Vurrgast
Craft is the living — hulls, hinges, blades and rails. Every rival's war runs partly on Vurrgast's output, which is a comfortable position and a conspicuous one. Vurrgast pays for reports it does not enter in the ledger.
Vurrgast is Kinsworn. It keeps dwarf inheritance law over its own succession and dwarf gods over its own oaths, and the Forge treats both as facts about the house rather than as affectations. Its institutions are arcane — literate, procedural and obsessive about precedent. The tradition wrote most of the case law and treats the treaty as an instrument.
The holding
the Firebrick Kilns — the four smelters above the market floor
Slate benches above the market floor, four smelters, firebrick kilns, and the mule road south
Slate benches step down to the market floor at Slatehead, where the Emberdeep ends and the spine crumbles into the badlands above the Kazenoha head. Four smelters and the firebrick kilns stand on the upper benches with the gate above them and the coal underground passages behind, and the pig off this floor sets the price read out in market halls nine days away. Above the treeline there is fodder cut in August and nothing else, so grain and cordwood are carried up. The mule road south takes carts for seven months and mules for the rest, and Vantrose's leased terrace sits inside the outer gate on the way down.
Connections
Pig iron, bar, spikes and firebrick leave the benches under contracts cut in metal and matched at the gate, with a clerk kept on whose only work is knowing what other houses have promised each other.
Allies takes this house’s side 1
Neutral trades, and no more than that 5
Ashinoha 03 Vurrgast sends 1,100 tons of iron and firebrick a year down the mule road to Ashinoha's weighbridge, and separately sells Ashinoha the spring water its towers and cistern run on. If Vurrgast stopped either, Ashinoha would be dry inside a month.
Kurohane 20 Half the 5,000 cords Vurrgast's kilns burn each year come down Kurohane's timber slides and over the badlands road. Vurrgast pays none of it in coin, settling in firebrick and in iron for Kurohane's watchtowers.
Sekhemra 25 Sekhemra's furnaces run on 400 tons a year of Vurrgast iron and coal, hauled up in the seven months carts can travel and stockpiled for the other five. Vurrgast charges the market rate and has twice refused to sell Sekhemra its charcoal, so the furnaces burn worse fuel at a worse price.
Utagitsu 32 About thirty-five tons of silver-bearing lead go down the river from Vurrgast to Utagitsu each year. Vurrgast now sends a clerk with every shipment, because the last two arrived lighter than the paperwork said.
Draveholt 40 Bar iron, spikes and two hundred hundredweight of anchor stock come from Vurrgast by road and inlet boat. Every load is weighed twice, once in each house's system, and Draveholt pays whichever figure is lower.
Enemies has something open against it 4
Grimhaldr 13 Grimhaldr's firebrick contracts ended with its last living member, and Vurrgast has taken over four of the five on a filing saying Grimhaldr cannot perform them. The fifth belongs to the hold that owes Grimhaldr the most money, and Vurrgast has left that one alone.
Ordwaine 18 Ordwaine says Vurrgast takes too much water at the river head, and its whole case rests on flood records the archive has kept since the treaty was signed. Vurrgast has answered every letter for nine years with a copy of its own register and no figures at all.
Vantrose 28 Vantrose rents its ground inside Vurrgast's outer gate on a ninety-nine-year lease at 140 crowns a year, and Vurrgast has tried three times since 816 to have the chapel counted as part of the rented property. Vurrgast wants the vault inside its own holding and Vantrose wants it outside Vurrgast's authority.
Yatagaru 33 Vurrgast tapped the river head for smelter water in 814, and three cities downstream lost their flood the following spring. Vurrgast answered all three with a copy of its own register, and Yatagaru has carried the lawsuit at its own expense ever since while the other two pay nothing towards it.
The full account — 10 houses, 11 arrangements
Pig iron, bar, spikes and firebrick leave the benches under contracts cut in metal and matched at the gate, with a clerk kept on whose only work is knowing what other houses have promised each other. Kurohane's slides supply half the 5,000 cords the kilns burn, paid in firebrick and pit iron with no coin moving either way, while Draveholt weighs the anchor stock twice and pays the lower figure. The claim over the Kazenoha tap is answered every spring with a copy of the gate register and no figures at all, which is what Ordwaine has had for nine years and what Yatagaru has been paying Hanezaki's own costs to contest since 814. Four of Pitchwater's five firebrick contracts are filed as Vurrgast's now, and Vurrgast has left the fifth holder alone.
