Pops

Pops is a master smith whose decision to shelter and train Dominic Wavemates turns a hungry refugee into his apprentice, then into a craftsman capable of helping build Wistover. Gruff, exacting, and more generous than his complaints suggest, Pops becomes Dominic's enduring mentor and surrogate father as their shared work moves from a gate-side shop to the Cygnian Royal Forge and finally to Wistover. (Chapters 2–320)

Biography

A stranger at the staging-area forge

Pops meets Dominic when the displaced Dragonkin is hungry, penniless, and seeking the Trade Skill Core required for a place in Cygnia's apprentice system. He offers a deliberately advantageous bargain for scavenged copper, but his private reasoning complicates the hard-nosed transaction: Pops remembers returning to his father's failing forge and facing local hostility because of his own magical nature. Recognizing the same hunger and exclusion in Dominic, he feeds him, offers the spare apprentice room, and considers taking him on permanently if the young man proves dependable. (Chapter 2)

When Dominic returns with goblin weapons and mana cores, Pops honors the arrangement by creating and attuning a Blacksmithing Trade Skill Core for him. Shelter quickly becomes an apprenticeship: Pops gives Dominic room and meals, puts him on the shop counter, and teaches him the rhythms of a practical tool business positioned beside the adventurers' staging area. His advice is grounded in survival rather than glory—sell forgotten necessities through many small transactions, learn a working trade, and fight only when necessary—giving Dominic a stable livelihood without dismissing his larger ambitions. (Chapters 7–10)

Pops's care is inseparable from demanding instruction. He demonstrates how a mana core can enchant a forged blade, insists that Dominic plan and execute his own work, and praises artistry only after inspecting the result critically. He also gives the new apprentice a travelling forge and personal tools, then sends him on field work once his core reaches Apprentice Level 2. Those choices establish both trust and responsibility: Dominic leaves Cygnia as "Pops's apprentice," carrying methods that let him forge, inscribe, price, repair, and conserve fuel far beyond the walls of the original shop. (Chapters 19–35)

The Royal Forge under wartime pressure

The war pulls Pops from his preferred tool shop into Palace service, where a hidden masterpiece leads to his recognition as Royal Master Weaponsmith. He does not soften his standards to suit the title. When another smith insults Dominic's heritage and questions his worth, Pops answers by defending his apprentice's actual skill, guiding him past the provocation, and publicly making Dominic's first original magical-weapon design the subject of the forge's wagers. The spectacle protects Dominic's opportunity to prove himself while announcing that Pops values demonstrated craft above rank, pedigree, or the color of a Trade Skill Core. (Chapters 41–46)

As production intensifies, Pops pushes Dominic through exhausting but purposeful work: enchanted spearheads for ordinary soldiers, repairs, formal armour, and increasingly complex magitech. He checks the results rather than accepting a claimed quota, recognizes how Dominic's mana-infused quenching oil improved an entire batch, and sends him to deliver the weapons so he sees who depends on the forge. At the same time, Pops steers him away from dangerous ignorance—stopping wasteful core consumption, explaining material limitations, and showing how repair magic, clay patches, circuitry, and traditional smithing interact. His teaching turns wartime output into professional judgment rather than mere repetition. (Chapters 45–91)

Command also forces Pops to deal with conflicts he would rather avoid. When two journeymen fight over nearly identical blades and a second weapon disappears, he halts the forge, separates testimony from proof, dismantles a sword to expose its maker's mark, orders a full search, and disciplines both men without favoring the craftsman he already suspects is truthful. The episode shows that his authority rests on close technical observation and workplace accountability, not simply seniority. His standards preserve the forge's function under pressure and give Dominic another model of what mastery requires beyond producing excellent objects. (Chapters 143–145)

Choosing Wistover over royal office

When Dominic prepares to leave the capital as Duke of Wistover, he assumes their formal apprenticeship is ending. Pops instead leases his old gate forge to his nephew, arranges competent successors for both it and the Royal Forge, resigns his commission, and packs to join Dominic's household. The choice is voluntary rather than a royal reassignment: after being compelled into Palace service for the war, Pops prefers "greener pastures" and continues the relationship on his own terms. By leaving two established posts responsibly staffed, he protects the communities he departs while making clear that his commitment to Dominic now extends beyond contract or workplace. (Chapters 214–216)

Wistover initially needs essentials rather than prestige work, and Pops applies his craft accordingly. He recruits skilled refugees with Dominic, restores the old smithy, repairs a settler's steam tractor, makes farm tools, and collaborates with a carpenter on linked plows and planters. Though he complains about customers and payment, Dominic notices that Pops is likely to extend credit to struggling locals and trusts the Duke to enforce repayment only after they recover. His forge therefore becomes both an economic anchor and a practical form of relief, supplying the equipment that lets displaced families work instead of remaining dependent on the manor. (Chapters 216–250)

