02 - Iron Kingdoms W.. - Captain Spud Is Amazing

108.1.141.197
booming industry in western Immoren. Currently,
steam engines perform numerous functions: digging,
drilling, pumping, hauling, manufacturing, and
providing power to locomotives, ships, steamjacks,
printing presses, and much more.
Coal and Mines
For the greater part of Immorese history, wood was
the most universal fuel until the introduction of coal
around 1,000 BR. Brewers and smiths first adopted this
mineral wealth in any great capacity, and complaints
about the harmful properties of the smoke quickly
followed. Nevertheless, the coal trade continued
to develop, and the smelting of iron through the
application of coal became a widespread technique
in no time.
Early methods of pit-mining coal proved ineffective
for the most part due to the tendency of the shallow
bottle-necked pits to fill with water. The impracticality
of drainage forced abandonment of the mines after
short periods of work, and the complexity of keeping
the pits dry proved an increasingly pressing dilemma.
Man-powered windlasses and waterwheels could do
only so much, and miners drowned as one pit after
another flooded.
Lives and money were constantly being lost, yet
the demand for coal had become dramatic. Inspired
by the notion of machinery to do the pumping, a
dwarven mechanic named Urbul Rothbal dissected
Salvoro’s original steam engine design in 736 BR. Later
that same year he produced a mechanism for the task
of drawing water out of the mines. Rothbal’s engines
proved quite successful. And enabled the mines to
go deeper than ever before. The coal trade ran once
more at full throttle and the gradual improvement of
the steam engine was intimately connected with the
progress of mining.
Environment and Pollution
Today the industrialization and mechanization of
the Modern Era is wreaking havoc on the environment.
Millions of acres of forests are destroyed to carve out
regions for farming and grazing livestock and to satisfy
the great demand for timber. Rapidly vanishing forests
cause lumber prices to fluctuate and create conflict
in areas frequented by groups and races that do not
recognize the authority of the woodcutters. Loggers
commonly have unpleasant run-ins with a kriel of
hostile trollkin, bogrin, or druids which now and then
lead to further aggression.
The burning of coal, especially during the
winter months, has created a smoke hazard in the
more concentrated areas of Immoren. Cities in
cooler climes such as Korsk and Khardov, with their
burgeoning industries and dense populations, live
almost constantly blanketed in soot and fog as do
many of the inner cities of Cygnar. Both Corvis and
Fharin are renowned for their smoky fogs, or smogs,
and their foul-smelling coal fumes known as “stinking
fogs.” Complaints in the thousands have forced some
cities to make proclamations limiting the amount of
coal one can burn, but such regulations rarely succeed
in spite of the pressures of fines, ransoms, and even
threa ts to demolish furnaces. After all, the business of
iron has become much too important an industry.
Additionally, the tanning and slaughtering
industries, necessary to support the very populace
that complains of its pollutants, have added greatly to
the diminishment of the rivers with the dumping of
chemicals, surplus hair, and other tissues. Municipal
statutes attempt to regulate such matters, just as they
do the leaving or throwing of garbage, but in most
cities all of this—deforestation, air pollutants, water
pollutants, and litter—is an ever-growing concern.
rumor has it…
southWest of fharin, just a feW miles West of the market
line, lies a toWn onCe Called billingsdale. today it is best
knoWn as blaCk ghost mountain, and What happened there
deCades ago remains an environmental tragedy to this day.
during the autumn months of 574 ar, some litter Was
burned near an open pit Coal mine just outside of the mining
toWn. it appears that the flames ignited an underground
Coal vein that still burns thirty years later having spread
over a thousand surfaCe aCres from its starting point. early
efforts to extinguish the fire by digging trenChes proved
unsuCCessful and Within three years, noxious fumes and
subsidenCe—sudden and often deep sinkholes—had Claimed
more than fifty lives. by late 577 ar, the entire toWn Was
given up as lost and abandoned by all of its 3,500 inhabitants.
passengers on the market line Can sometimes see blaCk smoke
on the Western horizon and are heard to say, “there burns
blaCk ghost mountain.”
World Guide 57