[Center][H3]The Legendary Craftsman[/h3][/Center]
 
Uneven wooden creaking seemed to fill the air as the cart rolled along the uneven, wild ground.
 
The cart itself was mostly wooden, the wheels rimmed with a metal that simply had been seen or taken advantage of in this part of the world. The cart itself appeared to be relatively new and well made, but the journey over the Westfold's hilly, unpaved terrain had clearly taken a minor toll. The back of the cart was covered and tied down securely, while the stag pulling the cart did so without much in the way of complaining about the conditions.
 
Leading the elk on foot was a man, hooded and cloaked. From a distance not much could be discerned of his appearance under the cloak, but it was easy to see the beard that was dangling for all the world to see. The edges of it had gone grey, but near the flesh was still a strong, rich black. For a time, there was nothing but the hills but soon he spied the signs of civilization. A relatively small town, but for the region still a solid one. One that his master had taken a keen interest in shortly after he had gazed upon the world for the first time.
 
It wasn't his place to judge where his Master deemed suitable to send him on a mission like this, but he had to admit that there were worse places for a deity to focus their efforts on reshaping the way the world worked. They didn't even have dirt roads between settlements yet. A little bit of forging would do them the world of good.
 
As his cart finally arrived at the broader of the settlement, he was greeted by a large, burly looking man wearing some kind of multi-coloured dress and a beard you could nest a family of birds in with a rather gruff "Alright, ya Dûnan wanker. I don't care if you're here to trade, you can turn that bloody cart right around and shove ya wears straight up ya ars-" that was about as far as the man got before the Craftsman had calmly brought his elk to a stop, walked calmly up to the vulgar gentleman that was in the process of insulting him several times and proceeded to deliver an uppercut to the chin that lifted the somewhat taller man off his feet, into air and into the land of dreams before he landed on his back upon the ground.
 
While the act of a smaller, clearly older gentleman knocking out a young, bash man in his prime had clearly caught the attention of those nearby, after the Craftsman made sure the man was still alive and breathing he calmly returned to his horse and started to lead it again, looking at the nearest human (a woman this time) and asked "Is this Scawick?"
 
The look of shock gave way to confusion as she seemed to shudder back to a start. "Wha-"
 
"Is this Scawick?" The Craftsman asked again, keeping the same calm, collected tone he had used before. "I'm fairly certain I was heading the right way, but after a while the hills start to look the same and it would have damned annoying if I had gotten turned around at some point." He admitted with a small sigh.
 
The woman, clearly on edge at the civil but very clearly dangerous man that likely could cause her a great deal of trouble before help arrived if she started screaming, gulped as she nervously nodded her head. "Y-Yeah. This is Scawick. I-Is he going to be-"
 
"He'll be fine. He's just knocked out. Likely have a headache when he wakes up, but he's young. He'll recover... and hopefully with a rather important lesson about bad mouthing one’s elders." The Craftsman answered before she could finish the question. "Now, could you be a good lass and point me in the direction of... I'm not sure what the local word would be... the ones who work metal here?"
 
A rather timid "W-Why do you want to see the [i]gabhas[/i]?" escaped her lips as the young man on the ground started to return to the waking world with a groan... and promptly got a swift kick to the ribs for his troubles as the hooded old man lowered his cloak... and offered her a smile like a kindly grandfather.
 
"Because my dear, I'm going to make it so that the fools in Ha-Dûna are forced to acknowledge your people as equals, if not be forced to look up to you as their betters and I need the assistance of the [i]gabhas[/i] to do that. Would you kindly lead the way? And if you knew a good place I can water my elk that would be lovely."

“Don’t you move one inch, you fiend!” came a yell, and the groan of at least ten bowstrings. Seventeen men and women had lined up with whatever arms they had, pointing them threateningly at the stranger. A pair of young girls hurried over to the passed-out man on the ground, shouting, “Uncle! Uncle!”

The Craftsman blinked slightly as he turned to look at the sudden wall of bowstrings pointed directly at him and his elk. Honestly, considering that despite the fact that he had just laid out a taller, younger man he still appeared somewhat elderly, the show of force would honestly seem comedical to an outside observer. 

