Bophar

A dwarven town which held the secret to a cheap method of refining a light easily worked metal.

Industry & Trade

Bophar's main product and export was dorinium. With a much cheaper and more efficient process for extracting the McTarveks could easily undercut the competition. However, they struggled to make a significant profit as the Bophar was not self-sufficient and pushing the price of dorinium too high resulted in the other clans increasing the price of goods needed by the settlement. Transport costs for goods going into and out of Bophar were also extremely high due to the need for a large number of guards and the distance between Bophar and it's trading partners.

History

During the second age a small clan of dwarves, the McTarveks, developed a new method for refining dorinium out of Derylite (more commonly known as bauxite in The Alliance). Unwilling to surrender any advantage by revealing their techniques they left the Magrannor Halls for the Savage Lands to found their own settlement near a source of Derylite.
Like most dwarven settlements Bophar was built underground, with almost no trace of it on the surface. Due to the McTarveks' paranoia about someone stealing their techniques the location of Bophar was not revealed to the other clans. Trade was always conducted some distance from the town and the McTarveks dealt harshly with anyone who tried to follow them back to Bophar.
As the first years of darkness engulfed the world the McTarveks were given the opportunity to rejoin their kin in the Magrannor Halls. However, the leaders of Bophar were convinced that the demon raids were just a fabrication designed to lure them away from Bophar so that the other clans could plunder their secrets. Bophar was locked down to ensure that no-one could leave and give away their location, and the McTarveks settled in to wait for a few years, after which time they assumed the other clans would be clamouring for their product.
When the third age began there were no people to spare to try to find out what had happened to Bophar, though most assumed the town had been overrun by the demons. A few attempts were made to try to locate Bophar about 200 years into the third age, but no trace could be found of it. Since then there has generally been an attempt to located it every 50 of years or so, but so far none of these expeditions have been successful.

RUINED SETTLEMENT
420 C8 (dwarven reckoning)

Type

Town

Location under

Savage Lands

While the location of Bophar was lost stories persist about a way to find it. There is said to be a riddle which can show the path to Bophar, provided one can find the right starting point. This starting point is supposed to be a monument of stone and dorinium which was build by the McTarvek's to celebrate their success in defeating a large orc tribe. Unfortunately, the location of this monument (Hulgin’s Spire) has also been lost. The well known explorer Orryn Steelfist spent a century trying to locate the spire.