The Kharadron Lords and the Helsmiths of Hashut share a common lineage in the ancient Khazalid Empire – a culture that still endures relatively unchanged while the Khazalite wedges. Their ancestors’ technology revolved around runes and the stone’s innate resonant magic.
The Kharadron and Helsmith have since abandoned this technology. The Kharadron, as there aren’t many rocks moving in the sky, and the Helsmiths, as ‘harmony with nature’, isn’t really how they roll.
Kharadron technology revolves around the use of a lighter-than-air material called Aether-gold, also known as “the Breath of Grungni”. This powers not only their airships, but also their suits, their weapons, and their cities. In fact, without it, the entire Kharadron civilization would literally collapse. The Kharadron therefore devote much of their efforts to the search and extraction of this precious resource.
The Helsmiths mined a much more dangerous material. Their technology runs on the distilled soul essence of captured and processed demons. As you can imagine, this is a volatile and unpredictable source of energy, but incredibly powerful.
Helsmiths believe that they are uncontaminated by the use of this power and that they have the will and courage to endure contact with this chaotic essence. Their malicious behavior, growing defenses, and the fact that many of their most prolific magic users are slowly turning to stone with the use of this source of magical power are likely unrelated.
This demonic essence fuels vast forges, which have become the greatest industrial engines of the Mortal Realms. These create vast arsenals of weapons and constructs for the Helsmiths and their dubious allies, defile the lands around them, and lead to the forced evacuation of other local inhabitants like the skaven, orruks, and Gloomspite Gitz.
The forge in Arkanaut is a recently repurposed duardin socket that the Helsmiths have claimed and desecrated (in their view, they’ve just taken a piece of their ancestral heritage and repurposed it). There are some great shots of the forge in this episode, inspired by the custom decor created to accompany the recent Helsmiths of Hashut Battle Tome.
There is of course another source of energy at play in this episode.
In episode 1the Arkanauts harpooned a Stormcast soul to themselves and trapped it in a jury-rigged aether tank, intending to resell it to its brethren at a fair and reasonable price (or possibly to another party at a less reasonable price, depending on market conditions).
Gn tech
