Add on-Shakun - Sutor's Forge

Going back about 30 years ago now, the first official town I had ever laid out was Shakun. It was crude, simplistic, and missing most of the actual buildings that people lived in - a layout of the major streets and the shops there. The people were either lifted wholesale from other places I had read about or my first awkward attempts at populating a town.

As time went on I grew more refined and was able to further flesh out the broad strokes of Shakun. This place holds a special place to me as I have had countless adventuring groups either "start" from here or make it their home after the fact.

However with my current group I have not been describing the city as well as I should have, playing it in my mind and glossing it over to the people around the table (plus it is VERY hard to town adventure properly with 7 players!). In an effort to rectify this, I have been penning a few short essays about prominent places in Shakun and forwarding it to the group.

Here is the 4th one:

Sutor’s Forge

Sutor’s Forge is cobbled together from the three smitheries that used to make up Shakun's blacksmithing industry: Issac’s Tinsmithery, Lessa the Farrier, and Twocask Smiths. During the overrun and occupation of Shakun these smitheries were commandeered by the goblin forces and the original workers were forced to churn out metal works for the greenskin occupiers. Most attempts at sabotage or dereliction resulted in the smithy workers being put to death and replaced by slave labor.

After the goblins were routed and order restored, the town needed a tremendous amount of clean up and repair. It was decided that Lessa’s and Twocask would be cannibalized, with their anvils, tools, and what coal beds that could be salvaged brought over to Issac’s. Issac Smith had been killed many years ago and his children had also met similar fates. A former slave of the goblin snamed Sutorian Baker was one of the main members of the rebuilding of the smithery so in his honor, the forge was named for him. It is for that reason when people ask who runs the forge and sees a mid-30’s human named Torrence come out and greet them they are sometimes confused.

Sutor’s Forge isn’t an actual forge at all. There is no blast furnace, nor can they handle commercial grade iron. There are 3 coal beds and one furnace that is capable of reaching just about 700 degrees C (the beds hover around 350-500). The furnace is closest to the eastern part of the forge, right against the outer wall and the open air portion.

The open air portion of the forge is where the anvil work is done at Sutor’s. There are 2 300# anvils and 5 smaller work areas with lesser weight anvils and just some pounding stops. Covering roughly 40’ x 40’ the roof is slate and pitched away from the main forge building along the entire run from 15’ in height to 10’.

The inner portion of the forge is where the coal beds are located, the furnace, a number of bins, the molding room, and a small counter with a display area showing some of the wares that Sutor’s makes. The Charcoaler is located in the building right next to Sutor’s and there is a firebreak wall between the two buildings (a combination of brick, mortar, and backfilled sand). It was an expensive undertaking but Sutorian Baker had demanded it based upon his knowledge of ovens and bakeries.

The Charcoaling goes on two days a week and Torrence does not allow his journeymen smiths to oversee the process; instead taking it on as his own responsibility. The Charcoaling is dirty, messy, smells, and can become very dangerous if not handled with care and respect.

Shakun is built on a tremendous field of limestone and granite that is situated some distance below ground. The area is metal poor at best although the many many caves that dot the landscape do occasionally give up a small treasure of ore now and again. Because of this the Forge does mostly tinsmithery and farrier work (horseshoes). Their biggest demand product to date though happens to be nails. At this time about half the nails are actually scavenged and rescued from the reclamation projects taking place around Shakun. They are brought to Sutor’s where they are scoured, straightened and set up for sale. The others are made and cut from wire stock that Sutor’s purchases every week on caravan. Because of this there are times when there are no nails available until Marketday.

You will not get a suit of chainmail from Sutor’s but they can have the links fixed. You can buy plowshares, bridles, stirrups, fireplace dogs, horseshoes, binding wire, pots, pans, forks, spoons, chimney sleeves, and arrow heads. He does not have the ability to make swords or shields but can repair them if need be.

As for the people who work at Sutor’s there is Torrence, his 4 journeyman smiths, and up to 12 apprentice smiths employed there. The majority of them are human although numbering amongst his apprentices can be found two half-elves, one elf, and even a half-orc.