The Forges
The Forges are an active volcanic mountain range that covers an area the size of the island of Hawai’i – 10,000 sq.km. or 4000 sq.mi. It is sparsely populated on the surface, but more lively underground; A little more than 100,000 dwarves, gnomes, goblins, orcs, and other races live in, literally in, the Forges.
The dominant culture of the Forges is the Hewellen, an extended clan-nation of hill dwarves famous for their magical artificiing. Hewellen are semi-nomadic; they follow magma pockets through the Forges, using them as crucibles. This is what gives the mountain range its name. The Hewellen don't rule anything or anyone per se, but other peoples of the Forges—including other dwarven peoples, and also other races—tend to follow their lead culturally.
All the peoples of the Forges tend to live in smallish communities—some are connected through trade, religion, or political structures, but many are at least partly independent. There are only two settlements in the Forges large enough to compare to cities—at least, only two that are known to the outside world.
Éagrim is the largest settlement in the Forges. It is a famous centre of magical craftsmanship; people boast of their family-heirloom Éagrim magical artefacts the way they might show off their Tiffany lamp. Éagrim was founded by and is still run by the Hewellen, who built a forge and then a workshop around an active magma bubble. Quite a few non-human and non-dwarven people live there now; any non-Hewellen artificer in the Sealands is very likely to have been trained in Éagrim, or to claim so if they weren't.
Éagrim's magma bubble has cooled now. It's not clear what this means for the future of the settlement.
The other settlement of any size is Saman, the Hewellen "capital". It's really more of a trading-place, where Hewellen periodically come together for trade and for cultural exchange, rituals, etc. Saman's population swells and ebbs dramatically with the seasons. It is always the home of the Saman Line, a magical means in which artificers around the world can communicate using speaking stones. The Saman Line is essentially a switchboard, with some Hewellen receiving messages from far-off artificers and sending them along to others. This communication network has played a big part in the Hewellen's cultural dominance. Many members of the Tinkers are a part of the Saman Line; this is part of the reason the organisation exists.
These are the large settlements that generally have any contact with the rest of the world. There is one more sizeable settlement in the Forges, called Five Bells. This is the centre of the goblin peoples of the Forges, so called because it consists of five vast interconnected caverns deep under the surface. The goblins have the only unified kingdom in this part of the world; Five Bells is the capital of their kingdom, or possibly most of the kingdom itself, but its nature, size, population, etc. are not known to outsiders.
Type
Mountain Range