Hammer Peak
Órdàirde, the Crúnhold of the Dwarrowfolk
The Crúnhold of the dwarven people, and center of dwarven culture. The Hammer Peak serves as the capital for Anvil Vale, and is easily the largest settlement in the Vale or Starfrost Mountains. Hammer Peak is home to the Mòrag, as the Clanmoot is called in the dwarrowcánan (language of the dwarves), and every one of the Great Clans has a clanhold within. The days of nobles ruling dwarf-kind are past, though: Hammer Peak is administrated by the Guildsmoot, the gathering of the Guildmasters. Loch Hammer (called Lochòrd by the dwarves) sits in the bowl of Hammer Peak's highest reaches, and its waters feed the mighty citadel.
Layout
Hammer Peak is a massive hold, capable of housing far more people than it currently does. The Thanehold is divided into five separate complexes.
The Halls of War
Talla-Cogadh
All entrances in and out of the Thanehold go through the Halls of War. To any visitor, it is clear that this is probably one of the best-defended places in the Vale, as visitors and inhabitants alike are required to pass through a gauntlet of watchful soldiers and impressive seige engines built into the very walls of the passages here. The Halls of War also hold the armories, barracks, mustering grounds and training facilities for the soldiers of the Thanehold.
New arrivals through the Underroad passages that lead to Caer Stormhold, Caer Goldhelm, or Hammergate must pass through immense fortifications where every visitor is challenged for their names and business. They are then directed through circuitous routes that take them past multiple defensive structures, in a display that more than one visitor has supposed is intended to impress the impregnibility of Hammer Peak upon them; most agree that it does its job quite well.
From the Halls of War, only the Chamber of Echoes, above it, are accessible. If necessary, however, ventilation systems can be shut off to pump the poisonous fumes of the Foundries, below it, into the air here – a last-ditch defensive measure.
The Chamber of Echoes
Seòmar Æcho
The large central thoroughfare and parade grounds of the Peak, the Chamber of Echoes is so called because of the constant hustle and bustle the day through. The city's markets, shops and non-clan housing is located here, and the humans who live in the Thanehold all have their homes in this location. The ceilings in this place sit deep in shadow, rising quite high above the ground here, leaving ample room for buildings many stories in height. Nearly all of the buildings here have shops on the ground floor, with rising levels of balconies and staircases leading to them, giving access to apartments.
High above the halls is a great open fane, with a small jutting railed balcony. This incredible vantage point is the Speaker's Height, a prestigious alehall that is used for public pronouncements during festivals and times of trouble, and otherwise acts as a place where the most prestigious of the city might be seen to be mingling with other important persons. Once all members of the Great Clans were guaranteed a place in this hall, but these days the Guilds seem to dominate the entry to the Height, turning away all but the most important and powerful clanfolk.
Two ramps curve up from the Halls of War below, and at the far end of the main thoroughfare sits the ramps that curve in two directions: one toward the Folkhold and the other toward the Halls of the Hammer. Tucked away in one direction is the series of lifts that are marvels of engineering, providing easy access to the Foundries in the roots of Hammer Peak. Though there are ancient staircases that lead into the Foundries, they remain unused after generations of easy passage for workers and ore alike via the lifts.
The Hammerstrike Foundries
Òrdstailc Fùirneis
The lowest portions of the Thanehold are called the Hammerstrike Foundries. Though human legends claim that these foundries run on the molten rock of the Deepearth, that is not the case. Instead, these wide, open areas hold massive facilities for engineering, smithing, foundry-work, forging and similar endeavors. The deepest parts of the Foundries are actually mines, from which the dwarves extract iron, silver and other useful materials, as well as the occasional diamond vein. Ancient but ingenious ventilation systems funnel all the harmful fumes and smoke out of the lower parts of the city, channeling them through vents that let out high in the mountains, but part of the city's defense system includes a mechanism that can be used to flood the Halls of War with the caustic, choking effluvia of the city's industrial bowels.
The easiest means of reaching the Foundries is through the lifts from the Chamber of Echoes. There are also old stairs built into the rock from the Foundry, but they are largely sealed up and unused.
