The Cogborn Union

The Cogborn Union

Steampunk Technicians, Laborers & Industrial Organizers
“No gear turns without us.”

Quick Facts

  • Known Headquarters: Gearhold Assembly Hall, Brassring District

  • Power Tier: Moderate (Labor, Industry, and Worker Leverage)

  • Reach: Factories, workshops, foundries, and industrial zones across Ironspire

  • Defense: Strike squads, reinforced automatons, legal barricades

  • Influence: Regulates labor, negotiates guild contracts, and commands mass worker support

  • Respect: Respected by common folk, resisted by industrial elites

Overview

The Cogborn Union is the beating heart and rattling guts of Ironspire. Not glamorous, not noble, and definitely not quiet—they are pipefitters, boiler minders, line workers, and gearwrights. Every puff of steam and hiss of pressure in the city owes its life to their calloused hands.

They keep the turbines turning, the ventilation breathing, the tramways moving, and the city alive. Yet they’re more than a workforce—they’re a movement. If the ruling class forgets that, the Cogborn make their reminders loud: through strikes, walkouts, and the occasional “maintenance accident.”

Known Headquarters

Underworks Union Hall, Sprocket Ward

  • Built into the side of an old collapsed gearshaft

  • Entrance marked by a rusted sign reading “Unity Over Silence”

  • Features: meeting rotunda, steam pub (The Hot Valve), forge-room, and dispute offices

  • Walls etched with names of workers who “gave their hands for the cause”—some literal

Identity & Philosophy

Work is sacred. Labor is law. Unity is survival.
The Cogborn Union believes the worker is the city’s soul—and that soul deserves voice, protection, and firepower if necessary. While not all are militant, many have lost too much to trust in polite negotiation alone.

They train apprentices, protect whistleblowers, repair what nobles forget, and extract “dues” from those who abuse their own. When the rich break a system, Cogborns fix it. When they exploit one? Cogborns break them.

Roleplay Hooks

  • Your parent vanished after trying to report faulty forges—now you seek answers

  • You’re an apprentice discovering sabotage in the machine you’ve been told to fix

  • You defected from the Emberforge, bringing secrets that could change the city

  • You’re tasked with silencing a union leader, but you find yourself swayed by the cause

  • A massive steamquake shakes the district—and the Cogborns warn: “That wasn’t natural.”

Power Tier

Low–Moderate, with growing momentum

  • Combat Reach: Moderate (improvised weapons, trapcraft, defensive gear)

  • Reputation: Popular among the poor, feared by industrialists

  • Wealth: Low personal wealth; high control over infrastructure

  • Legal Standing: Conditionally protected under city labor law (frequently tested)

Their real power lies in refusal. When the Cogborn Union stops working, so does Ironspire.

Rivalries & Tensions

  • The Emberforge Collective – Class warfare. Tech vs. tradition. Visionaries vs. laborers.

  • The Coinclave – For undercutting workers and exploiting industrial debt

  • The Guild of the True Beam – Clashes over building codes, credit, and fair pay

Alliances: occasional sympathy from The Gilded Exchange, wary respect from The Ashen Path

Leadership

Jorrin Tapp, known as “Guildgrit”
A grease-streaked veteran of too many burnouts and blockades, Jorrin’s voice carries across steam tunnels like thunder through a drainpipe. Equal parts rabble-rouser and tired teacher, he believes in systems—when they serve people.

  • Former blacksmith turned pipewright

  • Survived three “accidental” blasts linked to Emberforge politics

  • Wears a broken gear around his neck: the one that almost ended him

  • Known to say: “We break our backs to raise your palaces. Forget that, and we’ll raise hell instead.”

Known Practices & Traditions

  • The Unity Bell – Rung before every strike or protest. Made from melted-down boiler iron.

  • Gearsworn Rites – Ceremony where apprentices are marked with their first soot and given a custom-wrought gear

  • The Overhaul – A week-long festival of labor pride with contests, forge challenges, and storytelling

  • Scalding Rights – Internal justice system. Disputes are resolved with debate, grit trials, or sweat-duels

Membership & Structure

Common Roles:

  • Sprocketers – Mechanics who tend to gears, locks, engines

  • Venters – Those who maintain ventilation, airways, and pressure systems

  • Gritwrights – Leaders and mentors within each trade

  • Boilbloods – Enforcers of strikes and defenders of the Union

  • Ironheralds – Union speakers trained in rallying, law, and flameproof rhetoric

Symbols & Style:

  • Sigil: A crossed wrench and gear over a boiler flame

  • Style: Patch-covered leathers, thick gloves, soot-stained bandanas, steam-goggles perched like crowns

  • Weaponry: Pipe-hammers, gear-linked chain whips, flame nozzles, mechanized braces for crushing blows

Rumors & Whispers

  • “The Cogborns have a kill switch buried in the city’s main pipeworks.”

  • “Jorrin’s gear isn’t just a symbol—it’s a key to something buried beneath the ward.”

  • “The Emberforge tried to buy them. They bought a bomb instead.”

  • “They say when enough gears stop turning, Namsae listens.”

error: Content is protected !!