(http://i.imgur.com/Vj173K3.png)
The world where our story takes place is called The Enchanted Plane, and as the starting point we take year 204. The world could visually be divided into four regions. The northern continent (or, rather, two continents) contained the most of the wolrd's population. All 4 main civilization were present there, although humans were dominating just as elsewhere in the world. It were the lands filled with perpetual diplomacy, trade and wars (the latter were not so fierce though).
The southwest of the world was another dense populated area. However, there was only one dwarven civilization, which essentially died out by year 80 after shameful lose to the elven civilization, and far to the frozen south a small civilization of goblins was located. The rest was divided between elvish and human nations. The most severe war conflicts actually happed here: the lands were scarce, and both races wanted to have more of them. That resulted in constant confrontations, two centuries of mutual slaughter. Although, neither side could ultimately win.
The equatorial continent was very hot and almost entirely empty. There were 2 human nations: The Whiskered Empire and The Massive Realm, that reside at the west and the east coast of the continent, respectively. And the only one human kingdom, The Competetive Nation, was strong of heart enough to live in the midst of the heat, far from refreshing oceans.
Finally, a large island (or a small continent) on the southeast. A homeland for the protagonists of our story, a dwarven nation The Steel of Combating.
The place was definitely hard to call a resort. It had some mountain ridges, but the rest was almost entirely the half-frozen marshes. Except The Steel of Combating, there were 3 goblin nations and two coastal human kingdoms. Another small dwarven civilization, The Crazed Corridors used to live here, but they were violently conquered by goblins around year 50. Also a small elven settlement managed to survived in small taiga area during two centuries, but they also were defeated by goblins soon after year 204.
Last decades were quite peaceful on the island, goblins didn't try to seize the more warm and attractive north of the island. In fact, The Steel of Combating had only one battle with goblins prior to our story (long time ago, in 44th), although there were much more between humans and goblins. But scouts' and adventurers' reports made the dwarves feel some oppressive expectation in the air. The goblins were preparing something. Position of The Steel of Combating was a bit shaky: most of the settlements were mere hillocks, far from the mountains, making it easy to conquer. Moreover, in case of the war dwarves would be greately outnumbered.
This was a time when nobles of The Steel of Combating have started developing an expansion plan.
Just as a small spoiler, goblins' invasion danger is not merely an excuse for the story. Check out how the home island looks 50 years later:
(http://i.imgur.com/Jdnl1Yl.png)
Yes, harsh times for the Steel of Combating was about to begin just around the start of our story...
(http://i.imgur.com/qtDma6C.png)
The closest shore of the middle continent was really very close, but it was decided that the more western area is way more promising in terms of nature's variety and mineral resources. The first outpost, Oarbear, was founded in 205, just around the time when the goblins have started a massive offense campaign in dwarven homelands. Few months later, just after the first migration wave, the fort was, however, abandoned, by the reasons that left publicly undeclared.
The exploring group came back and was disbanded, but very soon a new one was equipped and in 206 has been sent to found a new outpost, Blockadecrewed, just nearby the first one. It turned out to be a much more successive venture, and after few months the scouts of The Steel of Combating have started gathering information about The Artificial Plains (the massive grasslands, covering most of the south of the middle continent) and the adjointed surroundings.
It is not like The Artificial Plains were completely free from other intelligent creatures. Various adventurers of unclear origins and dubious intentions were bustling back and forth. Towns and villages of The Competetive Nation were also not so far to the north. One day a curious guy, a tiger man named Tuma Mortalknight came to the outpost, apparently filled with urge to serve to dwarves as a military and scout unit. Obvioulsy, the dwarves could not so easily allow him to join the outpost in such wild, unexplored lands. To test his abilitities and intentions, he was given a task to explore a far northwestern part of the continent and defeat a decent monster of his choice.
