The Dwarven People of Bridge City

A city of hardy Dwarven people who live on a massive bridge that spans the great divide.

Population: 150,000

Heraldry: Three arched black bridges on a red and white field. Red and white field is used to define which dwarven house one belongs to. (Checkered, Quartered, Etc)

Racial Breakdown: 88% Dwarven, 6% human. 5% Elven(Wracked and First), 1% other.

Government type: Generational line of Lord Protectors with checks and balances combined with a Senate filled with Clan chiefs

Current ruler: Lord Protector Gergor Blackforge the Stalwart, Keeper of the Gates.

Current known alliances: The Twin Kingdoms of Anwyn, Trade partners with Neppen and the Necropolis of Myr

Current Wars: The Eternal Empire

Bridge City has a standing hostility towards Vrosa and does not allow True Dwarven banking houses or fortuneless Cohorts to establish themselves in the city.

During these dark times there remains one final bastion of the glory of the Dwarven People and that lies in the city state aptly named Bridge City. Bridge City spans the massive gorge known as the Great Divide separating the Twin Kingdoms of Anwyn from the Eternal Empire. It is a quarter mile wide and nearly fifteen miles long, its massive arches reaching down into the maw of the Great Divide. Both exits of the city are protected by three dwarven obsidian portcullis and massive drawbridges that limit movement making it one giant fortress. The entirety of the bridge is covered in slanting stone roofing, making the city nearly impervious to siege weaponry.

Dwarven Obsidian

For millennia the Dwarves were rich in the most durable, lightest, and sharpest substance to be found on Bil’Hanna. Dwarven Obsidian. Found only in the depths of the Great Divide it can be melted and forged into the most deadly non-divine infused weapons/armor in the world. It is also the primary resource used to make portals, paths through the elsewhere that shorten the distance between any two locations. Its major drawback is that the alchemy process used to refine it instills in it a fatal flaw. The lifespan of Dwarven Obsidian is one hundred and one years.  Exactly, one hundred and one years to the day, hour, and minute. At that moment the object in question will crumble to a black dust. At one time this was the backbone of Bridge City’s economy, but the shortage of the last few hundred years had crippled not just the city, but the Dwarven people as a whole (see History below). The new veins discovered by Warchief  the Obsidian Fisted, have brought new life back into the city.

### History

Bridge City was built for the sole purpose of bringing obsidian up from the depths and forging/melting it into various goods. Nearly three hundred years ago the mines went nearly dead, leaving only a trickle to bring to the surface.  The wealth and the strength of the Dwarven people went with it. As Bridge City slowly went bankrupt, the outer towns and villages of Dwarves lost their livelihoods as artisans and provayers of the rare glass. When the Eternal Empire began its expansion these villages rolled over with minimal resistance as they saw the Empire as a way to bring work back to their people, creating goods for the Empire’s war machine against the Dragon Kings.

Bridge City itself remained a free state but only barely. Collecting tax from the Empire as it shipped goods and troops to and from Albian (The western Kingdom of Anwyn)and providing those soldiers with goods and services as they crossed the city.

Things have changed. Twenty years ago, multiple Obsidian lodes were struck. Wealth then began to flow out of the city once again. The former Emperor died and the Twin Kingdoms of Anwyn rebelled. The Apis the Iron Bull, the heir-apparent lead his legions across the City to attempt to retake the rogue nations. After a brutal Campaign the Imperial legions were pushed all the way back to the Northern gates of Bridge City, only to find them closed. A Dwarven Forge mistress, Jedinna, whose family was the first to find a new obsidian lode rallied her people and held the walls. Because of this the legions were shattered, and the Iron Bull, in his escape, was forced to travel the entire length of the Divide before returning to the Empire. Many say this month's long disappearance is the reason his sister Stryx the Jade Claw was able to secure her power base and wrest control of the inner empire from her brother.

Since this time the Dwarven communities on either side of the City have been returning to the fold. Free trade with the Twin Kingdoms and free of the Imperial Taxes, the City is alive again but that does not mean there is a united front within the city. The population is torn between its loyalty to the Eternal Empire (especially from successful merchant clans) and this rise in dwarven nationalism that demands they take back their land and embrace their roots.

