Forgeanvil District
Forgeanvil is the tradecraft and mining district. This is the deepest part of the city and sometimes considered its fiery beating heart in part to the building-sized forges that burn constantly.
Here, metalsmiths learn their trade from the Emberhands and Forgemaker priests. Metal ore is purified, heated and reshaped for use in trade crafts, tools, weapons, or parts for the city.
Branches extend off the cavernous main chamber in all directions like a spider’s web. These are the mine shafts to the rich veins of metal that run through the mountain. Today, Etrillon survives as much, if not more, on trade, but the mines are still actively worked for minerals, gems and metals.
The Famous and the Infamous
Two locations in this district are of significant note in the district. First would be the oldest establishment in Etrillon and the other would be the most dangerous. These are the Great Secrets Inn and The Root.
The Great Secrets Inn is the oldest inn in Etrillon. It is primarily a place more frequented by the locals, since they have developed a natural sense of the tunnels in Etrillon’s underground districts. So when visitors find their way to the Great Secrets Inn, it's both a surprise and possibly a reason for celebration.
This inn is also the home of the Etrillon Breweries Society, a guild of brewers in the region that are known for their unusual, or unique, fermented drinks. The most memorable is the drink known as Snarlgrog.
Where the Great Secrets Inn is warm and welcoming, the Root is anything but that.
There are many legends and myths that tell cautionary tales about Geldarian miners that delve too deep under the ground. In those tales, those miners often found or woke something best left undisturbed. There is some truth to those legends.
They found something there, down in the shafts called The Root. No one in Geldar talks about it. When asked, they make the sign of the Forgemaker Augustin and change the topic…
Or have somewhere else to be…
The Root, where the shadows are alive... by CB Ash
The Root is the name for a collection of mine shafts that, at first, produced the highest quality iron ore ever seen. Rich quartz iron that glimmered as if with an inner light. This allowed the Emberhands Society to craft tools and weapons with a quality never seen before.
Then a strange gibbering and whispering was heard in the tunnels. Miners vanished after descending into the mines. Of the few bodies that were recovered, they were drained of blood and their remains calcified. Survivors working in the Root told tales of misshapen creatures with metal-laden forms reaching for them out of the darkness.
Some called them demons and claimed someone had accidentally connected the tunnels of the Root to a foul part of the Outlands. Others whispered it was the fabled Foul Host that nearly destroyed the world ages ago. Other rumors say that miners dug too deep and opened portals to the vile Shadowlands.
No one is quite certain what is in the depths of the Root, as the city Senate had the tunnels sealed with iron and stone doors. A special order, called the Firebrand Company, trained to stand watch and keep the doors sealed.
It’s been recorded that something has tried to breach the door six times in recorded history. The Firebrand Company keeps records of the events in their fortress set in the Upper Halls. Visitors may not view these records, only those who have successfully trained as a member of the company may learn the truth.
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