The Smithies

The Smithies are the industrial faction of The Forgelands: forge-workers, furnace-keepers, and toolmakers united less by territory than by doctrine. The doctrine is short. Anything worth making is worth making well, and most things are worth making.

Territory and Presence

The Smithies' center of gravity is the industrial east, around the Tortuga Monolith. They regard the Tortuga Foundry as the most important structure in the world and have been informally credited as its patron faction, a status they accept with the closest thing to enthusiasm the faction displays. Their mark — the hammer — is the first of the four cut into the Tablet of Factions.

Relations

The Smithies cooperate readily with any project that involves heat, metal, or scale, which in The Forgelands is most of them. The Grand Rail Line has their full support; they consider a continent of track the largest single piece of smithing ever proposed. Their relationship with the Copperlings is strained by philosophy — the Smithies work copper, the Copperlings revere it, and each finds the other's attitude baffling. With the Agrarians they trade tools for food and have no quarrel. The Myst they do not discuss while the forges are lit, which is always.

Relationship with Drugal MacGruder

Drugal is not a member. The Smithies have asked. Drugal's position is that a smith who needs a faction is a smith who needs supervision. The faction has recorded this answer and, characteristically, respects it more than acceptance.

Field Notes

A Smithy's approval of a structure is delivered by striking it once with a hammer and listening. The Foundry passed. The Archives did not ask what happens when something fails.