Forger

The Forger is an ancient being who created the spheres themselves. He appears as a giant golden mechanical being with horns emerging from his head. While jolly in temperament, he often exhibits a casual disregard for the lives of those who have taken root in his creations. When civilizations first emerged on the spheres, he viewed them as unwanted pests and waged war to exterminate them. He was defeated and imprisoned atop his forge by the hero Olaf, who led the ancient Geit clans against him. After many years watching organic life rise and fall across the spheres, he came to appreciate them--or so he claims.
The Party freed him in order to help fix the ailing spheres like Mong Bal and Diamond, which he claims he can do over the course of centuries. He is also building them a ship to travel beyond the Rim so they can find the Orphan Sphere, while accompanying them from time to time on their journeys as an escort for their ship. He has promised not to harm organic life during his second lease on life, but whether he will keep that promise or if anyone has the power to stop him if he doesn't remain open questions.

Loyalty: 1d6
Influence: 1d4
Faction: The Shapers
Enemies: The Progenitors

Free Services: Lanar Transport. The Forger can create temporary lanes between worlds for ease of travel. Allows the Nomad to immediately travel to an adjacent sphere from the space it currently occupies. Cool Down 1 week.

Free Services: Engineering Expertise. The Forger diverts the mechanical prowess of The Forge to manufacture goods and synthesize materials. Gain 2d12 to any All Nighter Engineering or Shipwright Test or repair one artifact without paying material costs.

Insight: Mineral Sense. The Forger scans topographical data to locate meteor impact sites or rare mineral deposits. Cool Down 1 week.

Escort: The Forger. The Forger may be used as an escort to provide assistance. He has no jurisdictional limits and his raw combat capabilities are roughly equivalent to that of a Galleon (1d10).

Special: Battle Terraforming. Once per battle, the Forger can use terraforming to assist in combat in one of the following ways.
-Tidal Blast: Sends a rip current that can carry ships great distances. Reposition the ships to any distance.
-Rejuvenate: Sends a spark of life that temporarily reanimates the wood inside the ship’s Hull. Restore all Ship Damage taken this turn.
-Wind Shield: Grants +10 to Lift for one turn.

Creating the Spheres

Before the history of the spheres, during the age of the Progenitors in the Old World, two civilizations reigned: the Jallen, who lived in space; and The Reikeh, who lived on planets. Their civilizations entered a conflict called the Hyperion War, that tore the cosmos asunder and destroyed all the stars in the sky.
The Forger emerged in the aftermath of this conflict, hired by the remnants of the Progenitors to create a new world from the wreckage of the old one. It was the Forger's nature to create, and he relished in the task. However, he did not complete the feat alone. The source of his power comes from The Forge, a tower located on Jotun's north pole that harnessed immense elemental powers. The Forger harnessed The Forge's power through his hammer, giving him the ability to strike the earth to create any terrain upon it that he desired.
Even with such immense power, the creation of new worlds proved too great a task for a single entity. Using The Forge's power, he created a race of elemental constructs called the Shapers. Each was given individual tasks to shape the spheres, from the seas to the fields to the skies. Many ancient cultures held myths that--in one form or another--told of this creation process. In one told by the Illithid, when the spheres still glowed hot with magma, the Forger created the four tradewinds to cool them. In order to motivate them to work, he set up a race across the spheres, promising his favoritism and dominion over the skies to whoever won. Little did the Forger's children know, he had given all the winds the same speed. Their race continuein perpetual stalemate circulating the air across the spheres to accomplish the Forger's goal of cooling them.
In time, the Forger grew bored simply commanding automatons and wanted to create life. He set about building his first children, the Fire Giants. Towering beings of brass with flaming smoke stacks for heads. They wandered Jotun's icy climes, the first world their father created, in harmony. While the fire giants possessed some hallmarks of life as we know it, such as the ability to reproduce, they were still the creations of a mechanical being whose knowledge lie in great feats of engineering and, at the end of the day, knew and understood little about living beings. Even though the Fire Giants possessed some degree of free will, they never flourished or created great civilizations as the Progenitors once had.

The Saints' War

One the Forger completed his task, nature accomplished what he could not, and organic life emerged on the spheres. At first, the Forger was delighted. However, as that life grew more complex and formed neolithic civilizations, his attitude soon changed. Rather than appreciate his creations, they levelled his forests, burrowed holes into his mountains, and damned his rivers. They took the stones and trees he so immaculately placed and made mockeries of them by constructing huts and boats. It didn't take long for the Forger to decide that these new arrivals were nothing but pests out to ruin his work, and set about to destroy them.
The Forger sent his shapers and fire giant children to destroy the first organic civilization that emerged in his worlds, the Geit. At first, the effort proved easy. The Geit had barely emerged from the stone age, while the Forger commanded advanced machines that could shape the earth itself. But the Forger underestimated the Geit's resilience and cleverness, and overtime they managed to defend a small foothold in Jotun's southern hemisphere.
The remnants of the Progenitors who had originally tasked the Forger with creating the spheres were none too happy to learn about his genocidal activities against organic life. They sent a powerful warrior named Olaf, who wielded a resonant arm called the Hawking Axe whose energy blade glowed as bright as the sun. Olaf united the chiefs of all the remaining Geit clans for an offensive against the Forger's home.
The conflict came to be known as the Saints' War, an earthshaking battle between mechanical and organic life for domination over the spheres. In the end, Olaf and the Geit won. Dueling atop a meteor, Olaf bested the Forger, and claimed his forge for the benefit of the organic life the Forger sought to destroy.