Since the mysterious death of the Iron Bull’s sister and his rise to the throne of the Eternal Empire, the border between the Eternal Empire and Bridge City is becoming more and more hostile, as the Emperor has made vocal his personal hatred for Jidenna.

### Notable people

#### Lord Protector Gergor Blackforge the Stalwart, Keeper of the Gates.

Gergor ruled over Bridge City as his father before him had for decades. Decades of savvy political maneuvering, manipulations, and pure will to keep Bridge City free of official Imperial control. When a lowly forgemaster rallied his city guard and a healthy portion of the population to take the gates and raise the bridges against the Imperial retreat, his rage was furious. It is said he stood in the tallest tower in the center of the city and watched the whole debacle happen with a spyglass, incapable of doing anything to stop it. Decades of political treatise suddenly gone in the blink of an eye.

Things didn’t get better when the last of the Imperial Legions were crushed either. When the upstart Jedinna walked into the Senate chambers and demanded she become the City’s new Warchief. An empty title with no weight that had been unbestowed in a generation. He watched helplessly as the Senators voted unanimously. Then immediately voted her a budget to raise a substantial troop to protect the city.

Warchief Jedinna and the Lord Protector often verbally spar on the Senate floor, he pushing for peace, and her wanting to take the war to the enemy’s doorstep. Only time will tell who will prevail in the end.The Lord Protector these days spends his time meeting out high justice when needed from the City’s keep and negotiating with Anwyn, Vrosa, and the Dragon Kings, hoping he can find help for when the Eternal Empire’s Legions finally get around to crushing his city state.

#### Warchief Jedinna the Obsidian-Fisted

She was born to a poor house. So poor they rented, not owned, their Clan Hall in Bridge City. Fifty miners and their families. A small clan to be sure. Most of which spent months in the Great Divide without seeing their families just so they could bring trinkets worth of Obsidian back to the surface to craft and trade.

Until the day she hit pay dirt. Not just pay dirt. It is believed it to be the largest node of Obsidian to be found in recorded history and she found it behind a wall in a tunnel that was hollowed out nearly a thousand years ago. Wealth. Only six inches away all this time. Popular rumors say that she was so angry at the empire, the poverty of her clan, the decline of her people, that one day she struck the stone with her bare hand and shattered the wall, revealing the glass to open air. This tale is so popular that the dwarven people have started calling her the “Obsidian-Fisted.”

True or not, the wealth and power of her Clan can no longer be denied. Where the generation before were crafters and miners, the younger have become warriors. Men and women of her Clan are now defying convention and have begun taking multiple wives/husbands. All with the purpose of filling out the Clan’s numbers. Bringing in gifted warriors and artisans alike.

With the Senate’s approval and her alliances among the Clans she has under her command three full troops which she uses to secure and protect Bridge City and the surrounding cities and villages for what she says will become “The First Dwarven Kingdom in a Millenium.” and at the rate she is going, she may not be wrong.

### The Dwarves of Bridge City’s stereotypical views

#### Refugees/Neppen

“They were the first to let us build a portal to their city. With luck, this is the start of a great alliance.”

#### The Eternal Empire

“Invaders and Conquerors. They will pay for what they have done to our people.”

#### Twin Kingdoms of Anwyn

“Their hatred for the Eternal Empire nearly matches our own. We could not ask for better allies.”

#### True Dwarves of Vrosa

“A Gnome offering you a loan, is like a thief knocking on your door and asking for your coffers. They make sport and money from blood. Never forget it. They cannot be trusted.”

#### First Elves

“Sad, and fading. We see fewer every year. It would be nice if they stopped buggering the wildlife. The monster population is getting a bit excessive in Southern Albian.”

#### Wracked Elves

“Most of these elves are honest and adventurous. They are free with their stories and often their coins. It is considered good luck to give one a meal and a pallet for the night.”

#### Slegorians

“I would respect them more, if they fought for causes, instead of fighting for the sake of fighting.”

#### Draconic Theocracies

“Touchy and dangerous. Territorial but rarely cruel. The Eternal Empire blames them for trapping them on Bil’Hanna. Yet, sometimes the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

#### Smaragdine

“I don’t even think these people exist anymore.”

#### Tarabuthian

“Humans are strange enough. But humans who only eat leaves and sometimes turn into animals? Bizarre. Good person at your side in the fight though.”