The Kharadron Overlords and the Helsmiths of Hashut have a common lineage in the ancient Khazalid empire: a culture that still endures relatively unchanged as the Khazalite Strongholds. The technology of their ancestors revolved around runes and the stone’s innate resonant magic. Both the Kharadron and the Helsmith have since abandoned this technology. The Kharadrons, as there are not many rocks moving in the sky, and the Helsmiths, as “harmony with nature”, are not really how they roll. Kharadron’s technology revolves around the use of a lighter-than-air material called Aether-gold, also called “the Breath of Grungni.” This powers not only your airships, but also your suits, weapons, and cities. In fact, without him, the entire Kharadron civilization would literally collapse. That is why the Kharadron dedicate much of their efforts to finding and extracting this valuable resource. The Helsmiths have harnessed much more dangerous material. Their technology is based on soul essence distilled from captured and processed demons. As you can imagine, this is a volatile and unpredictable, but incredibly powerful source of energy. The Helsmiths believe that they are untainted by the use of this power and that they have the willpower and fortitude to withstand contact with this chaotic essence. His malevolent behavior, his fangs, and the fact that many of his most prolific magic users are slowly petrified by the use of this source of magical power are probably unrelated. This demonic essence powers vast forges, which have become the greatest engines of industry in the Mortal Realms. These create vast arsenals of weapons and buildings for the Helsmiths and their dubious allies, contaminate the land around them, and prompt the forced evacuation of other local inhabitants such as skaven, orruks, and Gloomspite Gitz. The forge on Arkanaut is a recently repurposed duardin fortress that the Helsmiths have reclaimed and desecrated (as they see it, they’ve just taken back a piece of their ancestral heritage and used it again). There are some great shots of the forge in this episode, inspired by the custom setting created to accompany the recent Helsmiths of Hashut battletome. There’s one more power source at play in this episode, of course. In episode 1, the Arkanauts harpooned themselves a Stormcast soul and trapped it inside a jury-rigged aether tank, intending to sell it to their brothers for a fair and reasonable price (or possibly elsewhere for a less reasonable price, depending). on market conditions).
