Race Position (Communities): Highly structured, clan-based cities.

Race Position (Segregation): Segregated by craft/clan.

Race Position (Rights): Primary races are equal.

Race(s) (Primary): Dwarf, Mountain

Race(s) (Secondary): Dwarf, Hill; Gnome, Rock

Languages: Dwarvish, Gnomish, Anishinabe (Trade)

Literacy: High (for engineering/smithing)

Technology Level: High (Steel, Mithral, Clockwork, Steam/Geothermal)

Industries \ Trades: Mining (Finest Metals), Weaponsmithing, Armorsmithing, engineering, clockwork invention.

Arms \ Equipment: Heavy armor, steel axes, warhammers.

Government System: Clan-based Plutocracy

Ruler(s): Council of Forge-Lords (Guild leaders)

Came to power by: Divine "Seeding" (Y0) / Mastery of the Forge

Social Alignment: Lawful Neutral

Civilization Archetype: Volcanic Forge-Dwarves

Settlement Type(s): Subterranean cities (in volcanoes)

Settlement Population: (No data)

Cultural Archetype: (No data)

Rebelliousness: Low

Brigandage: Low

The Founding of the Hosteki

Part I: The Seeding of Fire (Year 0)

When the Fifth World was born, the gods did not place the Dwarves in comfortable, stable mountains. They were seeded onto a chain of harsh, barren, and highly active volcanic islands. With them were seeded the Rock Gnomes.

It was a test. The islands were almost devoid of natural life—no great forests for the Elves, no fertile plains for the Humans. They were a death sentence for any other race.

But for the Mountain Dwarves, they were a challenge. And for the Rock Gnomes, they were the ultimate engineering problem.

The two races, driven by their innate instincts, immediately began to dig. What they found was a divine gift, forged by the very volcanoes that threatened them: the islands were veined with the rarest and "finest metals" in the world. Mithral, adamantine, and gold had been created by the intense, primal heat and pressure.

They had found the world's richest treasury, but it was locked inside a furnace

Part II: The Taming of the Volcano (Y0 - Y30)

The Dwarves and Gnomes were trapped in a furnace, but it was a furnace full of gold. Survival depended on mastering their environment.

The two races formed an immediate, natural partnership:

• The Mountain Dwarves were the master smiths and miners, with the strength to carve the rock.

• The Rock Gnomes were the master engineers, with the ingenuity to solve the "heat" problem.

It was the Gnomes who devised the brilliant, defining strategy for their civilization: Don't fight the volcanoes—use them.

They did not build fragile settlements on the ash-covered surface. They went inside. The Rock Gnomes designed a massive, interconnected network of subterranean cities, not in unstable lava tubes, but carved directly into the "safe" basalt and granite of the island foundations. The Dwarves, with their unmatched skill in mining, excavated the Gnomish designs.

Their crowning achievement was the Great Forge. This was not a simple smithy; it was an industrial marvel built directly over a primary magma vent. The Gnomes designed a system of massive, arcane-runed stone vents and channels that tamed the volcano, redirecting the geothermal heat to power their forges, light their cities, and run their clockwork contraptions.

While the other civilizations were learning to farm, the Hosteki were learning to smelt adamantine. In 30 years, they had built a thriving, wealthy, and utterly unique civilization, masters of the fire that should have consumed them. They were an industrious, Lawful Neutral society, focused on wealth, craft, and the perfection of their engineering. This mastery is what made them the future industrial and financial backbone of the entire Anishinabe Confederacy.