Clearly not afraid of the promise of injury and death before him, he still remained still as he answered “Is this how Scawick greets visitors these days? Insults and threats towards those who happen to have a few gray hairs? Where I’m from if you’re going to insult a man to his face, you shouldn’t be surprised when they take offense. I mean really… assuming I’m from Ha-Dûna.” He actually spat on the ground at the utterance of that sentence, as if the assumption was more insulting than the rest of his vulgar behavior. 

The militia exchanged baffled looks. “Visitor?! You just beat down a respected man in the street! Lerda is none other than Burud’s brother, he is!” Bowstrings whined deeper with tension. “You have until the count of three to turn away and never come back, outsider, or you’ll be finding yourself pushing up Jennesis’ daisies within the hour!”

For a moment, the Craftsman seemed to ponder the situation… before closing his eyes and muttering something softly to himself for only himself to hear. After a moment, a grunt escaped him as he let go of the rope of his elk and took several strides to the side so that he was clear of his cart, before opening his arms wide. “Go ahead. For reasons I am struggling to entertain, my master Droka seems to have taken a shine to your people and if a small demonstration of one of the gifts he wishes to offer you is what it takes to get you to take both of us seriously, then by all means, open fire.”

The Scawicks did as told, loosening a volley of arrows upon the stranger. Some of the arrows missed the target completely, either going slightly wide or above where the craftsman was standing. Some clearly gazed, but it was also clear that that clothing he wore was a little loose on his frame and thus didn’t actually do anything beyond slightly ruining his attire. Most however stuck true… and either bounced off completely, had the stone heads of the arrows shattered or even had the full arrow itself snap from the impact without doing any damage at all. 
Without a word, the old man reached up and calmly removed his ruined tunic, casting it aside and leaving himself wearing his trousers… and what appeared to be a coat that covered his chest t, all the way down to his upper legs, appearing like overlapping scales on some kind of reptile or fish that were crafted from a gray metal of which had never been seen worked in the Westfold before. “People of Scawick. My master, Droka the craftsdragon of the gods, bid me to come and enlighten your people of the gift of his knowledge of working metal, but also to teach you the secrets of how to work iron… the first settlement in Westfold and beyond to be gifted such knowledge. It is your decision if you decide to accept it or not.” 

Immediately, the mood shifted. Shocked by the ineffectiveness of their arrows and moved by the gospel of the stranger, the villagers descended to their knees and lifted their hands to the heavens. “Have our prayers finally been answered?!” came a cheer. “Have the gods finally seen our suffering?!” came another. “Praise be to the Craftsdragon! Scawick shall rise again!”
.....................................................................    

With the incident at the gate squared away ratherly cleanly (If Lerda felt that the matter hadn’t been settled properly, it had been made rather clear to him that if he wanted to try fighting him again, the Craftsman would be more then willing to whoop his arse in round two), the figure that had introduced himself simply as Hamarr (Since mortals were so strange about the whole ‘name’ thing) had quickly arranged for a gathering of the [i]gabhas[/i] of Scawick… which was honestly not that large a gathering. 

Even with the insistence that apprentices should also be present the numbers were still rather low… so Hamarr had also allowed several of Scawick’s youngest adults who hadn’t quite found their calling in life to be present as well. 

Somewhat happy with the numbers now, Hamarr was finally content to speak with the inhabitants of the longhouse selected for this meeting. “I will start by saying that I am aware that many of you have responsibilities and duties that you have to attend to outside of the lessons I intend to teach. Droka is a working god and is well aware that for a settlement the size of Scawick, every man, woman and child is required to pull their weight.” 

To that end, before this meeting is over I will be dividing you all into groups. Not only will it allow me to be able to focus on educating and training you all better as individuals, but it also means that while I’m working with one group, I am not depriving Scawick of people from fulfilling their obligations. I trust that will be acceptable for all of you?”

Giving a moment to allow the crowd to raise any objections, Hamarr continued easily. “With that out of the way, I believe we can get started. I’m sure you’re all interested in learning what iron actually is and why you haven’t heard of it before my arrival. The sad truth is that the reason iron is unheard of is quite simply because the world is currently focused on bronze.” 
“That isn’t to say that the focus on bronze is unwarranted. Has anyone here ever had the pleasure of seeing a bronze weapon before? But alas, bronze is difficult to produce. In order to produce bronze, one requires copper as a key ingredient, but also tin or arsenic to mix with it… neither of which is present in the Westfold in any meaningful way. Truth is, Tin is rather rare and while arsenic is much more common, it is also incredibly dangerous to the health of the [i]gabhas[/i] using it. Even if you do everything correctly, it will slowly kill you over time.”

