"A huge, bright oval was fixed in space ahead of the hammership. The shape was painted with tans, greens, and blues, and wispy clouds streaked its face. ... This coin was hundreds of miles across at least."
- Teldin Moore, The Maelstrom's Eye
Size: 350 mi wide, 30mi thick (average)
Class: C
Type: Earth (iron-rich)
Shape: Discworld
Inhabitants: Gnomes (pop 10000)
SJ aware?: Most definitely!
Climate: Cold temperate
Length of Day: 10 hrs
Length of Year: 300 Ironpiece Days
Overall Description
Ironpiece is the outermost world of Bralspace, the sphere also known as Spiralspace. It is a disk world, 350 miles in diameter and on average 30mi thick, and home to a colony of gnomes in this sphere. As Teldin Moore's description suggests, the world resembles a gigantic coin which spins in a flipwise manner such that there are alternating day and night periods as each side points towards the sphere's primary (Spiral). The period of this flipwise motion is 10 terrestrial hours, and the orbit around Spiral takes 300 such days.
Ironpiece was settled by the gnomes several centuries ago, due to its high concentration of many minerals, including precious metals. Most races of gnomes are present, though the dominant race are Tinker Gnomes. For this reason, the world could best be described as "interesting" or perhaps even "dangerous" depending on how one views tinker gnomes in general! The place is particularly rich in iron, which the gnomes mine extensively. A side effect is that magnetic direction devices such as compasses are notoriously unreliable - as these tend to simply point towards the outer edge or spin wildly. For this reason, the gnomes have abandoned the notion of "North" and instead refer to directions in terms of angular positions relative to Space Defense Bases which are located at the outer edge of the world. This can be quite confusing to newcomers to the place, but hey, what do you expect?!
Ironpiece has two surfaces - the "Upside" and "Flipside", both which have the normal gravity an air envelope common to disk worlds. The "Upside" is the inhabitted surface, and is predominently forest, with many lakes and also a few "tan patches". These are barren areas (deserts caused by failed gnomish experiments perhaps?), and cultivated farming areas. The edge of the world is ringed by a ridge of mountains (called "The Ridge") around the perimeter, which is also where the Space Defence Bases (SDBs) are located. The "Flipside" is a vast mountainous wasteland, with no water, and hence is largely uninhabitted.
The "Upside"
Lake Crashsplash
This is the most obvious feature in the middle of "the Upside", and is a long and narrow freshwater lake, and quite shallow. Lake Crashsplash used to be called "The Big Lake", but was renamed after a ship (Gomja's) crashed there. It has a maximum depth of 100' or so, but is much more shallow in most locations (eg. Only 12' deep where Gomja's ship crashed). The gnomes use giant, steam-powered fans to propel their many flat bottomed boats across the lake, using the artificial winds generated at the shoreline to windsurf about on the lake!
Port Walkaway (pop. 5000)
This is the capital city, and features a major spelljamming port. It is located on the shore of Lake Crashsplash. Off-world visitors usually stop here for supplies, repair work or retrofits (beware!). Non-gnomish citizens tend to live here in enclaves, similar to Bral. Port Walkaway got its name from the human saying: "Any landing you can walk away from is a good one". The gnomes didn't get the joke. Port Walkaway is protected by a number of ballista and catapult towers which surround the dockyard area called "The Yacht Club" detailed below. Port Walkaway is where the "serious" tinkers live, as it is the site of a large number of research facilities ("labs") in which these "Thinker-Tinkers" dream up and try out all manner of bizarre ideas - some good, much bad. A recent success story is the Spudnik I Space Superiority Fighter, an agile fighter (MC B) which features an electromagnetic drive system that propels the craft at tactical speeds and also fires special potato projectiles. This vehicle has become the standard defence craft for Ironpiece. Another ongoing project is the "Secret Birthday Party"; a "coherent-beam, synergized thaumamplifier" being worked on at Port Walkaway in secret.
The "Yacht Club"
The gnomes call the naval yard at Port Walkaway "The Yacht Club" for "security reasons". This facility is protected by 12 towers which surround it (including several out in the lake), each armed with a war machine of some sort (ballista, catapult, steam cannon, bombard, etc). In addition, there is a sizable garrison maintained here. The current military force consists of 670 gnomes, 22 humans and 50 others, lead by "First Colonel-Commander Herphan Gomja, Commander in Chief of Base Security, Naval Port Walkaway, Ironpiece".
On any given day the following gnomish vessels will be docked here (random numbers reflect what is "working" on a particular day): 1-6 Sidewheelers, 1-6 converted standard SJ vessels in the 25-50T class, and 2-5 Spudniks. The gnomes are always working on several other ships that are "Bigger and Better" but these are usually in a complete state of disarray. Since his dramatic arrive (read: crash) Gomja has attempted to organise things a bit better due to the concerns raised by Scro conquests of two elven colonies in the sphere.
TinkerTown (pop. 2000)
Mining/Industrial town, nestled in the foothills of the Ridge Mountains, with several mines and lumber mills located in the hills overlooking the town. Mine shafts lead to a vast underground network of tunnels many miles underground. Some of these tunnels even pass through the internal gravity plane and penetrating all the way to the "Flipside". Much of the mined ore is transported to the vast smelters of this town using bizzare steam-powered (or Giant Hamster powered) railway/trolley systems that are (im)famous for being somewhat unreliable. The tinker response to this problem is redundancy -- there are several systems all serving the same mine shafts so at least one is usually operational most of the time.
Hamlet (pop. 3000)
This is the centre of the agricultural activities of Ironpiece, including a number of Giant Hamster ranches in the fields surrounding the city. Giant hamsters are used for the biopowered technology for which tinker gnomes are (im)famous. Giant groundhogs are also raised and trained here, for use as excavation beasts in the mines of Ironpiece. Unfortunately, both rodents are excellent diggers, so much in fact that frequent escapes are quite common. As a result, the forests of Ironpiece are home to a fairly large population of wild giant rodents, some quite nasty ("with huge, nasty, pointy teeth!").
Steam Railways
The three main settlements are connected to each other by railways as noted on the map. These use huge steam-powered locomotives to move people and cargo about. Some actually get to their destination on time and in one piece, though boiler explosions and derailments are quite common. Other designs of locomotive are used including a strange hamster-driven contraption which resembles a very odd circus train! These are more reliable than the steam- powered type though have their own sorts of problems (like what happens when the hamsters get startled or distracted!).
Space Defense Bases (SDBs)
Arrayed on the outer edge of the world are the Space Defense Bases, abbreviated SDB#1 through SDB#6. Each is located on prominent hills in the "ridge" at the perimeter if the world, at roughly 60 deg intervals. At each location, there is a mine shaft and elevator (or other gnomish contraption) for moving between the "Upside" base to an identical installation on the "Flipside", about 30 mi through the edge of the disk. At each SDB is based 2 Spudnik Space Superiority Fighters and approximately 50 gnome guardsmen. On each side is a tower with a flashing strobe-light (like a lighthouse) armed with three "gnome" style war machines such as steam cannon and bombards, barracks and other assorted buildings, and a small landing strip for the Spudniks.
The "Flipside"
The flip side of Ironpiece is a vast rocky barren region, but with normal gravity and air. Subterranean caves and tunnels (some which connect to the upper surface). Mostly uninhabited, though overseen by 6 gnomish guard towers at the outer edge which link to matching defense bases above.
