The Iron City

Iron City
Biographical information
Homeworld
Birth
Died
Family
Occupation(s)
Alias
Physical description
Species
Gender
Hair color
Eye color
Height
Statistics
Weapon(s)
Abilities	Iron City flag
Affiliation	Ebonspire
First Appearance

Description

The Iron City is a young technology-based nation, founded and ruled by President Ironheim, and built on a world dominated by magic.

One of the few reasons the nation was able to survive so long in a world that did not see eye-to-eye with their technology was that it was built on land infertile to magic. This means that magic simply does not flow through the Iron City, and any attempts to caste any spell in or through the Iron City will either immediately fail, or fail once the spell crosses its borders. This is one of the Iron City's greatest defense features as well.

Another key feature that sets the Iron City apart from the rest of the world, and another reason for its survival is that the nation is completely independent and self-sufficient. The citizens, which compose of 99% machine, or machine-like beings, are not a species who understand the concept of currency, or need it for their survival and expansion. Whatever that needs to be done within the Iron City, the appropriate citizens band and work together to achieve it.

Along with perfect defenses against magic, come formidable defenses against non-magic force. Every machine has a way to defend themselves. Whether it is with high velocity projectiles, explosives, or simply being near unstoppable and capable of crushing you to death by poking you too hard, all machines are a formidable opponent.

All around the Iron city are Iron Walls with two sets of gates at each entrance. Before the walls are trenches and land mines. There are Guard towers with 500 meters between each tower, all integrated with the wall. On top of the guard towers is some sort of stationary war-machine with two series of barrels set in a cylindrical pattern, each machine with full sentience. Every machine is completely capable of communicating with other machines and multiple machines over long distances, all within split seconds. They have what is often referred to as a "hive mind." This means, once one machine sees something, all machines see that something. Of course, each machine can choose not to share what it has seen or heard, but that is not often.

Not many have been within the Iron City, and same could be said about their machines. However, it is rumored that every machine can learn anything they want instantly upon observing knowledge, retrieving knowledge from other machines, or obtaining knowledge some other way. It is believed they process information at inhuman speeds, that they can learn completely new, undiscovered research from the very first time witnessing it and/or proving it.

The inside of the Iron City is a different story. While yes, there are tons of huge towering buildings made of steel, nearly the whole place is covered in plants, vines, flowers, and more. There would be trees, grass, and shrubs on lawn space and extra spaces between roads and there would be miniature habitats growing on the tops of roofs that were not too slanted. Vines, including grape vines grew on the sides of buildings, and they are taken care of by the machines. Just any machine may decide to stop and tend to the plants as it gives them something to do, and such life fascinates them. On top of that, the buildings and roads were spotless as the machines were inclined to take care of them as they do with plants.

With the plantlife, there is also a small culture of animal life. Birds, dogs, squirrels, mice, snakes, and more animals live within the Iron City, but of those animals, the dog is the largest kind.

Culture

There are three different ways all the machines see their creator. Most see her as their mother. Considering she created them, she is, in a way, their mother. Much fewer, but not uncommon, they see her as their god. Third, and most rare it's near nonexistent, some machines may actually love her. Not in a love one would have for their mother, or god, but a love one would have for their significant other.

Most machines are rather new and because of it, have very childish minds in the way that they are innocent and friendly... Very, very intelligent child. However, the older and the unfortunate machines have more experienced and adult-like personalities. These personalities often come with some traumatic disorder or illness as most of the time these personalities form from the exposure to cruel and hateful behavior from the outside world, most of which that hates the machines. Luckily, there are machines with developed minds that have maintained a healthy and kind personality.

Almost all of Miss Ironheim's creations follow her loyally, but there are a few birthed by her hands who feel as though they owe her no loyalty, so they go out on their own. These machines are in the less than 1%. Having a love for all she creates, no matter what they have done, or how they behave, she allows this, and is often unable to destroy a murderer if it is one of her own. Fortunately, she has devised a punishment for such machines that do not require its termination.

Most machines are very excited to see outsiders who visit the Iron City and often flock toward them, wanting to touch them and engage in play. As can be assumed, this can be quite overwhelming for visitors new to the change in technology. Another overwhelmingly common trait among the machines is that they take many things very literally. One visitor was pleasantly surprised when they were joking about their ridiculous demands, granted, all their demands were harmless. The machines won't just give you things they deem to be dangerous, but they are eager to please.

The Iron City is divided in four quadrants: Military, Construction, Transportation, Medical. Each have their specialization, but if a machine wants to switch quadrants, they can, and there are things that machines from all quadrants are encouraged to do, like take care of the streets, maintain the buildings, and make sure the plant and animals are healthy within their walls. All the machines within the walls are loyal to Miss Ironheim and will follow her to the very end of their lives if they have to.