(http://i.imgur.com/sTWjPfw.png)
Long story short, the quest had been perfectly executed. Tuma went almost as far as the western coast of the continent, memorised a lot of valuable geographical observations. He has tracked and slayed Ngosla Ong the hill titan in his own lair, admittedly, with a horrible equipment (the guy fought bare chested with a silver sword!). He also killed a blind cave ogre in the sands nearby the outpost (with help of 3 adventurers from The Competitive Nation). Two weeks later, Tuma was assigned without any further hesitations to the position of military commander in Blockadecrewed, and his travel in details became known to the nobles of The Steel of Combating. In particular, they were interested in one nice location described by Tuma. On the northern end of The Crest of Barricading he passed by an adorable valley. River, full of fish, large variety of crops, veils of brown recluse spider webs that easily can be weaved into silk, quite thick wood vegetations, including different kind of fruit trees -- and everything lying at the base of the mountain ridge.
It was a good time for The Steel of Combating to build a real fortress in this land, and so, in 207, early spring, the group of seven dwarves with the loaded wagon had stopped in the valley. The great fortress of Rackmassive were founded. The well-known anecdote, which had several consequences for our story, is that all seven founders were experienced mathematicians, although they also had more standard skills. This fact has predestined strong inclination of the fortress population towards rigorous sciences and engineering.
Rackmassive was pretty much what one could call a strong, classical dwarven fortress. On the surface, a fortification with high walls and defense towers has been built. The main goal for these fortification were to create safe space for stock raising and aboveground farming: living spaces, stockpiles, the tavern, industries and everything else were located mostly underground. The depth of mountains, unfortunately, contained neither tin or iron, leaving dwarven military quite vulnerable in the first years. The dwarves tried to find ways to produce valuable steel by other means, mostly by buying iron from the mountainhome and human caravans.
(http://i.imgur.com/uGa4Mjh.png)
A goblin civilization The Poison of Shins, although being quite far to the south from The Artificial Plains, tried to seize both dwarven settles on the middle continent once, in 209. They sent (relatively small) armies to both Racmassive and Blockadecrewed.
(http://i.imgur.com/qL13SQx.png)
It posed little trouble for Rackmassive. Even small and underequipped militia of the fortress preferred to meet the enemy face to face instead of hiding beneath (the outer walls were far from completion at the time), and won the battle (although, not without casualties). Things went much worse for the outpost. All small population and militia of Blockadecrewed were slaughtered, and goblins conquered the settlement. Beloved militia commander of the outpost Tuma Mortalknight fought like a lion (or rather, like a tiger), and killed several foes before his heroic death. The outpost had been lost, but no further attempts were made on Rackmassive: the goblins learned the lesson.
As was said, the science was of high respect in Rackmassive. Soon after the first migrant waves came and the library, small but snug, was built, founders of Rackmassive were dedicating their time to exploring the nature's secrets. The fortress as well tried to buy all scientific books that caravans were bringing, and the general population also was enjoying reading those manuscripts. The library of Rackmassive got quite known even far beyond The Artificial Plains, and usually several academic visitors of different races (once an amphibian man scholar has came, for instance) could be found in the library, participating in the discussions and seminars. The tavern of Rackmassive was also a popular place among travellers, since no other taverns could be found for many miles around.
In 210, after sudden death of the previous king, Likot Tholrisen inherited the crown of The Steel of Combating. He was one of seven matematicians, founders of Rackmassive, and was an outstanding scholar. The fortress had already been very mighty and influential, and almost outweigh all homeland settlements, but becoming the mountainhome allowed to multiply its power. Likot was considering a lot of development plans. Diplomatic and trade delegations had been sent to other dwarwen civilizations, including The Brass Seal - the most powerful dwarven nation in the world, with the population ten times greater than the population of The Steel of Combating, and whose fortresses could be found in almost any mountains of northeastern continent. Rackmassive had started to build international connections and influence. On the side of fortress development, the dwarves had started to construct The Math Tower: a microcline structure (favorite king's material) of rigorous mathematical shapes. It had to contain king's chambers and a large scientific library, closed for the general public, where the king and the best minds of The Steel of Combating had to gather for research and scientific discussions om mathematics, physics and engineering sciences.
These plans have never been completed due to the chain of unfortunate and tragedic events, later known as the Year of The Coyote.