Imprisonment

After his victory, Olaf did not destroy the Forger for his transgressions. His link to The Forge was too valuable an asset, and Olaf knew that the people of the spheres might some day need to call upon its power again. However, Olaf also feared what the primitive Geit might do with unrestricted access to the Forger's power. He knew the Forger's reticence about organic life bore kernels of truth, and even Olaf's own advanced society had wrought great destruction with the powers they wielded.
So, Olaf bound the Forger and his Shapers to a pact, which came to be called the Old Ways. The Geit victors could access The Forge's power to build their civilization, but only if they offered sacrifices of equal weight. To oversee this system, he placed the leaders of each Geit clan in charge of various aspects of The Forge's power--each discarding thier mortal bodies for immortal machine ones and becoming the saints of the Geit pantheon. To earn favorable tides, the Geit would need to offer some of their ships in the rite of Raina. For bountiful harvests, they needed to cordon and offer tracts of land untouched by civilization in the rite of Tormund.
The most difficult and brutal pact was the rite of Olaf. One that involved the sacrifice young fire giants to harvest ember hearts that could power a Geit city for generations. However, this rite required the recipient to sacrifice their first born children for the entirety of their line as payment. While Olaf's charges, oversaw these rites, Olaf himself kept the Forger bound to a meteor suspended above The Forge. For a time, the Old Ways prevailed, and the Geit civilization flourished in measured steps.

Fall of the Saints

Few great plans ever survive the ravages of time, and Olaf's solution proved no exception. Some of the victorious Geit, who expected to inherit the power of gods, became dissatisfied with the limitations that Olaf placed on their victory. What was more, Olaf's sanity deteriorated over his long vigil. He had kept his organic body and was said to have succumbed to terrible nightmares in his isolation. Shrike, the saint who oversaw the winds and the skies, came to believe that Olaf's fear held their potential back. He wanted to use The Forge's power to explore and create beyond the confines of the Rim.
He staged a coup against Olaf, momentarily taking control of The Forge. However, even in his machine body, The Forge's power proved too difficult for a mortal mind to harness. Shrike's power corrupted The Forge, creating the Shrikevind that tore a hole through space and time and still ravages Jotun to this day. Using the Shrikevind, Shrike scattered Olaf's Geit followers across time, past the rise and fall of many civilizations. Shrike eventually fell to the Geit saint of war, Tyr, but not before his coup had done irrevocable damage.
The Geit who occupy the spheres today are the descendants of these time-displaced tribes. Long seperated from their ancient history, the sagas of Olaf and his defeat of the Forger fell into legend. As the Geit Saints lost their followers, the shapers began to slip away from The Forge's control, becoming nectar drinkers who relied on nectar to survive. They turned against Olaf in pursuit of their own goals, making pilgrimages to The Forge to make offerings all but impossible. One by one, the clans abandoned the Old Ways, chipping away at Olaf's pact keeping the Forger bound until only one faithful clan remained.

Freedom

During the Forger's long imprisonment, he observed life spread across the spheres. He came to accept a begrudging appreciation for that which he once hated. While not as elegant or meticulous as his own creations, life had the power to do something that the Forger's machines could not--surprise him. Sometimes those surprises were unwelcome, horrifying even. But that free will also allowed for creations that the Forger, while viewing as imperfect, could not deny their beauty.
When the Koan empire conquered Jotun, the last vestiges of the Old Ways fell out of favor. However, one the northernmost clan on Jotun, the Habroks continued to fight Koan occupation. In spite of centuries of prayer and sacrifice with no visible return, the Habroks remained loyal to the Old Ways. However, without access to Koan technology to maintain the city's core, the heart of ember that kept their city warm soon began to die out. The Forge had become far to dangerous for ordinary piligrimage, but in order to secure the Habrok's assistance against the White Lion Armada, the Party ventured to the top of The Forge, defeated Olaf, and performed his rite one last time.
The Forger took the opportunity to bargain for his freedom, promising to help cure the ailing spheres such as Mong Bal and vowing not to harm organic life again. The Corsairs debated the Forger’s proposition. While Wukong was generally against killing, the promise of reviving Mong Bal was too good to pass up. Simon, while recognizing the Forger could be useful, did not want to go back on his word to Queen Freya. Itthis was also against freeing the Forger, noting that once he was free, the Corsairs would have no guarantee that he would honor his word. Ultimately, the Corsairs decided to tentatively turn down the Forger’s offer. They sacrificed Iggy to create a heart of ember so that the Habrok clan could be saved.
After the battle of the North Sea, Simon asked Freya to consider abandoning the Old Ways and allowing her Clan to join modern Geit Society. Freya said that she would think it over and left the Corsairs for the evening. Upon waking, the Corsairs learned that Freya had left the clan in the night on her own.
While it was not clear exactly where she went, the last descendant of the saints who honored the old ways was now gone, and the Forger free. Unbound, the Forger agreed to lend his services to the Corsairs as a patron, while rebuilding The Forge so that one-day Mong Bal and the other decayed spheres could be restored. He reiterated his promise to refrain from harming organic beings, but only time would tell if he would keep it.