Azania Toysmith, Dwarven Clockworker

Written by: Sean Holland
Edited by: Cassey Toi

Don’t wind it too tight, you’ll break the spring.

Background

The Toysmith family has been associated with clockworking, gearsmithing and golem making for generations, but they primarily stick to working in the Dwarven freeholds. Azania, a talented student, quickly moved from apprentice to journeyman. Her talents lay in creating more delicate toys and flights of fancy, things not usually found among dwarves, but immensely popular with other races. After much discussion, it was decided to send Azania to work outside the freeholds where her talents could bloom.

Working at a market Azania found a book referencing Forgegrinder’s works. Curious, she wrote to her family for more information, they passed on little information other than a family connection; Forgegrinder was her grand-uncle. This only made her more curious as his early work on toy soldiers and clockwork dragons excited her. Wherever she travels, she looks for early examples of his works and design notes for them. She has not missed the fact that information on his later work has been removed from the public eye, but she assumes it is the usual actions of those who wish to use the designs for war, some thing she has no interest in.

Description

Azania is slender a dwarf, which distress her, she would like to be a bit more solid. She wears her waist length black hair pinned up, usually in a bun. Her eyes are a pure sapphire blue. Her hands bear testament to her work, there are a multitude of small scars on them. She prefers practical clothing with lots of pockets, but will dress according to the local fashion when required to attend a social function.

Azania is not your typical dwarf, as well as being a skilled craftswoman she is an excellent salesperson. Open and cheerful, she loves to demonstrate the toys she builds and enjoys the challenge of building new ones to the specifications of buyers.

She is an innovative inventor and very curious about anything to do with clockwork, gears and other complex mechanisms -magical and mundane. This often leads to her talking about and debating the best ways to build things for hours.

What Can She Do?

If you want a toy or fancy made of clockwork, there is no finer craftswoman. She prefers working with metals and semiprecious stones, but she can make a gem-encrusted gold songbird – that sings when struck by the first ray of the sun – with the best of them. When not working on commissioned work, Azania likes to build simple toys like soldiers and horses from tin and scrap metal. She has a small amount of magical talent which she uses to enhance her craft work.

Azania’s mastery of clockwork, gears and toy design has, inadvertently, created an expertise in locks and traps. Others may realize this, but she will not, until she is put into a situation that requires the use of those skills.

Who Might Know Her and Why

Azania usually sells to the upper levels of society, those who can afford her most exotic and beautiful toys. Anyone of that group may have seen her work , received or bought something of hers as a gift.

Members of a clockworking or toymaking guild would certainly know of her and her work. Just as any dwarf in the area is likely to know of her by reputation at the very least. Dwarven culture dictates that the local dwarves keep an eye on her and protect her if needed.

Azania is constantly on the lookout for interesting toys and trinkets to incorporate into her creations. Merchants who sell those items are likely to know and at times do business with her.

Plot Hooks

• Azania’s existence and line of questioning has put Sentinel 5 in a position it does not know how to resolve. Her inquiries into what became of Forgegrinder may, potentially, lead her to find and try to and locate the Hidden Vale. It senses that Azania embodies the purity of what its maker wanted from life, to make things that made people’s lives better. Sentinel 5 seeks to deny Azania access to information that could lead her to the Vale, but it has managed -so far- to avoid acting directly against her, a situation it wants to avoid.Azania hires the characters to track down some of her grand-uncle’s early notebooks, putting them on the fast track to conflict with Sentinel 5. Which, while it trusts Azania’s motives it does not trust what others may learn and can act again them with impunity. Sentinel 5 does not wish to reveal itself, so it will lay traps for the party, such as herding wild animals into attacking them and so forth. It feels compelled to avoid showing itself to anyone who might report on its existence back to Azania.
• Worried that Azania may decide to try and locate her grand-uncle’s resting place at some point, Sentinel 5 decides to drive her far away from the Vale. It does this by economic warfare. It starts killing her patrons and customers. Azania notices the pattern before anyone else does and hires the characters to protect her patrons, though she does not know from what or why.
• A damaged Sentinel 5 approaches Azania, one of the few people who could repair it. She would take pity on such a being and repair it. Upon learning of the true nature of Sentinel 5, her guilt that her action in helping it led to further bloodshed, compels her to hunt it down. To do so she would need help.

Azania Toysmith by Nevermet Press is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.nevermetpress.com/contact.