Giant's Wheel
The Otari Mill is known locally as the Giant's Wheel, as its towering 30-foot-diameter waterwheel is truly a sight to behold. The wheel's immense size is needed to generate enough torque to power the mechanized treadmill loading logs into the flume and keep the saws running within the mill. The Giant's Wheel has belonged to the Menhemes family for generations, but it isn’t exclusively used by the Otari Mill. The other two lumber companies pay to use the waterwheel, allowing Mayor Oseph Menhemes to keep an eye on his competition. The constant noise of the wheel’s grinding and churning competes with the whine of the saws and the clatter of the loading ramp. At night, the busywork of the mill can be heard in the town below.
Day-to-day operation of the Giant's Wheel and its mill fall to its foreman, the heavily scarred ex-gladiator named Klorte Hengus.
History
Completed in 4323 AR, the Giant's Wheel is the main reason for the growth of Otari as a thriving lumber town. Designed and commissioned by Maklanni Menhemes, granddaughter of Aesephna Menhemes, one of the town's founders it helped overcome one of the biggest issues confronting the town, transportation of timber from the nearby steep slopes and cliffs to the ocean. Maklanni's solution was ingenious, she constructed a wooden flume that allowed for the easy transport of lumber from the woods to her mill, and from there down an astounding loading ramp that extended from the top of the 200-foot-tall cliff to the harbor below. The mill and flume made Maklanni wealthy and revitalized Otari, although it made her an enemy of the Kortos Consortium , who, up till then, had a stranglehold on the island's lumber industry.
Founding Date
4323 AR
Alternative Names
The Otari Mill
Type
Mill
Parent Location
Owner
