Cadogan Weir

Appearance
The Weir is aptly named as it sits astride the great river that comes flowing through the mountain and crashing down into the Selva valley below. The Dwarves of the Weir call it the Arûna, meaning ‘blessing’. It splits the town into two, crossed by several large carved stone bridges and a hundred wooden gangways and unstable rope bridges. This sets the tone for the rest of the city - an austere traditional stone skeleton overgrown with more recent and more scruffy additions. And the once beautiful river is full of the trash and pollution from an overactive city, covered with a thin film of grime at all times and home to all sorts of aberrations.

The perpetual twilight of the city is lit with greasy gas lanterns that fill the air with smoke, which mixes with the constant smoke from grilling meat to create an odorous cacophony unique to a Dwarven hold. Old stone Dwarven halls are covered with scaffolding holding an always moving mass of people from all over, guaranteeing the Weir is never quiet even in the dead of night. Against a backdrop of clattering blacksmith’s hammers and the screeching of metal machinery, shady gangsters drink and gamble their ill-won gold pieces.

There are three entrances to the Weir from the Selva - one is to fly directly in through the hole that the river has worn through the rock. The easiest is to take the large freight lift which runs on request straight from the Weir down alongside the waterfall into the Selva basin below. The most common way is through a series of passageways called the Belard Way, an arduous series of stone staircases that worm their way up through the rock of the mountain from an entrance behind the waterfall.

Economy
They say that everything has a price in Cadogan Weir, even if the price is sometimes your own life. The Weir acts as a trading hub for all of the goods of the Dwarves in this area, meaning a lot of trade in raw materials such as stone, precious and non-precious metals, and gemstones. There are also a number of artisans in residence, although less than you might find in a more traditional hold as artistry is only useful as long as you can pay for protection. All artisans pay heavy protection tithes to the cartels, which has lead to some leaving for the comparatively safe city of Amaroth.

The city’s complete lack of laws attracts new types of artisan though - those who work in untested magic and experimental technology. Warlocks and necromancers ply their trade in the same marketplace as smiths and stonemasons with none of the stigma such casters find in the wider world. There are also no taxes other than those imposed by the cartels as bribes, which does attract some very wealthy individuals looking to keep all their money to themselves.

Culture
The Dwarves of Cadogan Weir cleave to the creed that every man must stand for himself, and all attempts at governance or leadership must be rejected. They embrace anarchy and rage against the monolith of Dwarven tradition. They welcome everyone with coin to spend, but also consider everyone a target. The Weir doesn’t care if you practice a religion, but will punish you harshly if you try to proletise or preach to those who do not care to hear it. The only morality is gold. This makes the Weir a place of enormous disparity - those with power and money hold raucous parties every night while those with nothing die in the streets with no-one to clear their bodies. Cadogan Weir has no sympathy and no kindness for those that do not offer something in return.

History
In the not so distant past, Cadogan Weir was Khorn Ragni, one of several large Dwarven settlements along the edge of the Cadogan mountain range. With the river running through it, it was the main portal between the Selva and the rest of the Dwarven kingdoms. While it was home to a small garrison, the main population were traders, miners, smiths and other artisans. It was also home to a famous college that trained Dwarves as scribes, architects and Contract crafters.

550 years ago dissent began to grow as high taxes on artisans and high costs of training drained money from Khorn Ragni and into the more prosperous Khorn Burheim, home of Grimsthadn Brozairgith, the ‘princess’ of the Dwarven nobility. The royals responded harshly, exiling dissenters or anyone suspected of treachery. Unknown to them, the students and artisans banded together with the exiles and one fateful night they mounted an assault on the garrison, half of whom sided with the rebels, driving those faithful to the monarchs out of town. The nobles made several token efforts to reclaim the city, but each time they sent troops it seemed more of their own joined the now lawless settlement, and within a few short years ‘Cadogan Weir’, as it was now known, was an independent town.