Life in Rackmassive was, in general, very peaceful and safe. Goblins didn't show up since the first attempt, no titans or forgotten beasts were coming as well (the caves were sealed). The main trespassers were the gray langurs that were annoying the working outdoors dwarves and occasionally, were stealing some trinkets - they were the main reason for the military patrolling duties. However, every season or two a werebeast came, leading sometimes to deaths, and sometimes to infection by the curse. After one of such incidents, a cursed dwarf had been improperly isolated and had broken free, and several citizens were bitten. At this point the situation were still reversible, but the measures were taken sloppily again. Next full moon few more bites happened, and someone in the tavern became cursed, making the situation extremely difficult to handle.
Next several months was a real nightmare. Screams, rivers of blood and chaos during the full moons; mutual suspicion and despair of the survivors, smell of decay and miasma in between.
(http://i.imgur.com/9VHG45i.png)
The military squad had decided to refrain from immediate attempts to fix the situation, and merely tried to safe the king (he also was given a set of armor). Somehow, even in this they had failed: on one of the full moon days he went wandering around, and got killed. It was unclear, whether the "pure" dwarves would win, or Rackmassive is going to become the werebeast fortress. However, eventually, many of werecoyots was murdered, and at last the military forces tried to take control. With some casualties, they have succed, and Rackmassive was salvaged from the curse.
The price was extremely high, though. More than 80% of the population were murdered, including the king and most of the nobles, only abount 20 dwarves survived. Besides, every single visitor (out of more than 50) left the tavern in a coffin. Including a particularly unlucky vampire, who came to drink delicious blood, but got killed without having time to suck some. The new king was manifested somewhere on the home island, a lot of important figures were slaughtered, and the tavern obtained ill fame among adventurers for a long time. A huge portion of Rackmassive influence and might was destroyed, and recovery took years.
And so, the years of slow rehabilitation and peaceful life in Rackmassive passed. The new king was not a very influential person - he was barely twenty years old. Besides, the home island of The Steel of Combating was really in fire - all mountain fortresses had been lost, only a bunch of hillocks was in possession of The Steel of Combating. And therefore, the bright minds and the nobility contiued to gather in Rackmassive. The champion and the outpost liason still lived here, for example.
A lot of scientist and engineers still could be found here, too. And in one day in year 217, when they were discussing with the mayor possible ways of making Rackmassive great again, the idea of The Great Dwarven Railway has been born. The colossal minecarts track line, which had to connect Rackmassive with The Competetive Nation, and which could be used for business trips of diplomats, for comfortable transportation of adventureres or for cargo movements. The plan was huge, but in case of success the world would be awed of the dwarven engineering genius, and Rackmassive, as well as The Steel of Combating, would get the influence they have never seen before.
The planning group was gathered, and they has started making the construction plans. The group was named The Railway Administration, and most of the engineers of Rackmassive was the members, among with several Rackmasssive nobles, including the mayor and the manager. They decided to be as humble as possible, until the project see some success, and so they didn't even have an office. Sometimes they had meetings in the library, sometimes in the tavern, and sometimes they squeezed into the mayor's office.
The shortest way to The Competetive Nation was straight to the East. The way was divided into areas, or sectors. The whole way was expected to take about 18 sectors. Some of them expected to be a little bit hilly (especially Sector 1). Starting from Sector 5 or 6, aquifer should become an issue, however the first few sectors should be easy in that sense. Around the 12-13th sector the railway should go across The Mountain of Hustling - a lonely haunted peak. Dwarves could easily find a detour for the way, since the peak was really not large, however, they wanted to tame the mountain, in a sense. Of course, all required measures to grant safety to the travellers should be taken.
And so, the group of seven has been equipped and sent to build Sector 1. Well, the travel was not something to boast about, since the place was really like the back yard of Rackmassive, just the neighboring land. Still, they have been given the wagon and all standard equipment. Later, The Administration planned to build the luxorious Main Station, at the territory of the fortress, but they have decided to start laying the rails a little bit away.