Plate 23 · Section II.1

Anvilbrand

High Cairn, the Anvil Stair · Cracked iron · no living name

Extinct. What follows is the register's entry, unamended since the iron opened.

The furnaces run on standing orders. Anvilbrand's books are committed three seasons ahead of the year they are written in, and a bad season at High Cairn is felt in four other countries. Anvilbrand holds a second portfolio in paper.

Anvilbrand was Kinsworn and stood with its dwarves when their interests diverged from the draconic order. Its institutions were arcane — literate, procedural and obsessive about precedent. The tradition wrote most of the case law the house was finally read under. A divine establishment worked alongside the arcane institutions. Their jurisdictions overlapped at High Cairn's gate, river court and marriage table, and the dispute outlasted the house.

Bar stamped under the house's die by another hold's crew.

The holding

Kilngate — the die that outlived the house

hex 14,7 · cell r2c4 · mountain Marked: the high gate above the Anvilwater barge road

One gate high on the Anvil Stair, cut in volcanic rock; an testing house and stamping floor inside, the barge road below.

High on the Anvil Stair one gate opens in volcanic rock above the barge road, a climb up from where the Anvilwater stops carrying loads. Inside are an testing house, a stamping floor, and kiln underground passages that Thrangar firebrick lined for a hundred and forty years. Ore coming off the Stair is weighed at the head of navigation on a schedule posted in four languages, and anything through the gate can be stamped at eight coppers per hundredweight. The rock supports the gate and test yard but no crop; barley is carted up from the tundra coast. Sleetgate stands two days north-west, where the Stair drops away to the shore.

Connections

Kilngate tested and stamped for the northern holds, lent against the bar it certified, and sold paper on its own floor.

Allies takes this house’s side 0

No house on the ring takes this one’s side.

Neutral trades, and no more than that 2

Enemies has something open against it 5

The full account — 7 houses, 7 arrangements

Kilngate tested and stamped for the northern holds, lent against the bar it certified, and sold paper on its own floor. A bond of 84 AF, three thousand marks at four in the hundred, still stands at face in Faenlorn's vault; Nuirendil enters 1,412 marks in pre-crack bills every year; the testing house bonds of 71 AF were bought up by coast houses and Yatagaru holds the largest parcel. The sky came down in the first century and the entry has not been amended since. Karagunn works the floor now under Anvilbrand's die and takes the eight-copper fee, and Grivane's bar out of Brimholt carries the same die because no gulf merchant will accept another mark on a Falkvald wharf. Stonewrit's embassy quarter holds the certified copy of the test charter and reads it out for a fee.

out 60 Grivane licence

Grivane bar carries Anvilbrand's die because no gulf merchant will take another mark on a Falkvald wharf. The eight coppers goes into an account opened in 698 and still open.
in 33 Yatagaru claim

Anvilbrand's testing house bonds, drawn in 71 AF against the barge road below the gate, were bought up by coast houses and Yatagaru holds the largest parcel. What Yatagaru wants against them is the stamping fee on Forge-bound ore, which the Anvil Stair holds have collected since the plate cracked and enter in their accounts as maintenance.
in 76 Nuirendil claim

Nuirendil's ledger still carries 1,412 marks in bills drawn on Anvilbrand's stamping floor before the crack, and the sum is entered every year against whoever holds the gate. Karagunn's clerks have returned the entry unanswered since 731.
in 34 Karagunn claim

Karagunn holds Anvilbrand's gate, works the stamping floor under Anvilbrand's die and collects the test fee at eight coppers per hundredweight. No ruling says which of the Anvil Stair holds inherited the fee, and the collecting goes on.
in 13 Grimhaldr ore

Grimhaldr firebrick lined Anvilbrand's kilns for a hundred and forty years and four deliveries are still owed for. Grimhaldr's names ran out before it could sue, and its creditors now cite the unpaid entry as an asset.
in 10 Stonewrit claim

The only certified copy of Anvilbrand's test charter sits in Stonewrit's embassy quarter, and readings of it are rented to whichever hold is pressing a claim that season. The original was inside the gate when the sky came down.
in 01 Faenlorn claim

A Anvilbrand bond of 84 AF, three thousand marks at four in the hundred, still stands at face in Faenlorn's vault, because striking it would oblige the committee to rule on whether a cracked house can be a debtor. Faenlorn files the claim afresh each year, and Karagunn, which works that ground now, files an answer saying it holds nothing but the rock.

The Forge has it that no committee will rule on whether a cracked house can be a debtor, and that the stamping fee is collected while they decline. Said in the Anvil Stair

The public record

Plate: 23 of 81
Seat: High Cairn
Holding: Kilngate
Region: the Anvil Stair
Position: hex 14,7 in r2c4
Extent: a small march (3 of 10)
Culture: Kazdrunn
Thick on this ground: Kazdrunn
Iron: Cracked
Living names: none
Roster: —
Ancestry: Dwarf
Kinship: Kinsworn
Major activity: Forgewright
Minor activity: Coinvault
Tradition: Arcane, with Divine in tension
Alignment: N
Stake: —
Band: Great
Weights: 4

Arms

An anvil split in two by a branding iron still glowing white at the tip, a burst purse spilling coins at its foot, a high stone cairn behind.

The Forge's register entry for Anvilbrand

Azure, party per pale by a line Or, a hammer and a mount Or; in base a key Or; a chief Or; a bordure of cracked iron. (Plate 23; no living name.)

The field colour is the house's tradition and the bound edge is the state of its plate, and neither is the house's to choose.