The Tortoise

The famous Tortoise is the moving city of the dwarves here in the Concordant Zone. It crawls on a track towards and away from the Pit depending on how dangerous the day is.
— Instructor of Recruits
The Tortoise is loud and noisy and the dirt dwarves are stinky. I love visiting!
— Sgt. Kill Flayer

The Tortoise Moves

The pride of the dwarves, The Tortoise is a mobile city that stands on The Kirinal Pit. It moves on a 20-mile long track at a rate of 1 mile per hour. It moves to the close position, right behind Skarhir Kos on the days of Heaven, Fey, Elemental and any other safe or trading days. On other days it moves to the far position, 20 miles from the edge of the Pit on the more dangerous days of Shatter and Shadow. It stays 10 miles away during days of uncertainty. At any time, the Mayor of the Tortoise can choose to move closer or further away to take advantage of a market or run from danger.

Earth Dwarves

When the dwarves were assigned their fortress on the Kirinal Pit, they had few volunteers to leave the mountains and travel to a place with barely a hill. Lower class dwarves, looking for a chance to escape the old caste system in the mountains made up most of the migrants.

Making the most of the opportunity, the so-called dirt dwarves bravely manned Skarhir Kos and built the Tortoise, a device that filled the other dwarves with awe and pride. They call themselves the Earth Dwarves, considering the term "dirt dwarf" an epithet worthy of a fight.

Hexworm & Incarnation Moth

The main innovation of the Earth Dwarves is their domestication of the hexworms, giant caterpillars capable of tunneling and moving earth on a large scale. They use them for construction projects throughout the Kirinal Concordance Zone.

Blank Ident-a-hedrons

When the hexworms show signs that they're going to cocoon the dwarves bring them into the Tortoise. They gather the crystals from the fully formed cocoons and turn them over to the crystal workers who shape them into blank Ident-a-hedrons for use by the Zone Authority.

Alternative Name(s)
The Crawler
Type
Large city
Location under
Owning Organization
Related Traditions
Characters in Location
Related Materials
Kirinal Concordance Zone

The Kirinal Concordance Zone was created around the Kirinal Pit to act as a buffer zone to defend against interplanar invasions. The Pit is a 30-mile hole in reality that chaotically manifests a different world or plane at random times.

Eventually, the people of Erathia tamed the Pit, setting it on a schedule so that an ordered succession of planes would appear over the Days of the Week.



Cover image: by Chris L - Midjourney

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