Stahlermongers
The Stahlermongers are clans of fabricators, scientists, and engineers who descended from the same biological stock as the Iron Slaves and Reclaimers but were never subjugated. They guard the secrets of pre-Fall technology and manufacturing within fortified factory-bunkers scattered throughout the Ironworks region. Rarely seen outside their fortress walls, when they emerge they wear heavy protective armor and robes that only the strongest can bear without encumbrance.
Each Stahlermonger clan centers on an independent stronghold that survives on its own, trading refined wares for food and blueprints. Within each fortress lies a great repository of knowledge ensuring the clan's legacy. The clans maintain independence through technological superiority: their manufactured goods are superior to anything the Ironworks can produce, making them valuable trading partners that no one wants to antagonize. Many Stahlermongers carry special brews that alter the color of their bioluminescent glow, disguising their biological heritage when traveling outside the strongholds.
The Stahlermongers are not unified. Rival clans war against each other, sabotaging operations and raiding safehouses in disputes over territory and technology. The Baus-Haus compound is noted as particularly significant, holding the secrets of the T-90 Twin Mobile Fortress design. For the Iron Slaves still in chains, the existence of the Stahlermongers is both inspiring and bitter: proof that their blood was never inherently destined for bondage, and a reminder that freedom went to those who happened to be in the right fortress when the doors closed.
Each Stahlermonger clan centers on an independent stronghold that survives on its own, trading refined wares for food and blueprints. Within each fortress lies a great repository of knowledge ensuring the clan's legacy. The clans maintain independence through technological superiority: their manufactured goods are superior to anything the Ironworks can produce, making them valuable trading partners that no one wants to antagonize. Many Stahlermongers carry special brews that alter the color of their bioluminescent glow, disguising their biological heritage when traveling outside the strongholds.
The Stahlermongers are not unified. Rival clans war against each other, sabotaging operations and raiding safehouses in disputes over territory and technology. The Baus-Haus compound is noted as particularly significant, holding the secrets of the T-90 Twin Mobile Fortress design. For the Iron Slaves still in chains, the existence of the Stahlermongers is both inspiring and bitter: proof that their blood was never inherently destined for bondage, and a reminder that freedom went to those who happened to be in the right fortress when the doors closed.
History
The Stahlermongers trace their lineage to the same ancestral population that produced the Iron Slaves and Reclaimers, but their forebears secured fortified positions and held them through the chaos that followed the Fall. Within those strongholds they preserved pre-Fall manufacturing knowledge and technological capability that the rest of the world lost. Over generations, the clans developed into independent technocratic enclaves, trading their superior goods for the food and raw materials they could not produce within their walls. Rivalry between clans led to sabotage and open warfare, fragmenting whatever unity their shared heritage might have provided.