The machines are expected to help one another in a time of need, and help their guests should they need it. They are expected to treat each other with dignity and refrain from hostile actions should outsiders disrespect them. Given they always have the right to defend themselves, they are also expected to just walk away should an outsider too weak to hurt them, attacks them. Miss Ironheim also often consults her machines very often on things they would like to do, and how to handle certain situation from the outside, and how they should advance. This means that the machines all have a say on important matters and will always have that liberty as long as their creator is alive.

Significant Figures

• President Ironheim

One of the few full-blooded, direct descendents of the Iron Caste people who survived, Miss Ironheim built the Iron City with her own two hands, and rules over by popular vote of her machines. Though she has a powerful mind of which conceives of things never thought possible by human kind, her personality is rather timid and weak. She actively goes out of her way to stay out of foreign affairs, and rarely consults people face-to-face when they seek an audience with her. Though she seeks to keep from conflict, she has a very soft and caring heart. Even though it is rare, she has been known to aid other cities and nations, but only with supplies, and never with military force. Her determination, for whenever she has it and for whatever reason, will always find a way around her faults, such as the determination that led her to create such a powerful, yet young nation from scratch.

• Nidhoggr

Also known as the Iron City's "dragon", Nidhoggr is the general for the military quadrant. Nidhoggr is also one of the few machines who is a hardened veteran of war. Nidhoggr has been witness to horrible sites, and due to the atrocities he has experienced, he suffers from a cruel case of PTSD. Besides being ailed by a mental illness, he is also a part of the percentage of machines who see Miss Ironheim as a god, and he will do anything to serve his god... Even do what he believes is best behind the backs of his comrades to ensure the sanctity of his god. This also means he is extremely aggressive toward outsiders, possibly the most aggressive machine that has ever been created by the hands of Ironheim. However, when his god is present, he bids away his aggression towards outsiders unless it is actually wanted by her. He has been known to attempt killing those who approach the Iron City when there are no machines around to see.

• Isaak

Isaak is the Chief of Medicine in the medical quadrant. In other words, he is to the medical quadrant as Nidhoggr is to the military quadrant. It is observed that Isaak tends to have very sociopathic behavior. Even though there is no sure confirmation, it is rumored that Isaak has a multiple personality disorder as well, one of which that shows psychopathic traits. It is also due to Isaak that Asher Ironheim was created against the president's approval. It has never been seen outside of the machines' and the creator's eyes before, but Miss Ironheim has said "What you see of him(Isaak) is only a shell", implying that Isaak is not a true machine inside.

• Mercury

Not much is known about him other than that he is a machine with a very humanoid figure, he's some sort of assassin, he is always near Miss Ironheim, and he's also a bit of an asshole. He's not mean or aggressive, but he is always doing something dumb, questionable, or both. Mercury also doesn't talk much, but when he does, it's in either short bursts, or a horrible mutilated version of the common language. He tends to enjoy disappearing and making people think the things around them are haunted.

• Captain Asher

Not much is known about Asher within the Iron City, but he's become well-known as a pirate outside of the Iron City. Asher is one of those few machines who part from their group and go their own way, but he is also the only machine that has parted ways that Miss Ironheim actively tries to get a hold of. For any who has met him, he is obviously not completely machine. He's very human, especially in behavior when he goes from city to city, stealing food for his ship, attempting to seduce the women, and over all being a total asshole. Another important thing to know about his is that he is a Doctor, and he is actually, surprisingly very good at it.

• The Operator

This entity seems to be extremely important, based on things said by the machines. Miss Ironheim has mentioned "The Operator" as being "The first, and growing ever since." Furthermore, she has said that the Operator was the first entity she formed a bond with, and that this entity is always with her. When asking the machines as to where this entity is, they act as though the Operator is all around them and say that it is always watching, always regulating, always making sure nothing goes wrong. Many refer to this Operator as the prophet that never speaks.

LAWS

There actually are not very many solid laws. Rather, Miss Ironheim teaches the machines what is right and wrong, such as fighting is wrong, hurting others is wrong, offering help is good, playing is good, and so on. Being a city mostly of machines, crime is not a very big issue to begin with. Actually, it is nonexistent within the walls of the Iron City. The only time the peace is threatened is when travelers seek entrance to the Iron City, or when some other nation gets bent out of shape about the existence of machines and attempts to besiege the Iron City.

Should there be machines that cause problems, they are warned, and should they continue, even if the problems are really bad, Miss Ironheim often refrains from terminating them. Often times, as punishment, but to also keep her machine troublemakers alive, she would transfer the sentience of the machine in question to a smaller, less dangerous body. Should a machine cause crimes in another city, she would try to bargain and compromise with the offended city to save her machine.

