Smerdar

The Smerdar form the vast majority of Nidavellir's population. They are the workers that toil in the forgers, the menial labourers maintaining crumbling infrastructure, servants to Skutilar and Druzhina alike. By their hands walls are erected, weapons take shape, and goods are moved. Their life is one of barely tolerable suffering, their wellbeing relevant only in the sense that a starving worker does not meet production quota. With their amount of alotted food, water, and air filters always being just enough to survive, even small interruptions to daily proceedings can have massive effects on the smerdar. When deferred maintenance caused a minor capacitor backup to fail, leaving the block signals on a two kilometer stretch of the Stozernam - Tsargard maglev connection without power for half an hour, a train carrying replacement air filters for the 658 Liquid Chemical Installation was delayed, and henceforth pushed back in the transportation schedule, as not to delay shipments deemed more crucial to Tithe fulfillment. This resulted in nearly 20.000 smerdar running out of usable filters for their breathing aparatus, a run on nearby commissaries with filters still in stock and, upon being denied these filters, widespread looting and pillaging, resulting in a house Vukovik Druzhina being called in and repressing the riots with heavy casualties amongst the workers.
To offworlders, this might seem an inefficiency, a needless cruelty. In fact, even amongst the smerdar, there are many saying such in hushed whispers. To the Skutilar however, this is different. They only regard the Tithe, and see the amount of workers as merely one of many numbers on an asset ledger, to be maintained yes, but not given special regard. The risks of riots and the production delays caused by having to replace any killed workers are to be taken into account, with the option most desirable being the most productive one, not the one with the least casualties.
Whereas Skutilar largely share a culture of ceremony and courtly life, and the Druzhina have the traditional soldier's bond, smerdar life is too fragmented and diverse to really form any shared sense of identity. Cargo checkers tasked with administrating the loading and offloading of cargo do not share much with a dustsweeper, who knows little what life as a foundryman is like. This combines with strong efforts from the Skutilar to ensure no bonds of kinship form between disparate groups. This has not always been effective, as the recent uprising by the Gardareik Worker's Regiment has shown. In truth, any efforts aimed at frustrating the smerdar fight for better lives can only ever be a delaying action, as conditions are such that every day many workers all across Nidavellir find their situation hopeless enough that breaking out from the vice like grip of the Skutilar and their Druzhina enforcers becomes the only road open to them.