Khaz Helofik

Khaz Helofik, dwarven for the "Clan Fort of the Temple of the Gods", is the clanhold capital for Clan Uransson of the Clans of Magnus. The small city is storied, and has a highly insular population, mostly of Dwarves (and mostly of its own clan). The fortress was established after Urniora Magnussun was given charge of the deaths of dwarves by being named Gate-Maiden of Khaz Urheim. The city is therefore strongly associated in dwarven culture with their funerary practices, and the city's extensive network of catacombs and mausolea is a desirable burial location for the heroic dead of the dwarves. This city is the only surface holding of the clan, with its citadel in the Valley of Giants

Geography

Khaz Helofik is a shining citadel on a hill, a fortification of polished white stone that overlooks the main (and rarely travelled) overland route through the Valley of Giants. While the area immediately around it is lightly populated and farmed, this farming serves to feed little more than the population of armed guards, clerics, and workers who live in the surface citadel. There are many roads through the Deeps that connects Helofik to other points. Nominally, the city sits along an overland road between Khaz Thorimeft and Khaz Maiessdan, but that overland route is so disused that it is effectively wild, and only a few of the old dwarven milestones remain.

Economy

Dwarven economies tend to be highly static. Dwarves do not birth often and take long to mature, and apart from war and disease, suffer few pressures to shrink their cities. Helofik is, like all great dwarven fortresses, heavily reliant on imported foodstuffs, as well as other products of agriculture and forestry. As much of this comes from the clanhold's other settlements, including surface settlements, in the Valley of Giants.

The dwarves of Khaz Helofik have delved deep beneath their city and their mines here are exhausted. Industry in the city focuses around the working of already-refined metals sourced from other mining settlements within the clanhold. It is something of a hub on the roads under the mountain as a result, and has a rich market with surprising access to goods otherwise considered exotic by the dwarves.

These factors combine to make a materially-wealthy city which is rich in gold but poor in its own upkeep, meaning much of that gold goes out of the gates as quickly as it flows in.

Khaz Helofik is home to many archives and mausolea as regards the lives and deaths of the dwarves. In times of relative unity among the dwarves (who are known to war amongst each other if they have no other threats to consider), messengers from other strongholds bring records of deaths - and sometimes even remains - to Khaz Helofik. The city is said to occupy a spiritual position as the "low" end of the road to Khaz Urheim, and while most dwarves prefer to be buried in their own homeland, the pious or the honoured are sometimes buried here to speed them along their road to the divine.

Politics

Helofik is the seat of power for Clan Uransson, who are a powerful clan by virtue of their spiritual piety and the reputation of their schools of pastoral theology. The leaders of this clan are viewed as eccentric isolationists at times, but always with great respect among the other kings and thanes of the dwarves, owing in part to the perception that Helofik is itself holy ground - a concept not often seen otherwise in dwarvendom.