What is the World Kiln? | Notes About the Setting

  A vast mountain towers over the castles and cities of the Northern Kingdoms, visible throughout the much of the hemisphere behind a shroud of clouds and mist. As one travels through towns and settlements towards the north, it is revealed to be no natural structure, but a collossal fortress of unknownable construction. In these lands, it is well known that the fortress is only a shell for the mightier machine that resides at its heart: the kiln that warms a world.

 In an unchanging rhythm, light grows at its peak to the brilliance of dawn, then dims to the crimson glow of an overcast dusk. At the start of every cycle, as the first glimmers begin to shine, followers of a hundred or more technological sects head within its walls to practise their disciplines, permitted entry by the knightly orders of the kingdoms that guard this sacred ground.

 Of these groups, only a handful of individuals are trusted with the rites of access to the inner-most chambers: knight commanders, high priests and royal forgesmiths among them. These individuals are all trusted with the tools of creation held within, where some measure of the structure's own impossible artifice can be recreated (albeit on a much smaller scale).
 Bespoke armour, ornate tools of ceremony and even an automata-driven chariot have been crafted inside - though these are exceptions, as the craftsmen are trusted to reserve the facilities only for circumstances which demand it. In most cases, items will be crafted outside the kiln's walls and then brought in for tailor-made adjustments or to receive critical components that cannot be forged elsewhere.

 The final chamber - the core of the World Kiln - stretches in a conical fashion all the way from its peak to its base, and then continues an unfathomable distance into the earth. This place is referred to as 'The Sun Within the Mountain'. Access is forbidden to all, though this is merely a formality, as the energies contained within will scour any would-be tresspasser from the room as soon as they attempt entry. A bold few scholars have attempted to map out the chamber's true scale from outside, and more than one has fallen to madness as a consequence.