His small warning given, Hamarr moved on to the point with his hands behind his back. “So while distant civilisations fight over control of tin and copper deposits, iron has been ignored. It is generally somewhat deeper in the ground  then the former two, but I will teach you how to locate it from the surface… but the real reason that iron is ignored when compared to copper and bronze is that by comparison, iron is much more difficult to work with.”

“The flames hot enough to melt copper and bronze are nowhere near enough to melt iron. One of the secrets that Droka wishes for me to impart on all of you is how to create a furnace that can produce enough heat to melt iron into a workable form. Now, are there any questions before I split you all into groups and get your training started?”      

One of the workers raised a hand. “Now forgive me for asking this, but we can hardly get kilns that melt copper in this land - how will we make anything hot enough to melt something even harder than that?”

Hamarr actually offered a small grin at the question. “That is a very good question. The answer is surprisingly simple once you know it, but if you were starting from scratch with trial and error it would likely take generations of hard work, refinement and mixed degrees of success and failure to figure it out. However, we’re going to get around all of that because Droka decided to let us in on that little secret… as well as teach you a little something that’s… well, a little magical.” 

For a moment he seemed rather eager to offer a demonstration of what he meant but… Hamarr paused to think for a moment as he glanced around at where they were. Reeling himself back in, he sighed as he admitted “As much as I would like to offer a physical example at this moment, I confess that would be a poor idea. It would be better to have already taught and produced the new furnace beforehand first. That said, I guess there is no harm in telling you what you’ll be learning.”

Taking a breath, the older man had a fire in his eyes as he explained with a clap of his hands as he suddenly brought them around to his front “You see, Droka had a look at Westfold before he sent me here. Normally, he would have taken a more natural approach like teaching you how to turn wood into charcoal or locate an alternative resource to fuel the furnaces to burn hot enough but even if Westfold had enough resources to sustain such a thing, Scawick at this time simply doesn’t have the numbers or strength to safely secure such things. So instead  he’s going to teach you how to enchant stone to burn hot enough for our purposes.” 

“Any other questions?” 

The crafters looked at one another. “What… What if someone takes this knowledge from us? What if the Dûnans get their hands on this and use it to enslave us?”

“What, are you going to tell them?” another accused.

“Of course not, but what if someone does?! Or what if they put a spy among us? Fìrinn sees all, as we know - they could be watching us right now, and their druids could be listening in!”

The look of amusement on Hamarr’s face would have been priceless if they had truly known of his true nature, rather than just as the priest of Droka. “Oh, I have heard of the druids. They would not be able to replicate the trick I am going to teach you for a rather simple reason. The method that druids use to gain access to their magical abilities means that they can’t really access forms of magic outside of the abilities they gain access to. I could literally have a druid here and explain in great detail how to do what I’m going to teach you all to them… and they wouldn’t be able to do it.”

A sigh… did escape him as he conceded “The furnace itself… Truthfully, figuring out how it is made would not be difficult. How to use it effectively, even more so without understanding how to fuel its flame properly… that’s a whole different matter. The reason I talked about turning wood into charcoal first is because wood by itself wouldn’t burn hot enough. It needs to be altered into another state to be able to create flames hot enough… and fun fact, turning wood into charcoal is incredibly wood intensive. Ha-Dûna doesn’t have access to enough wood to be able to sustain iron production on a scale large enough to properly arm itself.”

The crafter didn’t seem convinced, shaking his head and pointing to the west. “I’m not afraid they’ll figure out how to do it - that’d be the best outcome, ‘cause they’d leave us alone if that was the case. We know these people - if we have something that could give them an edge, even if it’s just a rumour, they will come for us - and unless we can give them the knowledge, they will take us alive and make us wish we were dead by forcing us to make these stones for them!” He looked around at his colleagues and received supportive hums and nods. “How can we avoid that?”

Hamarr went to open his mouth to respond… before he stop himself. Instead of answering right away, he reached up a hand to stroke his chin through his beard as a look of contemplation arose on his features. After a few moments, he finally decided to answer “Would you mind if I discuss the matter with Droka before I give you all an answer?”