As Wistover industrializes, Pops helps translate individual craft into durable infrastructure. He proposes hydraulic presses and cutting dies for factory parts, builds a steam hammer, improves production equipment, and works with Dominic on precision pipes and fittings. Yet he refuses to let expansion erase apprenticeship: when Mead proves attentive and eager, he tests her in real work, offers her a place at the forge, creates her Trade Skill Core, secures her guardian's formal consent, and promises the same combination of food, lodging, tradition, and exacting practice that once stabilized Dominic. Taking a second vulnerable apprentice reveals his early kindness as a settled principle rather than a singular exception. (Chapters 314–321)

Master smith and household elder

Pops remains Dominic's technical reference even after the former apprentice becomes a Journeyman and ruler. He can identify the purpose and alternate applications of an unfamiliar bypass turbine, evaluate a barrier-shield plan, and point out how integrated magitech orbs should be arranged for soldiers' needs. Their collaboration grows more reciprocal: Dominic supplies magically upgraded metals that Pops cannot efficiently produce in bulk, while Pops contributes the experience required to turn those materials into reliable tools, armour, transports, and repairs. The relationship has matured from instruction into partnership without losing its easy master-and-apprentice habits. (Chapters 415–624)

His later work retains the same breadth and social purpose. Pops and Mead produce durable cookware, support new public transports, absorb tournament armour repairs despite his preference for tools, and keep a busy Wistover shop supplied for residents and adventurers. He also helps Dominic adapt an old rocking-chair design into a safe magitech crib for Alexis, dividing the work between master, former apprentice, and current apprentice while accounting for a magical child, human furniture standards, and future repairability. The finished piece is both Royal gift and family labor, showing how fully his craft has become part of Dominic's household. (Chapters 564–669)

By the later years in Wistover, Pops is less an employee than an elder with a standing place in the manor. His playful courtship with Beth, his habit of checking on Dominic when the family is separated, and his offer to help clear unfinished forge projects all express care through presence and useful work. His own forge remains busy, but he still makes time for Dominic and the next generation, joking over the noise as Dominic's daughter grows comfortable around smithing. The once-solitary gate smith ends the supplied corpus surrounded by apprentices, customers, and a household that treats him as family. (Chapters 783–797)

Appearance and personality

Pops is an old, burly, broad-built smith with a thick white beard that he tucks beneath a long leather apron while working. Although his Trade Skill Core identifies him as a Dwarven Smith, he is not presented as a typical full-blooded Dwarf: he stands only slightly shorter than Dominic. His recurring accessories include a hammer at his belt and an ornate silver tobacco pipe, while soot, work clothes, and a carefully braided beard reflect a life organized around the forge. (Chapters 2, 8, 10, and 19)

He cultivates a dour, irritable exterior and dislikes sales work, noble pretension, and needless explanation. That manner conceals a dry sense of humor and an observant, protective temperament: he laughs at Dominic's schemes, recognizes hunger and insecurity without forcing a confession, and often turns affection into food, tools, lodging, work, or blunt advice. Pops is proud of exact workmanship but not enamored of prestige; even after royal recognition, he would rather make reliable tools and household goods than accept an endless queue of ceremonial weapons. (Chapters 2, 18–21, 46, 214, and 624)

Magic, skills, and craft

Pops's capabilities center on master-level Dwarven smithing, practical magitech, and the judgment earned through decades of production and repair. The corpus establishes the breadth and present quality of his craft, but does not give a reliable chronological account of his own formal advancement; his mastery is therefore described through demonstrated work rather than an inferred progression.

Master smithing and material work

Pops can take work from raw or reclaimed metal through refining, shaping, heat treatment, finishing, and enchantment. His traditional methods favor hand tools and direct judgment over jigs, yet they are not anti-technology: he works from plans, cuts precise fittings, builds presses and steam hammers, and explains unfamiliar machinery by tracing its pressure, motion, and likely applications. His material sense lets him evaluate defects, identify inefficient processes, and choose repairs that will remain safe; repeated heating can make a damaged plate brittle, while some magically created materials require more purification and tempering than they are worth. His earliest shop does not handle steam motors or magitech drives, which marks a business specialization rather than ignorance, and his later Wistover work demonstrates competence with factory and vehicle components. (Chapters 19–21, 91, 314–317, and 415)

He is exceptionally experienced at both ordinary and high-grade production. By his own account, he made ten thousand axes before Dominic's father was born, and Alexis later judges his century of experience sufficient to make metalwork seem impossible beside younger smiths. That experience does not eliminate resource constraints: Pops still needs suitable metals, monster cores, plans, labor, and time, and he relies on Dominic's unusual transmutation for bulk Cart Bright and Mana Steel. At the supplied endpoint he remains a working tool smith, using that partnership to sustain repairs, transport construction, household goods, and specialized commissions without abandoning daily necessities. (Chapters 74, 414, 564, 624, and 783)