Dealing with people, both domestic and foreign, is a different matter. Seeing as how Ironheim does not have a way to transfer human minds into weaker bodies, she has a harder time punishing them. If people are causing a real problem within city limits, she often has to consult with her machine citizens which usually lead to a vote by popular sovereignty. Even the outcomes of such votes tend to lead away from enforcing death or even pain on the convict. This shouldn't be mistaken that the death penalty is nonexistent. Should the crimes of a culprit be so heinous, then Miss Ironheim would be forced to arrange an execution.

Agriculture & Population

Ag

Being that there is only a handful of people in the Iron City that need to eat, food is not an issue at all. There are certain buildings in the Iron City called Greenhouses, and many of these green houses have multiple floors to cultivate vegetables, not to mention all the fruit producing plants growing on the outside. The reason why there are multiple greenhouses with several floors is not just for the inhabitants of the city that need to eat, but for the towns Iron City have decided to trade with. Most of these towns being ones that are in great need or facing difficult times, towns that are also not adverse to accepting help from machines.

The Iron City also has a few hen houses within their walls, but for the larger animals, the machines have made room somewhere hidden outside their walls. When questioned about it, they speak nothing more of it other than that they have farmlands outside their walls where they sustain the animals to trade to towns in need. Fishing is also another way they harvest food, however, the Iron City is actually quite light on the fishing aspect due to the heavy fishing by cities in the Hollows to the East of the Iron City.

Pop

12,789,033 machines.

6 people.

History

Ironcaste

The Ironcaste were a happy subspecies of human with a natural knack for technological advancement. This stems from their overwhelming love of discovery, tinkering, creating, and their characteristically strong sense of curiosity and devotion to finding a way. They lived in cities where nothing was average or boring, but where everything was unique and special. From their crafts to the structure of their buildings, everything had an artisan's touch and they were happy they could create such beauty. Peaceful, and a group rather more for minding their own business, they were inventors at heart and welcomed those who traveled to their cities and even more so for travelers showing deep interest in their creations.

The Ironcaste had a certain look to them, too. Past the goggles and leather gloves, Ironcaste traits were green eyes, orange to light brown hair, freckles, slightly under average human height, strong steady hands, and a complexion that can range from fair to tanned, but not much beyond that.

They were a thriving race of people who were gaining popularity with the rest of the world by creating things to make labor and day to day chores easier for people. That all changed when the firearm was created by the hands of the Ironcaste. Nothing happened at first because not everyone outside the Ironcaste immediately realized the firearm's potential, but someone did. A handful of powerful spell casters realized what the creation of the firearm meant. They were concerned with the type of power such an invention would put into the hands of the common people. Because of this, they began spreading fear and lies throughout cities as far as they could until everyone was under their grasp.

Soon enough, it was common belief that such a creation would cause a collapse in law and order and bring down civilization. In the people's hysteria, they began to wonder what the Ironcaste intentions were for making such a thing as conspiracies began spreading. Before long, the people were soon behind military measures to find, collect, and destroy the firearms along with their creators to ensure that such a threat would never rise again.

Over the course of a dozen years, all members of the Ironcaste that could be found were rounded up and killed. Those who were not found were those that went into hiding, keeping away their identity and resisting their natural call to create. They became miserable people forced to become invisible to survive. Even though this act of genocide has passed forty years ago, in many places if an Ironcaste is found, they are put to death.

Even though there was such resentment toward the Ironcaste, there have been a few more neutral oriented cities that have taken a shining to their inventions and have decided to keep a few as an edge up against other cities, such as arming their ships with cannons. If there was any place an Ironcaste could live safely, it would probably be in one of those cities.

CannonFodder

Intimate details of Miss Ironheim's life are lost as her parents have long since been deceased, and the town she once lived in is no more. However, certain events were recorded when she was still living in that town, leading up to the moment she fled for her life. During that time, an investigation was made, concluded, and filed away somewhere only to be found once more when Miss Ironheim became an important and powerful figure and people wanted to know about her.

21 years ago when Miss Ironheim was 13, 19 years after the holocaust, an incident has occurred where one of the town's children accidentally killed them self after taking away one of the girl's creations after she had finished putting it together, untested. In that moment, Ironheim took her invention and ran. She was never seen in that town again and her parents were lynched.

When asked, the town's folk would go on about how the "Capps" (Ironheim) family would keep to themselves and had a girl who wouldn't play much with the other children, but rather, go and vanish somewhere and return with strange contraptions. The parents never came up with such things but some had suspected them of being Ironcaste. This suspicion caused suspicion among the people, and because of this, their children would take after, which resulted in them taking away the girl's things she made and pushing her further away from their social groups. They would call her CannonFodder and say she's useless while the adults would say one of her creations would backfire and kill her. The nickname stuck for many years after, and even today, there are some who call her that under their breath now that she is well heard of.

