Dokkatin Broadforge, Dwarven Tech

Artesiris base was an old station built before the Cataclysm by Saurian space engineers during the height of the technological growth.  They built a series of Teleportation Transit Gates (TTG) that connected the planet with the station.  For centuries after the Cataclysm, the planet side TTG remained hidden in underground ruins, until it was found by pre-Chaos War explorers.

Relatively simultaneously, a gate was discovered by two sets of explorers – one Dwarven and one Saurian.  Both lay claim to it in the name of their individual tribes and out of this grew armed conflict.  A small war waged over the ownership of the artifact before anyone knew what it was.  While it waged, scholars from both sides studied it separately and eventually began to work together in secret.  These scientists, tired of the incessant squabbling of their leaders, blatantly defied their people’s decree of war in order to learn the nature of the artifact.

This act was a first in many to finally end the war over the artifact and bring the two tribes together in peace.  They soon learned that it was a gate, badly damaged since the Cataclysm.  The dwarven and saurian scholars used magic to repair the device, and found the other end on the ancient space station Artesiris.   Together, the two tribes worked together to take advantage of the station and the treasures it held within.  The eventually built a small citadel around the gate and with technology enhanced with their magic from the station, fortified it considerably.

As the Chaos Wars began to brew, more and more of these two tribes (now one) teleported to the station to make it their new permanent home.  Among those were the famed Broadforge Guild, of which Dokkatin’s ancestors were from.  Upon arrival on the station, the social structures of old collapsed and the new order prevailed.  Those in the lower castes and guilds took control while the rich and powerful were toppled.  The Broadforge Guild found new uses of their skills as they learned to be maintenance workers on the station.  Dok’s family centered around the water reclamation systems, primarily.

As the population was dwindling on the space station, the dwarven and saurian scientists had explored ways that saurian and dwarves could reproduce together. Using technology found on the station, the scientists genetically manipulated generations of Artesirisans and this lead to a wide variety of racial mixtures.  These subspecies were sometimes derogatorily referred to as Kobolds.

Dok never knew his mother as she died giving birth to him and his twin brother.  His older siblings described their mother as extremely intelligent but also mentally challenged.  Neighbors called her crazy.  She had secrets that no one will know now that she is dead.   He knew his father did not hold her in great regard.  While not outright defaming her, he never spoke of her positively, especially after remarrying.  Dok later found that not only was she unfaithful, she tried to kill Dok and his brother at birth.  Only Dok’s father was able to prevent it.  However, Dok was told that his brother did not make it.  To this day, however, he wondered if his father was truly his biological father.

Dok grew up during a particular dark time when racial mixing was ruled as blasphemy and Kobolds were persecuted.  By the authority of a new radical leader of the station,  a saurian named Gornaglir Giantspine, his secret police rounded up all Kobolds and imprisoned them in labor camp on one of the lower levels.  During this tyrant’s rule, he proceeded to “cleanse” it of all genetically modified citizens.

Dok’s father increasing grew agitated during this time.  He was no fan of Giantspine and feared another war between the dwarves and saurian on the station.  But Dok felt there was something more about this agitation that his father was not sharing.  Dok eventually found out that he was bribing some of the local secret police with extra water if they would leave his household alone.

Dok was part of a large family of dwarves – fourth of seven.  His siblings were a wide variety of personalities and interests – from one with magical talents to another that races mag-lev sleds around the stations outer hull.   Dok became rather adept at swimming as he helped his father with the reclamation tanks.  He helped his father throughout his childhood and adolescence,  developing strong crafting and engineering skills.

One fateful night, Dok was awakened by his father, telling he must leave.  Dok was taken to a cargo hold below the water tanks that Dok did not know about.  In the hold was a vehicle that Dok had never seen before.  His father told him that his mother designed a shuttle for their family to escape the station and he finally completed it.  She knew things would get bad on this station and it drove her crazy.  Dok’s older siblings were already on board.  His father told him that his mother held other deep secrets that even he did not know until after her death.  His father handed Dok a data crystal that no computer on the station could read.  He says it holds a secret his mother was protecting to her death.  Perhaps a computer on the planet can read it.

Dok was instructed to find a group of other Artesirisans that escaped the station, just outside the city called Nestora.  “There, you can find your own destiny.  You can’t stay here.  You blood is tainted, like you mother’s was.  All her children are.  Leave this place and never return.  Find the kobold named Vjorn.  She can help you settle into a new life. ”  His older brother piloted the shuttle to the village where he found more Artesirisan refugees.