Thunderbridge
Hi Everyone! This one is one that I put together a little while ago, but I thought I would share it nonetheless! I felt like putting together a small dwarven city and it just kind of took off from there. Below the picture there is some flavor text to describe and set the atmosphere. In my D&D game, my players recently heard about the existence of this place so they might actually be heading there in a few sessions or so (maybe).
2020-12-15 Thunderbridge - Community Edition.jpg
The dwarven city of Thunderbridge was designed and engineered around the construction of the Dranwater dam, which was a massive, coordinated initiative undertaken by the dwarves, gnomes and humans of the region. The dwarven king, Tumunzar, had led his people in many battles against the goblins that threatened their homeland. The proud halls of their kingdom of Tandul had become overrun by swarms of fell forces, leaving them with no choice but to seek refuge elsewhere. They found a seriesof caverns carved out by an underwater river (known as the Dranwater) that they were able to build out and reinforce, eventually growing them into a sprawling connection of bridges, towers and strongholds. A thriving community was formed, with mining and material gathering as their primary economic engine. Such was the din arising from their forges and smiths that the echoes that filled the caverns gave the city its name - Thunderbridge. They were able to trade with the other peoples in the lands of Zaridun, above and below-ground alike, and formed strong alliances with many of the folk in the nearby lands. Eventually, wizards from the College of Cavium in the nearby human settlement of Calimbor approached the King of Thunderbridge and proposed using the waters of the Dranwater to create a dam. It was a marvelous undertaking that mixed magic and engineering, and completely transformed the economy of Thunderbridge in a short time. After the dam was completed, the energy that it produced were able to power the forges and furnaces of Thunderbridge with relative ease, and with the ingenuity of some of the gnomes that had come to call the city home, a new technology was developed: thaumic crystals. These devices became the ultimate currency for Thunderbridge, able to store vast amount of energy within and subsequently sold to those that lived near and far, as a means of powering any number of things, particularly for magical use.
"The Dwarven sentries glance over your writ of passage, give a slight grumble in protest and then reluctantly open the massive stone Gates of Nazarin. As you descend down the passageway into the cavern that is home to the fabled city of Thunderbridge, you immediately understand where it gets its name: a loud but surprisingly pleasant harmony echoes throughout the cavern around you, like choir-song filling a cathedral. Instead of voices that are singing, it's an almost musical mix of the ringing of hammers in the numerous forges and smiths, and the mechanical hum of machinery and massive devices at work. You can feel the sounds reverberating through you. The stonework here is equally impressive, and though only several hundred years old, the battlements and flagstone city streets seem to have stood here in the cavern for thousands of years. Massive, angular columns stretch from deep in the waters below, stretching hundreds of feet up to the cavern ceiling above. Amid the immense towers and dwarven citadels that make up the bulk of the settlement, you also spy several tunnels and offshoots that stretch off into the earth. Laborers and craftsman are milling to and fro carrying out their work, some disappearing into the tunnels, but most of them are heading to a large structure off to the North of Thunderbridge: the Dranwater Dam. It is a behemoth of a structure, angular and wedged, holding back the might of the Dranwater river. Lined along its battlements are a series of stations and forges and pipes and other equipment related to the dam and its workings. As you approach, you can hear the muted hum of magical generators at work far below the bulwarks of the dam."
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