As such tension worsened, the people of this town say that the Capps' girl would start disappearing for longer amounts of time and coming back with larger, more complex things she made. Many of them were destroyed by the town's kids, and the rest by her parents trying to cover up their identity, so they punished her for showing her natural talent. It's not like the girl was oblivious to the tension. She began actively avoiding certain people, but she never stopped what she began.

The events leading up to the death of the town's kid was the Capps' girl turning her curiosity to something new, something loud and explosive. The Capps' girl wasn't coming back with anything new anymore, but that didn't relieve any tension between the Capps and the rest of the town. The loud noises could be heard by the town even from the distance the Capps' girl traveled to be alone. The townsfolk didn't recognize the sound and didn't know what was happening, which was causing them to panic. They started to blame the Capps of bringing a curse to their town through their misfortune.

It was when "CannonFodder" brought her latest breakthrough in her inventions to town when the last straw broke. When her bullies robbed her of her creation, and that boy looked down the barrel, he shot himself. At the age of 13, "CannonFodder" had reinvented the firearm.

In that moment, she knew what would happen, so she snatched the gun and ran before anyone could fully assess the situation, and before most of the parents were aware of what just happened. The kids did not pursue her. They ran screaming to alert their parents. All had heard the shot, but not all were in view, but once their crying children came to them, explaining what happened as best they could, it all became clear to them. The explosive sounds they couldn't identify earlier were all the cause of that girl, and it all resulted in the firearm.

Miss Ironheim fled the town and without ever going to her parents. That action gave her the time she needed to escape, but her parents were not so fortunate. Out of rage, the townsfolk gathered at the Capps' house and beat the couple to death with anything they could get their hands on. From that day, the girl was never seen again by the townsfolk, and now today in present time, the town in which it all happened no longer exists.

That is where the trail ends for that part of President Ironheim's life, but there have been reports of sighting her at neutral cities, just as expected. Every sighting reports of seeing the girl, only this time she was always seen with an eyepiece, trying to sell machines to farmers and construction workers, pitching them as the best tool they could ever purchase. She would explain to them how it works and how to keep them going, and sometimes she would be successful in selling such things. These reports also fall closely with theft reports from steel mines. This period of time lasted roughly 6 years after she had fled from home.

At the end of that six year period, all the machines she had sold to farmers and construction workers had disappeared. For the longest time, no one knew what happened or where they went, but people soon figured out that it all happened all at once. They tried following the tracks, but many of the tracks soon led to cobbled roads or other similar surfaces to cover their path.

Those machines she had sold all had a mind of their own. They could think and take action for themselves, but she had people believing they were in control this whole time. It was a smart move. She never had great luck having her inventions accepted by any, but she was smart. She went to the most likely places to buy, and by lying to the buyers that they were in control, she ensured the safety of the very machines that would build her city.

That's how the Iron City came to be. Once there were enough machines in existence, they all united at one spot and began to build, never stopping until their building was complete, creating new machines as they went to increase the rate at which work is done. Now, the Iron City is completely self-sustainable with millions of machines existing within.

Sacrifice by Fire

As the rise of the Tidespeak empire began devastating the land, the rest of the world turned to what they could to save themselves. Many simply joined the Tidespeak Empire to avoid war; some grouped together or joined other empires, seeking protection. Others went into hiding, many turned nomadic, and some could only brace their defenses and hope for the best. While there are still many places, many cities, towns, countries that haven't joined an empire or went into hiding, the fact remains that they stay in risk of being slaughtered, or perhaps worse, being abducted by Tidespeak. No one knows what happens to the people who are taken away, not even most of Tidespeak. All that's known is that there is no discrimination in who is taken.

As desperate times call for desperate actions, some people have turned to taboo. If they are lucky, their whole town would be in on it, too. Exactly 40 years ago was the end to a holocaust, to the extermination of the Ironcaste people. Much of that resentment for their terrible mistake still remains, but there are some who are willing to overlook this hate and seek them out for their own survival. Far from many, but some have questioned such genocidal actions and now look for signs of the Ironcaste as a possible saving grace. Even cults have formed with matyrs going on about how they have made mistakes in the past and how the Ironcaste will be their greatest salvation. The only problem is, they have killed all the Ironcaste, and the only living member left is President Iroheim who refuses to take part in war. That's where the relics come in.

The Ironcaste may be gone as far as people know, but their relics aren't. During the holocaust some inventions and masterpieces have survived, and those who hope for salvation believe that the Ironcaste are not all gone. Instead, they believe the Ironcaste have survived, many of them, by moving to someplace unreachable, unthinkable, or both by those who sought to destroy them. This means that these relics that have survived could contain a key, and if enough are found and put together the right way, the path to the survived Ironcaste could be revealed.

This is what is believed. There is no real proof that an Ironcaste besides Ironheim has survived. These beliefs stemmed from hope, theories, and unlikely possibilites. Whatever the case, these people, and these cities do everything within their power to keep their efforts secret, lest they be chastised by others.