands for themselves.
History
The dwarves of the shield mountains have always defended the entrance to their domain with formidable fortifications, and throughout their long history, these have evolved, been attacked and destroyed, and changed with the passing eras.
Before the Serpentfolk
At the peak of their empire, A dwarven city was built at the end of The Thunder Road. This city sprawled for miles across the plains, acting as a hub for trade and the public face of the shield mountain dwarves. A citadel stood at the entrance to the mountain, towering over the city and guarding the entrance to the dwarven lands, acting as a display of dwarven might.
The Reign of the Serpentfolk
When the serpentfolk turned their attention to the dwarves, and more specifically the lands guarded by the shield mountains and the massive scaled beasts residing there, The Sunrise City was the first to fall. The city itself was reduced to rubble and the citadel and it's defenders held out valiantly for weeks before finally falling to the foul magic and seemingly inexaustable slave armies of the serpentfolk. The citadel was controlled by the serpentfolk for a number of years before a group of enterprising dwarves undermined it and collapsed it around their ears, more out of spite than in any hope that the destruction of the citadel would lead to the retaking of any of their territory.
After the Cataclysm
When the dwarves began the retaking of their territory, there was one thing that they were all in agreement about. The defenses at the entrance to their lands would never fall again. The rubble of The Sunrise City was collected, the intact blocks reused and the broken ones turned into fill for the new construction. The new citadel stands tall over the remains, little more than flattened and filled in foundations mostly grown over with grass, and serves no purpose but to prevent invaders from ever setting foot inside of the territory it defends.
Modern Times
Today, the sunrise citadel stands as a formidable guardian for the shield mountains and the territory beyond them, and while the dwarves have resumed trade with the outside world, they do it on their own terms, sending caravans to Waylon's Landing rather than inviting traders to come to them for old-fashioned dwarven hospitality. For the forseeable future, the dwarves won't risk having their population living outside of the protection of their lands, and the citadel stands as a reminder of that conviction.
Construction
The Sunrise Citadel is a formidable fortress with multiple layers of defense, designed to work together to form an impenetrable obstacle to any would be invaders. It's built as a semicircle sticking out of the sheer rock face, twin keeps rising over the outer walls to look out across the plains.
The Outer Walls
The first layer of defense, the imposing outer walls are one hundred feet thick and a hundred twenty-five feet tall, built as a semicircle twenty five hundreed feet in diameter. They bristles with siege engines of all sorts, and the crenelations at the top of the wall provide a slight overhang on both sides, allowing archers to fire directly down at it's base from the safety of arrow slits. Six towers are evenly spaced around it's length, each mounting massive siege engines and acting to break the wall into distinct sections, so that a single section being captured doesn't compromise the whole wall. A gatehouse is built into the center of the wall, guarding a massive set of doors, seventy feet tall and a hundred feet across, controlled by massive sets of gears at the top and bottom of each door.
The Bailey
Between the outer wall and the keeps is a wide bailey two hundred and fifty feet acroos, designed to form a killzone between the defenders on the walls and the keeps in the case of a breach in the walls. Occasionally, caravans will stop there to rest their animals before continuing on their journeys, but it is otherwise kept meticulously clear of anything that a potential invader could use as cover.
The Keeps
A pair of near identical keeps rise high behind the wall, each standing two hundred and fifty feet tall, with a set of overhanging crenelations half way up the side. On the top of the citadel sit massive siege engine emplacements, designed to be larger than anything that an attacking army could transport across the plains, providing the dwarves fire superiority over any potential attacker.
The Passage
In between the two keeps is a broad road going directly from the front gates to the back wall. Both ends of the passage are capped with hundred-foot tall and fifty-foot thick walls with a single massive set of doors in the center, seventy feet tall and a hundred feet across, controlled by massive sets of gears at the top and bottom of each door. The passage itself is two hundred and fifty feet across and a little over four hundred feet long, and is designed so that anyone who breaks through the first set of doors will find themselves under fire from all sides, as defenders on the keeps and both walls fire down into the passage.
The Inner Yard
Behind the passage, there is a wide semi-circular courtyard between the keeps and the back wall, and is again designed as a killing zone, trapping attackers between the defenders on the keeps and the back wall.
The Back Wall
The final layer of defense outside of the mountains, the flat cliff face has been transformed into a defensive bastion. Starting at fifty-feet up, crenelations, arrow slits, and siege weapons jut from the walls. The doors leading into the mountain are impressive; two sets of doors, each a hundred feet tall and seventy feet across, made of stone and metal and twenty feet thick. Like the other doors at the citadel, they are driven by massive gears at their tops and bottoms.
More than meets the eye
The defenses of the citadel extend beyond the obvious walls and siege engines. From the arcane to the logistical, the citadel was designed to be able to hold out near indefinitely against any attacking force.
Tons o Tunnels
To eliminate the need for resupply, deep tunnels go from inside the mountain to the keeps, and then from each of the keeps to the various towers along the outer wall. Each of these tunnels is designed so that massive stone blocks can be dropped from the ceiling all along their lengths to fully block them off if the fortification that they supply is taken by an enemy.
Runic Protections
Someone viewing the citadel from the air would, if they werent pre-occupied by dodging the defensive fire of the occupants, see that the wall behind the citatel has had a 1:1 sized depiction of the rough layout of the citadel carved into it. An educated observer would then observe that the two halves, taken together, form a depiction of the dwarven rune for "strength in unity", albiet folded by ninety degrees.
This massive rune, working in concert with a tremendous amount of other runework, both obvious in the form of carvings and hidden within the very stones of the citadel have strengthened the stone itself, making it twice as strong as ordinary worked stone.
Notable NPCs
The Player's Perspective
Approaching from the plains
A few miles out
As you approach the gates
As you pass through the gates
Through the passage
In The Inner Yard
As you move through the doors, the space opens up again into a semi-circular courtyard and a final door is visible ahead of you. Mounted directly into the sheer rock face of the mountain are the most ornately decorated set of doors yet. A line of life-sized armored dwarves have been carved into the bottom of the door, and carved mountains rise above them. A sun peeks out from the mountain peaks, rendered in gold and split between the two halves of the doors, stylized gold rays coming off of it. Finally, high up on the door, a dragon rendered in a silver metal soars above a layer of clouds.
The door is flanked by a pair of statues depicting armored dwarves, and the face of the mountain around the door, starting at around fifty feet up, is absolutely bristling with siege weapons, arrow slits, and sections of crennelations.
Maps
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The Sunrise Citadel
This Citadel guards the eastern entrance to the Shield Mountains and the Lands Beyond.
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