Player’s Knowledge #
Description & Ambiance: Travelers are greeted by what’s been called The Song of the Forge, a melodic ringing of hammers that echoes through high walled halls. The air is warm and smells of charcoal and heated metals. Light pours in through special shafts in the ceiling and falls upon technological contraptions mounted on walls with wires running in many directions.
Government & Public Law: Ruled over by The Enclave of Reason. You aren’t judged by your family name, guild or clan, but by the quality of your work. The Enclave provides free education to anyone who resides here.
Exports & Reputation: Bar’umun is globally renowned for a standard of precision-engineered tools and masterwork alloys that never falter under pressure. They are viewed as a nation of brilliant, if somewhat eccentric, perfectionists who have transformed their reputation for stubbornness into the world’s most sought-after industrial expertise.
Rumors & Folklore (Unverified):
“Some believe that Gromdul never truly died; they say he preserved his spirit within The Radiant Core and still whispers the solutions to impossible equations to those who listen closely.”
“Old-timers claim that if you describe a machine to a dwarf, he’ll have a blueprint to improve it before you’ve even finished your ale.”
“They say the city of Umun isn’t built on rock, but on a series of massive, shifting brass plates that slowly expand the city as the population grows.”
DM’s Lore #
Formal Name: Bar’umun
Type & Rank: Meritocratic Technocracy, Global Leader in Invention
Population: 280,680
Language/Name influences: Old Norse, Old English, and Celtic.
Synopsis: A bustling society where social standing is earned through the act of creating something that improves the lives of all.
True History & Key Dates:
14,765 BR: The Assembly of the Nine Hammers is founded to stop clan squabbles; the first kings like lead with shamanic wisdom.
7,295 BR: The nation established the Umeron Kantonat and the Council of Hammers and Coin to manage its expanding surface trade through a system of regional overseers. However, this era of prosperity eventually collapsed into corruption as greedy Kantarchs and elite guilds hoarded wealth and information, transforming the once-representative government into a stagnant, hereditary oligarchy.
2,214 BR: Borok’s coup replaced a fractured system with a unified directorate intended to restore order, yet the centralization of power soon invited the same systemic greed it had sought to outrun. Although the revolution successfully removed the old masters, it failed to purge the underlying rot, allowing wealth and paranoia to stifle the nation’s brilliance
1,045 AR: The Sparkwrights led a strategic, bloodless revolution that replaced the corrupt old guilds with a meritocracy dedicated to open discovery and communal progress. Under the guidance of The Enclave of Reason, the nation of Bar’umun flourished into an innovative marvel where every citizen can rise through the ranks by mastering their craft and sharing their ingenuity with the world.
Internal Conflicts & Secrets:
The Artisanal Schism: The Elders of the stonemason clans are quietly concerned that the increasing reliance on complex clockwork and magi-tech by the younger artificers is eroding the soul of their people. They fear that when a dwarf stops listening to the natural resonance of the rock and starts relying purely on mechanical blueprints, they lose their spiritual connection to the deep earth.
The Burden of the Blueprint: The Enclave of Reason has calculated a looming resource exhaustion date for the primary metal veins of the Az’rak Mountains. To maintain national stability and prevent panic, they are withholding this data from the public while aggressively pushing for surface expansion and to find a replacement before the mines go quiet.
The Scriptorium’s Shadow: Deep beneath the Grianan Scriptorium lies a forgotten archive containing the Autarky Blueprints. These are designs for self-sustaining perpetual engines that require no mining and no labor. The Enclave has suppressed this discovery, realizing that if a machine could do everything, the meritocratic climb that gives every dwarf a sense of purpose would vanish, leaving a society of idle souls with nothing left to strive for.
Key NPCs & Power Structure:
- Coming soon
Economy & Military Might:
Economy: The nation’s prosperity flows from the export of masterwork stonemasonry and high-grade alloys, extracted by massive automated rigs from the deepest veins of the Az’rak Mountains. They maintain their dominance by providing their allies with exceptionally durable tools and refined ores that are considered the gold standard of craftsmanship across Monsherba.
Military: The military consists of a disciplined force equipped with steam-powered plate and rune-etched weaponry designed for defensive mountain warfare. While they prioritize fortification and deterrents, their strength is bolstered by fortified rune-walls that can hold subterranean tunnels against incursion.
Adventure Hooks:
Discovery: A young prodigy, Thrumli Brass-Bellows, has invented a device that can be used to survey for seams of ore, but the Enclave won’t approve it without a field test. the only problem is the best location to conduct this test is a cavern that’s recently become overrun with dangerous monsters.
Diplomacy: The party is commissioned by The True Craftsmen, Bar’umun’s premier guild of smiths and forgers, to escort a vital shipment of alloys to a neighboring nation. However, the Deep Pockets Imports & Exports, a rival merchant circle with ties to the old oligarchies, intends to hijack the caravan to divert the precious metals toward a high-bidding foreign buyer.
Mystery: A Master Artificer has vanished from his locked workshop, leaving behind nothing but a series of half-finished clockwork gears that continue to spin without a power source. Local whispers suggest he was obsessed with a “hollow echo” in the historical records, and a single scrap of parchment found in his drafting kit simply reads: “Where the ink of the ancients meets the silence of the deep, the stone breathes a secret the Enclave swore to keep.”