"From the forge-fire of ambition, a new world shall be cast."
The Ashen Crest Dynasty represents the unyielding engine of progress in a frozen world. To them, the Great Growing was not a divine test or a random gift, but an evolutionary mandate—a clear sign that the strong and the ambitious were meant to seize control of destiny itself. They are expansionist industrialists, master engineers, and ruthless pragmatists who view the very world as a resource to be exploited for the betterment of their kind.
Philosophy: The Fuel of Ambition
The Dynasty's core tenet is "Progress Through Power." They believe that safety is an illusion won not through hiding behind walls, but through overwhelming technological and military superiority. This progress, however, demands a price paid in relentless labor and absolute efficiency. In the Ashen Crest worldview, every being has a purpose. The Lítillfólk are not citizens; they are the "Workforce," a vital and carefully managed resource to be housed, fed, and optimized to fuel the great machine of state. Giants who do not contribute to expansion are considered dead weight, and rival nations are either future assets or obstacles to be dismantled.
The Capital: Emberfall Keep
The heart of the Dynasty is Emberfall Keep, a terrifying and magnificent marvel of giant-scale engineering built within and around a caldera of perpetually active volcanic vents. The Keep is a symphony of roaring machinery:
The Great Bellows: Massive, piston-driven engines that pump air into the Heart-Forges, superheating them to temperatures that can melt glacial ice into canals.
The Cinder-Cranes: Networks of steam-powered cranes and pulleys that shift raw materials and finished war-machines with brutal efficiency.
The Smokestack Citadels: Residential and administrative towers designed to capture and filter industrial smoke, creating a perpetually twilit, smog-choked interior that the Dynasty calls "the productive haze."
The Iron Runways: Sloped channels that allow newly forged weapons and armor to be moved directly from forges to armories and onto waiting Giants.
Society: The Cogs of the Machine
Life within Ashen Crest territory is secure, but mercilessly demanding.
The Lítillfólk ("The Workforce"): They are well-fed, vaccinated, and protected from the frost in heated, barracks-style housing. In return, their lives are dictated by shift-bells and production quotas. They labor in massive factories, maintain the dangerous inner workings of the great machines, and serve in organized brigades to support giant legions. Dissent is not punished with cruelty, but with "re-education" and reassignment to more dangerous labor details. Their value is in their utility.
The Giants ("The Engines"): Ashen Crest Giants are measured by their output—whether as military commanders, master smiths, or logistical overseers. They are pragmatic, direct, and often lack the sentimental attachments of other nations. Their culture celebrates innovation and conquest, and status is gained by patenting a new invention or successfully subjugating a rival settlement.
Ambitions and Methods
The Dynasty's goals are clear and their methods are uncompromising:
Expansion: They seek to control all major geothermal vents and mineral-rich territories, viewing them as the rightful fuel for their progress.
Innovation: They relentlessly pursue new technologies: steam-powered siege weapons, methods for refining Sun-Splinter crystals into power sources, and even forbidden arts like elemental binding to enslave fire spirits.
Wealth: They practice ruthless mercantilism, aiming to make all other nations economically dependent on their manufactured goods, from giant-sized nails to fortified grains.
To the Ashen Crest Dynasty, the endless winter is not a curse to be endured, but a problem to be solved through force of will and industry. They will strip-mine the tundra, dam the glacial rivers, and harness the power of volcanoes to build a future where their law is the only law, and their progress has erased all other ways of life.
Currently in an endless war with @The Frost-Fang Clans to seize stolen land.