Worker

 

Forged to bear the burdens of Mountain Folk society, Workers represent the most populous caste of their race. They perform the civil tasks that maintain the infrastructure of Jadeborn settlements and keep the great engines of industry turning. Warriors may defend the Mountain Folk civilization from enemies, even as Artisans guide and shape the people, but Workers are the Mountain Folk civilization. Whatever they lack in individual strength or genius, they more than make up for in collective might. Alone, they are little more than scattered gears and cogs devoid of purpose. Assembled, they remain the greatest machine of the Great Maker. Their drums sound in the deep, a pulsing counterpoint to the unceasing chants of their foremen. Efficiency. Discipline. Duty. These mantras are prayers to the Great Maker and reflect the very core of the Worker Caste’s identity. In the mines, ten thousand hammers fall at a stroke, and the earth rings beneath the blows as one vast bell. In the farms, ten thousand scythes harvest mushrooms within an inch of synchronicity. Unity gives them power and purpose, whether to move mountains or to raise them.

Life is hard for most Workers but seldom unbearable. The Conclave has little patience with members who would raise themselves as petty tyrants to crush the overworked bodies and souls of their laborers. Such greed inevitably leads to inefficiency and economic failure. Consequently, most Workers can expect two meals a day and a good night’s sleep and even a few hours of recuperative leisure. They cannot rise beyond their station and always remain the very bottom tier of the Jadeborn social pyramid, but they know nothing else. Strangely enough, most find genuine contentment in their lot. They cannot change what they are, so instead, they seek fulfillment in what they are. Those who work hard contribute to the success and survival of their civilization, reaping the benefits with their continued lives. Only a few thousand would-be rebels and malcontents exist among the more than six million Workers in Creation, and these piteous aberrations learn to hold their tongues lest they face ostracism, punishment or even death.

Duties: The Pillars of the Mountain perform a wide range of vital functions for their society. Close to two million Workers toil in the bottomless mines beneath Urvar, quarrying vast loads of jade and other precious materials from the depths. Another two million labor in the vast mushroom plantations and smaller farms strewn across the empire. Approximately a million work in assorted factories, building arsenals of wonders to equip the Warrior Caste and to fill the hoards of the Conclave. The Final million and a half or so perform miscellaneous duties: Some serve as assistants or personal retainers to Artisans, others bring supplies to Warrior garrisons and still others have such exotic and specialized functions that even they seldom know what it is they actually do.

Appearance: Members of this caste are shorter than their brethren, standing between three and four feet tall. Their heavy toil and monitored rations keep them fit and minimize body fat, but Workers also possess disproportionately heavy bones and musculature for their height. Like all Mountain Folk, they value cleanliness and take great pains to scrub themselves in vast communal showers after each shift. The ugliest among them caricaturize the humanoid form, with hunched backs, ape-like arms hanging below their knees and primitive prognathous jaws beneath deep-set beady eyes and bulbous noses. Most, however, could pass for small humans, albeit unduly leathery and calloused ones. The fairest few turn this thickness into an exotic, aboriginal lure quite unlike the conventional aesthetics of the Realm. Pigmentation varies widely, with near-albino paleness and swarthy brownish-gray skin tones predominating in roughly equal measure. Standard Worker attire varies by job, with clothing designed for utility and durability over form. Most wear simple belted tunics and boots of synthetic leather, color-coordinated for specific duties. Farmers dress in green, miners in black, factory laborers in maroon, maintenance technicians in brown, laboratory and research assistants in gray and personal aides to Artisans in bright yellow. Most jobs with hazardous duties require additional protective clothing appropriate to the danger, most commonly helmets and assorted variants of buff jackets treated to better withstand heat and/or chemicals.

Associations: Dim and dusty colors, Temperance, hammers and pickaxes, pillars, heavy architecture, granite, iron, a plain yellow gear (official symbol)

Sobriquets: Pillars of the Mountain, Humble Gears, Children of Clay, Hammers of Autochthon, Ironsouls

Concepts: Bitter foreman, humble farmer, laboratory assistant, adventurous miner, page to the Conclave, shunned inventor (Enlightened), uncredited genius (Enlightened), unlikely hero

 

 

There is no golden roof

so grand it can stand

without support.