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Sekhemra's iron furnaces run on Vurrgast pig and Emberdeep coal, 400 tons a year up the mule road in the seven cart months and stockpiled for the other five. Vurrgast sells at the market rate and has twice refused the wintering camp the hold's own charcoal, which is why the iron furnaces burn Meldrath cordwood at a worse price.
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The mule road south off Vurrgast is the iron road, and Ashinoha's weighbridge takes 1,100 tons of Vurrgast pig and firebrick off it a year. Ashinoha's buyers argue the spring price for four days and pay on the day agreed, which the hold's factors say is more than the plain does.
Ashinoha's roost towers and cistern are filled by cart from a spring registered against the Kazenoha head, sold by the share on a ten-year agreement. The hold that sells Ashinoha its water is the hold whose iron Ashinoha weighs, and the two matters go in separate correspondence.
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Grimhaldr's firebrick contracts to the Anvil Stair holds lapsed with the last living name, and Vurrgast has taken four of the five on a filing that recites Grimhaldr as unable to perform. The fifth is held by the hold that owes Grimhaldr the most money, and Vurrgast has left that one alone.
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Vantrose holds the Milestone Fee on a ninety-nine-year lease inside Vurrgast's outer gate at 140 crowns a year, and the hold has tried three times since 816 to have the chapel counted into the demise. Vurrgast wants the vault inside its gate count and Vantrose wants it outside the hold's writ, and the lease is no help to either.
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Bar iron, spikes and two hundred hundredweight of anchor stock come off Vurrgast, down the iron road and round to Draveholt by inlet boat. Everything is weighed twice, once on the hold's hundredweight and once on the yard's kan, and Draveholt pays the lower of the two figures.
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Each year, Vurrgast's send about 35 tons of lead containing silver down the Kazenoha River to Utagitsu. Vurrgast sends a clerk with each shipment because the last two loads were lighter than the bills said when they reached the strait pier.
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Vurrgast tapped the Kazenoha head for smelter water in 814, three roost-cities took a short flood the following spring, and the hold answered all three with a copy of its gate register. Yatagaru has carried the suit at its own cost ever since and the other two contribute nothing.
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Half the 5,000 cords the firebrick kilns burn each year comes down Kurohane's slides off the Matsugane pine and over the badlands road in the mule months. The hold pays no part of it in coin, settling instead in firebrick and in the pit iron for the watch-towers.
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Ancarien is retained to plead for Vurrgast at the Forge over smelter water drawn off the Kazenoha head, and files in elven form because Vurrgast's metal-cut instruments carry no weight in a coast court. Ancarien is paid in pig iron at Vurrgast's settlement price less a tenth, sold on at the gulf, since the fen has no road that would carry it home.
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The short-flood claim against Vurrgast' take at the Kazenoha head rests on nothing but the flood series kept at Ordwaine since the signing. Vurrgast has answered every letter for nine years with a copy of its gate register and no figures at all.
The Forge has it that the gate courses at Slatehead were counted once, by a gnome foreman who left the hold's employ that season and was not traced. Said in the Emberdeep
The public record
- Plate
- 80 of 81
- Seat
- Slatehead
- Holding
- the Firebrick Kilns
- Region
- the Emberdeep
- Position
- hex 18,15 in r4c5
- Extent
- a small march (3 of 10)
- Culture
- Kazdrunn
- Thick on this ground
- Kazdrunn, Corvantine
- Iron
- Warm
- Living names
- 8
- Roster
- Small
- Ancestry
- Dwarf
- Kinship
- Kinsworn
- Major activity
- Forgewright
- Minor activity
- Cipherhouse
- Tradition
- Arcane
- Alignment
- LE
- Stake
- Holds
- Band
- Middling
- Weights
- 3
Arms
A slate roof-tile stamped with a smith's hammer-mark, one eye scratched into the slate beside the mark, a mountain behind.
Azure, party per pale by a line Or, a hammer and a mount Or; in base an eye Or; a bordure of warm iron. (Plate 80; eight living names.)
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.