The Ironbound Empire is a vast orcish dominion built not on bloodline kings or divine mandate, but on function, discipline, and collective purpose. It is governed by the Twelve Clans, each a pillar of the empire’s survival and advancement. Together, they form a single machine—industrial, bureaucratic, and military—where every component has a role and inefficiency is treated as failure.
Orcs within the empire are inventors, scholars, laborers, and warriors in equal measure. Strength is valued, but precision and innovation are revered. The empire does not conquer for glory; it expands to endure.
The Ironbound Empire has no emperor or king. Authority rests with the Council of Twelve, composed of one ruling councilor from each major clan. Each clan governs a vital function of imperial life—energy, industry, transport, law, food, defense, and memory—ensuring that no single power dominates the whole.
Decisions of empire-wide consequence are debated and voted upon within the Council Chamber of Ironspine. Consensus is preferred, but rarely clean. Enforcement of decrees is decentralized, relying on the competence and loyalty of each clan to fulfill its charge.
This system breeds tension, rivalry, and constant negotiation—but it also prevents stagnation. Power must justify itself through results.
The Ironbound Empire spans harsh mountains, poisoned lowlands, fertile plains, and distant frontiers. Each region reflects the empire’s layered identity.
The Southern Crags form the empire’s industrial and political core. These jagged mountains house Ironspine, the towering megacity capital carved directly into stone, as well as numerous smaller mining cities and foundry-towns. Ore extraction, Sunstone refinement, heavy industry, and governance all originate here. The Crags are loud, harsh, and efficient—the empire’s beating heart of iron.
At the foot of the Crags lies the Mirebelt, a vast, polluted swamp created by centuries of industrial runoff and deforestation. The land here is broken, drowned, and hostile. Traversal is possible only via elevated rail lines, which stride across the swamp on iron pylons like skeletal bridges. These rails are the empire’s lifelines, carrying troops, goods, and energy between regions. Beneath them, twisted predators and forgotten ruins fester in the fog.
Beyond the Mirebelt stretch the Southlands, wide agricultural plains dotted with larger cities, towns, and fortified trade hubs. Compared to Ironspine, the Southlands are peaceful. Here, Clan Bask’s farmlands and supply networks sustain the empire’s population. The Southlands are where many orcs choose to live out quieter, productive lives.
At the empire’s far edge lies the Skyward March, a frontier of open land and uncertain borders. Permanent settlements are rare. Instead, isolated forts mark the limits of imperial control, with Fort Duralem standing as the final rail terminus. Beyond these outposts lies no empire—only wilderness and the roaming nomadic exiles, orcs and others who rejected or were cast out of imperial order. The Skyward March is watched, but not conquered.
Orcs of the Ironbound Empire are defined by contribution. Every citizen is expected to serve a function—whether as engineer, scholar, laborer, soldier, or administrator. Innovation is celebrated. Debate is encouraged, and Political Dissent punishable by death or exile.
Each clan contributes its expertise to the whole, creating a civilization that is technocratic, disciplined, and relentlessly adaptive. The empire is not kind to outsiders, but it is enduring.
To outsiders, the Ironbound Empire appears cold and unyielding—a machine of iron and smoke advancing across the land. To its people, it is survival made manifest: proof that strength, unity, and invention can carve order from a hostile world.
The empire does not ask the world’s permission to exist.
It builds anyway.