“Do what you wish, of course.”

Nodding his head, he decided to press on. “Now then, I guess we can organize groups now. Let’s do this by experience shall we? Fully trained [i]gabhas[/i] in one group, apprentices in another and those who are just starting to learn in a third.”

…………………………………………………….

In the days and weeks to follow, Hamarr proved that what he may have lacked in public speaking skills, he made up for by being a masterful teacher. Splitting his students into smaller groups of around the same skill level allowed him to tailor his lessons for each in order to better get his points across. 

For the [i]gabhas[/i]’ themselves, he respected their experience at the craft, treating them more like peers that he was merely showing new tricks and ideas to rather than as a straight up teacher. For the apprentices he treated them as a stern but fair instructor, making sure that his instructions were clear, the reasons behind them explained cleaning and expecting them to be able to do great things.

The third group was the most interesting. Since they lacked the basics that the other two groups had, Hamarr was able to set the foundation that these young adults could be building their life’s work up from. 

The first step for all three groups was the new design for the furnaces. Stones were used to produce a chimney looking structure that on completion would be just shy of most shoulders of the men of Scawick, with earth being used to provide a shallow layer of covering in order to better contain and focus the heat within. Near the bottom, small pipes made of clay (through Hamarr did suggest that pipes could also be made of metal) were present through the side walls to allow air to flow into the furnace. 

Hamarr taught two different versions of the furnace, with one having an opening at the bottom that would allow the [i]gabha[/i] to remove the metal within and a version that could be made with clay that could be tipped over so that the metal could be removed from the top. When asked why, the Craftsman easily explained that both options were valid since they did the same thing and it was more a matter of personal taste and what resources were at hand which design was used.    

The second step was the creation of the forge-stones. It was a simple name, but it suited their needs for the short term (and Hamarr did make it clear that if they wanted to change the name at any point they were more then welcome to, naming things wasn’t his strong point). The idea behind the forge-stone was, as the Craftsman had explained, an enchantment… and a rather basic one at that.

 It consisted of three runes that had to be carved into the stone that you wanted to turn into a forge stone; The first was a simple ‘heat’ rune that, once mana started to run through it, would start to heat up the thing it was connected to. The second was a rune that naturally drew mana towards it to infuse into the object much like the first did. 

The third rune was what made the forge-stones actually worth having through, due to the fact that it was brand new and not just a shape ‘borrowed’ after Droka took a quick glance towards the pre-existing shapes he could spot when he looked at the mana of the world. The third rune was designed to, once the forge-stone was activated by the addition of the other two runes, to collect just a small ember of Droka’s divine power to empower the other two to better serve the servants of the Craftsdragon. This was what would allow the stones to produce enough heat to ‘soften’ iron enough to be easily forgeable without actually melting it into a liquid. 

It also had a somewhat… strange side effect in that the third rune would only activate when the forge-stone was within a furnace. While this did, in theory, mean that if something went wrong with an active furnace that the forge-stone could be removed in order to deactivate it, in practice some very special tools were going to have to be designed and made to be able to safely do such a thing. 

The only ‘flaw’ that could be considered about the forge-stone’s design was that it would melt. The sheer heat produced by the runes would, over time, cause the stone they were carved into to melt and turn molten until the runes themselves stopped working and it could cool back down into warped rock with a metallic sheen to it. The stones still tended to last a fairly long time (long enough at least that a decent amount of iron ore could be worked before a decent quality stone was used up) and as long as the furnace was made of materials that wouldn’t catch fire it wasn’t an issue.  Plus it meant that the stones could be traded independently. 

Once the tools were in place, step three could begin. Actually working with iron ore itself. Hamarr’s cart had been full of the stuff, alongside a bit of copper so that the newer students of the forge would have a chance to broaden their education a bit. By the time the furnaces and forge-stones were ready, Hamarr had spent enough time around his groups of students that he understood how to explain the methods of working the new ore with them so that they understood. 

Progress was slow at first all the same, because while the Craftsman was willing to teach and guide his students, experience was something you gained [i]after[/i] you needed it. This was a new type furnace, with a new method of working metal with a brand new ore. Mistakes and errors happened, through thankfully nothing that threatened life or limb.  But within a month of Hamarr’s arrival, tools made of iron were available for use by the people of Scawick. Not in great numbers and the original ones were somewhat crude, but enough to demonstrate the difference between the old stone tools and the new iron ones… and each day the [i]gabhas[/i]’ got that little bit more experienced and the things they were making got a bit more refined. 

