Arms
Evolution and Standard Weapons
The Dwarfs have been hard at work perfecting steam technologies over the past two years. Among the many advancements made is the perfection of the personal steam gun down to the size of a musket. The steam gun fires further than the musket and in a pinch, it can use rocks for ammunition (a feat that its gun-powdered counterpart could never hope to do). Now a personal arm can fire as far as a black powdered cannon and cause almost as much damage. A sniper rifle variant has also been designed that can fire as far as the largest known Ballista can. These advancements all stem from the Junk Cannon of just a few years ago. Advancements have also been made to the Flame Gun and Cannons. An observation about Steam Cannons is that the larger the cannon is, the less the range is but the more damage the gun causes. Unlike black powdered weapons where we would just add more gun powder to project the missile further, we run into the limitation that we can’t add more steam to firing our larger weapons.
Advancements have also been made to our Mech and Power Armor building capabilities. Our new steal Mechs are no longer vulnerable to electrical attacks. We have also been able to update our Mech armor from stone to more durable steel and iron. Next, we will investigate building mechs out of Mithral and Adamantine. For now though, we will be building our Mechs from steel. It is interesting to note that our steel supplies are currently in abundance because our foot-troops have been turning in their heavy metal armors and opting for Leather or Cloth armor in its place. Life on board a Mech is very constrictive and wearing hide armor up causes chaffing and blistering while traveling.
Standard Weapon Load-Outs…
Stenian Confederation
Our standard troops are decked out in Leather Armor arm themselves with a musket and bayonet combination weapon along with an axe as a backup weapon. We are now in the process of rearming our troops with Steam Guns in the place of the musket. The safety of not having to stockpile gunpowder is extremely important to life on Mechs. Our elite troops arm themselves with Power Armor and heavy weapons. Some of our Power Armored Shock Troops are powerful enough to go toe to toe with a Mech. Our Mechs are the best. We have the most City Mechs (four) and all of our Mechs have been built to sustain heavy damage without worry. Our primary patrol Mech is the Juggernaut.
The Legion
The Humans of the Legion are mostly savages that have banned together. They don’t have a standard weapon load out of which we are aware, but rumor has it that more and more of their soldiers are equipped with Black Powdered weapons. Some theorize that they acquired our old muskets through the black market, but who would sell our old arms to another empire? Unlike us, the Humans don’t have a lot of access to iron or steel, so most of them wear light armor, if any, and most of their Mechs are made out of Stone or Wood. Their primary patrol mech is the Defender.
We don’t know too much about their culture, but we do know that they evolved from Human Nomads that band together for Survival. Shar Thizdic is their leader. While the group is not openly hostile, they are ethnocentric. Nonhumans in their lands play a lesser role than their human counterparts and are often found as the nations lowliest laborers and treated as second class citizens. Take great care if you cross into their lands.
Iron Tooth Clans
The Iron Tooth Clans are descendents from our own lines. Roughly two years ago Bader Iron Tooth deflected from the confederation along with many of our best warriors. These warriors do not respect laws the way we do so they broke out on their own. They make their living raiding our territories. There are several factions and they all have one thing in common. They rely on small, but fast and agile Mechs. They are the best pilots around and we do not recommend that non-military citizens engage them in combat. Power Armor and Clock Work Mechs are very common to them.
Rust Riders
The Mechs of the Rust Riders are not dangerous. It is the 20 soldiers hanging off of the Mechs that you have to worry about. These Rust Riders are nomads that work both within and outside of our boarders. They don’t understand a lot about Mechs so they capture them instead of build them and then replace the Mech engines with man-powered engines. Their Mech weapons also tend to be primitive. They rely a lot on catapults and ballista.