The Folkhold
The Folkhold is the revered cultural center of the Thanehold, and the home of the dwarven clans. Each clan has by rights an impressive clanhold in the Folkhold, an exhaustive set of proper dwarven accomodations, with plenty of room for dozens of family members, massive nurseries, armories and treasure vaults. Of course, less than half of the clanholds are occupied, and none of them are filled to capacity. Still, the dwarven clans take a great deal of pride in keeping the exteriors of their clanholds in excellent order, with polished marble and metal fixtures, elaborate water fountains and fine statuary.
The ramp down from the Folkhold leads to the Chamber of Echoes.
The Halls of the Hammer
The Halls of the Hammer are the cultural and political heart of Hammer Peak. Once the dominion of the Dwarro-Crún, the ancestral king of dwarvenkind, his ancient seat remains undisturbed, sitting on its high dias, with a cushion that bears the ancient crown of dwarvenkind upon it. The hall the throne sits in bears the great Guildmoot table, and the ancient clanhold for the royal clan has been made into a gathering place for the masters of all the Guilds, the so-called Mastershold. The members of the Guildmoot maintain apartments in the Mastershold.
The Halls also hold the ancient Runehall archive, the ancient histories and archive of the dwarven people. It is still tended by an order of historians and scriveners who make it their business to find out everything they can about everything, so that it may be recorded in its entirety.
The ramp down from the Halls of the Hammer leads to the Chamber of Echoes.
Denizens
Drakes
There are a variety of drakes that have taken up residence throughout Hammer Peak (and the two other Caers as well). Unlike dragons, drakes have a tendency to conform their lives to fit the environs around them, hunting for conditions that suit them well and then nestling into that niche as far as others will allow them to do. They aren't particularly territorial about such things, either: they can be (and frequently are) chased away from situations, and will sometimes slink back when they think no one is paying attention.
- Alehouse Drake: Tiny. Small drakes that love two things: alcohol and gossip. Dwarven alehalls are used to these little beasts showing up, begging for a spill. Some even go so far as to adopt a likeable one, giving it a small bowl to tot around with for folk to pour out a little from their own tankards in exchange for some of the squeaky-voiced gossip these drakes have to offer.
- Ash Drake: Small. Larger drakes with a fondness for ash, smoke, and soot, ash drakes often make their dens in the ceilings of the citadels, where smoke rises up over the centuries. They also cluster about in the rafters of smelter and foundry chambers, where concentrations of smoke intoxicate and delight them. They are also known to nest in and around the chimneys of dwelling-places.
- Bathhouse Drake: Medium. The size of large mastiffs, no proper dwarven bathhouse would be caught dead without a resident bathhouse drake. This is such a tradition that dwarves designing a bathhouse consider it imcomplete if it doesn't have lairing space for at least one, and preferrably several. The relaxing steam these drakes exhale is one of the main reasons patrons visit them, and the imperious drakes love being so vital. They are also good at keeping the tubs up to temperature and generally overseeing the atmosphere of such places. It is dwarven tradition to treat a bathhouse drake as the imperious host of such an establishment rather than a servant of some kind.
- Gem Drake: Tiny. Also known as "gem rats," gem drakes are very small drakes who love precious (and not so precious) minerals. Mines attract them as surely as storehouses attract rats, and they are similarly pest-like. They scurry across the floor and gather up small shards of unworked minerals, each of them attempting to gather a hoard of gems. Particularly daring ones might swoop down and try to make off with unsecured gems, worked or otherwise as well! Lapidary workshops have to be very careful to drake-proof their spaces.
- Pact Drake: Small. Pact drakes have long made nests within the Halls of the Hammer where they've overseen and witnessed a hundred different pacts and agreements over the centuries. They are even more prolific today, for the Guilds make these sorts of agreements even more than the Clans ever did, and there is plenty to keep pact drakes busy.
- Paper Drake: Small. Though this breed of drake is something of a menace, given their ability to rub the writing off of pages and onto their own papery hides, there is a lineage of paper drakes who help to defend the Runehall. They consider it their sacred duty to defend the ancient archive, and do so by alerting the librarians to intruders (or driving them off if they are other paper drakes).
