Seaborne Siege

The Seaborne Siege is the name given to a series of battles during the Prophets' War between Gildenhome forces and the Sidhe. Although sparsely covered in the Canon proper, the Seaborne Siege is fairly well-known for any with familiarity in Dwarven history as it is still a point of national pride frequently depicted in nationalist and historic public art as an exemplary case of Gilden collective planning, directed industrial action, and craft.

Leading into the War, for centuries during the Age of Demigods the Elves had been the premier naval power with the largest fastest best-armed ships with many well-trained navigators, sailors, marines, and ship wizards. Their forces had established many naval bases along the northern coast all the way around the Gildenhome peninsula to islands within the Hakani Sea which allowed them to quickly travel and resupply or launch attacks or sieges across most of the Mainland.

During the earliest parts of Prophet's War Gildenhome had constructed floating fortresses which were more like barges with volatile siege weapons and artillery rather than proper sea-worthy ships but found they were trapped in port by the superior equipment and discipline of the Elven armada. Knowing they could never match the Elves even trying to move them along the coasts, much less on the open seas, Gildenhome military command stumbled onto a uniquely Dwarven solution. Over the next several months they designed and implemented a massive nation-wide industrial project which collected all of the magical metal of the realm to central locations to be scrapped and reforged into a giant chain. The best smiths and artificers of the nation took these reforged ingots and transferred much of the collective wealth dug up over the centuries since the Zustash Roroash and founding of the nation and created a massive chain forged of steel, mithril, and adamantine enchanting it with powerful Dwarven runes of Abjuration and Transmutation magics. When the chain was complete it was miles in length, and a cadre of Dwarves enchanted with persistent Fly spells ran the chain across the Nedrik Sound, where it was attached to a specially built fortress complex. Despite common artistic depictions of the event many of which depict chain links larger than the Dwarves flying them across the water) the chain links were likely no more thick than a man's arm, yet that line was enough to cut off the Elven armada from their bases on the Sea of Tears. The Elves failed to see it coming and the sudden appearance of the chain immediately cut them off from command and placed them deep in enemy territory with no hopes for reinforcements or retreat. Simultaneously the chain fortress complexes were quickly armed and staffed and while most were crude and spartan they were constructed to be protected from most magics and weapons the Elven ships were capable of. Gildenhome command quickly moved and rebuilt many of their floating fortresses alongside these fortress complexes offering them protection and many Elven ships were sunk trying to even get close to the chain. While some Elven survivors may have escaped no full ship of the line made it past the chain and it was never sundered during the conflict. Before the war ended Gildenhome even had time to improve the system with the addition of an adamantine wench system allowing the chain to be raised and lowered allowing their own reinforcements and resupply ships in. To add insult to injury, a cabal of Dwarven wizards was dedicated to maintaining Teleport Wards over the remaining entrapped Elven bases and eventually Gildenhome forces were able to deploy their siege artillery equipment and level the remaining Elven bases and outposts.

The entire system was scrapped for resources in the Dark Age that followed Alexandria's Crusade. Due to the meticulous record-keeping, even during the frenzied pace of the project, most of the recovered metals were returned back to the various Mountainhomes and Hill Cities in equal proportions to their original contributions and many communities still have famous sculptures or symbols of office which contain part of their share of the returned metals. The popular belief/folk history for most Gilden is that they so thoroughly destroyed the Elven navy that afterwards the Elves never recovered and mostly closed their shipyards, ports, and trade and retreated from the world.