While the slow and steady increase of iron goods was easily a boon, there were concerns that it would be a short lived one. After all, the only source of iron ore that was currently known was Hamarr’s cart.  With no new supply to be seen for the foreseeable future, there were fears that Droka’s blessing was little more than a show.

That was… until the ground started to shake one day around noon. 

The ground rumbled, clearly moving enough to let the residents of Scawick know it was moving and freak out the animals, but not to the extreme that it endangered buildings or people. A loud crack of stone being split and torn asunder rang through the village like a roar of thunder, echoing from somewhere just outside of the edge of town. 

In what had been an outcropping of large stones, one of them had clearly been shattered by something that had burst out of the ground underneath it with a great deal of force. There was some confusion at first… until one of Hamarr’s students got a good look at it. It was a massive slab of iron ore that had just burst out of the ground. Some light excavation around the base of the mass proved that the part that had broken the surface was merely the tip of the vein. It ran deeper into the ground.

As the Craftsman himself would say when he finally joined the crowd to look over the new development. “A gift from Droka.” It seemed only fair that if he was going to teach his people how to work with iron, they should have enough of it to start with to actually benefit that knowledge. 


[hider=Summery]
Making use of the name 'Hamarr', The Craftsman arrives at the village of Scawick. After a... somewhat rocky introduction which gets him shot at by arrows that do nothing due to a suit of scale armor (and the fact that he's the Avatar of a god), Hamarr preaches the name of his master Droka and informs the towns people that the Craftsdragon Droka has deemed them worthy of being the first people in Westfold (and the world) of the knowledge of how to work iron. 

Gathering the local blacksmiths, Apprentices and young adults who haven't committed to a craft yet, Hamarr organizes them into groups to be taught and answers some basic questions.

Over the course of several weeks, this new holy order of Craftsman are taught many tricks, trades and secrets of blacksmithing, as well as a small amount of enchantment with a minor divine twist. When concerns started to rise that Hamarr's cart was running out of iron ore and that soon the town wouldn't have anymore, in the middle of the day, within easy walking distance of the town of Scawick, an iron ore vein partially burst out of the ground. 
[/hider]


[hider=MP]

[hider=The Hammers of the Dragon]
The Hammers of the Dragon

A holy order of craftsman originally developed and trained by the Avatar 'The Legendary Craftsman' in the village of Scawick in the Westfold area. While primarily a union of Blacksmiths that share a number of tricks of their of their trade, it also doubles as a following for the god Droka since some of the order's secrets (namely the creation of a Forge-stone) requires the active worship of Droka to happen. 

[i]Master Blacksmiths III[/i] (1 DP, 2 Free)
Having been taught and instructed by the Avatar of the god of blacksmiths himself, the Hammers of the Dragon has access to some of the greatest mortal metal workers that the world has to offer.

[i]Blooming Furnace I[/i] (1 MP)   
One of the secrets that the Craftsman reveled to the Hammers is how to develop a Blooming furnace. These furnaces are important in that they allow for the working of iron.

[i]Forge-Stones I[/i] (1 MP)
Due to the lack of fuel to run the furnaces with, Droka and the Craftsman developed what has for the moment been titled as 'Forge-Stones'. While they are mostly the work of enchanting and taking advantage of local mana in the air to operate, one of the runes used to enchant the stone results in a small spark of Droka's power to enhance the stone to let off enough heat to actually soften up iron ore to be worked. The stones themselves only get this divine power boost if they are both A) Placed within a furnace and B) The person who crafted the stone is an active worshiper of Droka. 

The heat generated does eventally cause the forge-stone to melt a bit, disrupting the runes and causing them to stop working, thus allowing the stone to cool down in a new, warped shape with a metallic sheen. 
[/hider]

[i]Gift of Iron[/i] (2 DP)
Desiring to give his new chosen people a good leg up, Droka pulled a vein of iron ore up from the ground within walking distance of Scawick. While the amount breaching the surface is merely the tip of the vein, there is enough there to give them a good head start, as well as let them locate new sources of the ore before they have to worry about running out.

[/hider]