Bayag began as an engineering research facility buried within the mighty Dwarven city of Bayag En'Dura, where master craftsmen forged mechanical workers, engines, and the industrial wonders that once powered the kingdom.
During the early years of the kingdom’s collapse, catastrophe struck. A devastating flood threatened to erase Bayag En'Dura from existence. Most fled before the rising waters, but the engineers of the research facility refused to abandon generations of invention and discovery. While the flood consumed the surrounding districts, gears deep beneath the facility began to awaken. Massive mechanisms groaned to life, and the entire structure lifted itself above the waters on towering construct legs. What was once a stationary research complex took its first steps across the world.
In the years that followed, the wandering facility adopted the name Bayag. Additional mobile districts were constructed and attached to the original foundation, allowing refugees, laborers, and ambitious travelers to join the moving city. Tales of a walking fortress crossing the wasteland spread rapidly throughout the fractured lands. Some were inspired by the city's ingenuity and discipline. Others feared it.
The city remains overwhelmingly Dwarven in both population and culture, though Cog workers and engineers make up much of the remaining citizenry. Stone architecture dominates the skyline, giving each district the appearance of a traditional Dwarven stronghold despite the thunderous machinery hidden beneath. Heavy square towers rise above enormous reinforced platforms while tunnels and maintenance chambers network through the lower levels like veins through steel.
Beneath the city lies the true heart of Bayag: the colossal mobility engines. Each district can separate from the others and move independently on forty-foot-tall segmented legs capable of maintaining stable movement at roughly ten miles per hour. Emergency acceleration is possible, but the violent motion threatens the structural integrity of the city itself. When stationary, the elevated legs lock together to form bridges between districts, transforming the moving fortress into a sprawling mechanical metropolis.
Bayag survives through relentless acquisition of resources. Ore veins, abandoned ruins, forests, and salvage sites are all considered necessary for the city's continued operation. This constant expansion has fueled countless disputes with neighboring settlements. The darkest incident in Bayag’s history came when civilians formed a peaceful blockade to prevent the city from claiming contested resources. Bayag insists that early mobility systems malfunctioned and failed to stop in time. The opposing cities remember only the screams beneath iron legs.
Despite these tensions, Bayag continues to trade with other cities, exporting refined metals, mechanical workers, advanced engineering, and military technology. The city’s greatest construction secrets remain fiercely guarded. As warfare spread throughout the broken alliance, many districts were redesigned specifically for battle. Armored sectors carrying massive weapons are shifted toward active warzones while civilian districts retreat behind them. The similarities to naval warfare became so pronounced that the engineers responsible for movement and positioning became known simply as sailors.
Governance within Bayag is strict and uncompromising. A ruling council maintains near-absolute authority, and social order is valued above individual freedom. Leadership is determined largely through merit, engineering achievement, and contribution to the city's survival. With every citizen needed to sustain the city's infrastructure, imprisonment is considered wasteful. Punishments instead escalate through humiliation, fines, forced labor, exile, and ultimately slavery.
Kalmak was among the original engineers of Bayag En'Dura and remains one of the greatest minds ever produced by the mobile city. Unlike the ancient Dragons of legend, Kalmak stands only slightly larger than a Human. His scales carry a metallic teal sheen, and twin stunted nubs mark where his wings should have grown.
Refusing to accept that limitation, Kalmak mastered cogwork fabrication and built mechanical wings for himself. What began as necessity evolved into obsession. His inventions pushed the boundaries of engineering so far that many citizens regard him as either a visionary genius or a catastrophe waiting to happen.
Kalmak’s expertise proved essential during the salvation of Bayag, earning him immense influence and respect. He now spends most of his time isolated in his workshop experimenting with increasingly dangerous projects. Battlefields are one of the few places where he willingly leaves his forge, viewing combat less as war and more as an opportunity to test new inventions.
His most controversial achievements came after he was ordered to fabricate replacement parts for injured Bayag sailors. Initially insulted by the task, Kalmak eventually embraced it as a challenge. The results included nineteen catastrophic failures, several engineering breakthroughs, and the survival of countless soldiers who otherwise would have died.
Tuk stretches the definition of the word “hero” beyond recognition.
She is an Antfused assassin feared throughout Bayag for her mastery of ambush, infiltration, and silent murder. Black chitin plates armor her body while razor pincers and a poised stinger make close combat against her catastrophically brief.
Fortunately for most victims, they rarely see her at all.
While prospectors waste their lives spelunking through unstable caverns in search of treasure, Tuk prefers patience. She waits near exits, hidden among ruined stone and broken terrain, watching survivors emerge exhausted and overconfident from the depths below.
In Bayag, murder is illegal.
Accidents are not.
Many travellers suffer unfortunate falls shortly before reaching civilization. Others vanish entirely. Their recovered equipment inevitably finds its way into Bayag markets shortly afterward.
Yet Tuk’s true currency is not wealth.
It is reputation.
Tales of her exploits circulate endlessly through Bayag taverns where stories hold nearly as much value as Souls themselves. Every vanished explorer, every impossible infiltration, and every battlefield assassination further elevates her notoriety.
Soldiers sent against Bayag rarely realize they are being hunted until it is already too late. Tuk specializes in eliminating officers, scouts, and supply leaders before disappearing back into the wasteland shadows.
Her past remains one of the city’s greatest mysteries.
Tuk speaks almost nothing of her life before arriving in Bayag, though rumors surrounding her are endless. Some claim she once belonged to the infamous Night Wraiths of Tordab before being cast out. Others whisper that she carries illegitimate blood ties to the Keridwyn royal family itself.
The darkest rumors claim something worse:
that Tuk played a role in whatever silenced the royal capital.
No evidence has ever surfaced proving any of the stories true.
Then again, evidence has a habit of disappearing around Tuk.