Forge magic and magical-item construction

Pops was born with magic, though the corpus does not name its lineage or define an internal spell reserve. He demonstrably channels it into craft: he can cool oil-quenched metal to room temperature in seconds and directly use magic in forge procedures unavailable to most smiths who depend entirely on spell gems or magitech orbs. His magic supplements rather than replaces correct metalwork; the object must still be shaped, heated, inscribed, supplied with a core or prepared magical medium, and finished to an appropriate standard. (Chapters 2, 8, 19, and 47)

For magical weapons, Pops demonstrates a foundational process in which a monster core is ground or crushed, applied to the heated work, and absorbed as the enchantment takes hold. He also knows the secret Dwarven Forge Runes, a memorized language that masters do not preserve in ordinary written references; the rune disappears from completed work, limiting casual copying even when an apprentice has seen it used. Pops can build restrictions and intended effects into magical items, but outcomes still depend on design, materials, core strength, affinity, and workmanship. His latest advice continues to emphasize clear circuitry and maintainability rather than complexity for its own sake. (Chapters 19–20, 44–47, 415–423)

Magitech design, identification, and repair

Pops's craft knowledge extends beyond weapons. He constructs a Dimensional Compass, explains the theoretical function and defect of Dominic's spellbook, identifies the working purpose of an unfamiliar turbine plan, and redesigns furniture mechanisms for a magically active child. When examining designs, he considers not only whether they can be built but also operating pressure, noise, user affinity, socket allocation, and environmental use. The limitation of this expertise is openly practical: when a proposed turbine application is novel, he can identify a plausible use while admitting that its advantage remains uncertain until tested. (Chapters 8–9, 52–56, 415–416, and 667–669)

His diagnostic ability is equally important in repair and management. Pops distinguishes near-identical blades through minute asymmetry and hidden maker's marks, assesses armour and weapon damage under wartime pressure, and organizes searches or production around what the objects reveal. These judgments let him settle disputes without relying on status claims and keep a crowded forge operational. In Wistover, the same competence supports rapid armour repair, upgraded transports, and factory machinery, with Mead learning the specialist repairs that Dominic did not receive before leaving royal service. (Chapters 143–145, 564, and 623–624)

Teaching and forge leadership

As a master, Pops can create and attune Trade Skill Cores, embedding knowledge that unlocks as an apprentice advances. He combines that magical instruction with demonstrations, blueprints, repetitive production, field missions, critique, and deliberately difficult quotas. The core can transmit selected knowledge, but it does not substitute for practice or judgment: Pops makes Dominic draw usable plans, defend original designs through actual construction, meet production standards, and understand customers and battlefield users. Because each core reflects what its creator chooses to preserve, Pops's teaching continues to guide Dominic even when later ranks unlock far from him. (Chapters 2, 7, 19–21, 44–49, and 177)

His leadership style is demanding, protective, and evidence-driven. He praises unusual talent while stopping unsafe or wasteful choices, publicly backs apprentices against prejudice, and judges finished work instead of trusting claims. He also knows when to transfer authority: before leaving Cygnia, he secures qualified successors for both his shops; in Wistover, he divides complex projects according to Dominic's, Mead's, and his own strengths. By the latest chapters, he is still teaching through collaboration and timely correction, not merely supervising from a title. (Chapters 45–49, 143–145, 214, 317–321, and 667–669)

Relationships

• Dominic Wavemates: Pops shelters Dominic, becomes his smithing master, and continues treating him as an apprentice after Dominic reaches Journeyman rank and becomes a duke. Their bond develops into a reciprocal partnership and a surrogate father-son relationship built on craft, teasing, protection, and shared responsibility.
• Mead: Pops takes the young Dwarf as his second apprentice in Wistover, tests her practical attentiveness, arranges her contract and lodging, and gives her increasingly complex work beside Dominic.
• Alexis: Pops knows the Princess from Cygnia, accompanies her household to Wistover, and serves as both trusted craftsman and family elder. He helps create equipment and household objects suited to her public rank and growing family.
• Beth: Pops values Beth's cooking and develops a playful, openly flirtatious companionship with her in Wistover, though the supplied corpus does not establish a formal partnership.
• George: Pops's former apprentice is a lasting professional disappointment. George's pursuit of prestige, hostility, and repeated workplace trouble sharpen Pops's appreciation for apprentices who remain loyal to the craft and to one another.

Items

• Blacksmith Trade Skill Core: Pops creates and attunes Dominic's core, embedding smithing knowledge that unlocks as the apprentice advances; he later creates a core for Mead as well.
• Dimensional Compass: Pops constructs the commissioned planar navigation device in his Cygnia shop, demonstrating precise magitech assembly while Dominic is beginning his apprenticeship.
• Shield of Avenging Might: Pops evaluates the barrier-shield blueprint and advises how its sockets and integrated magical effects should serve ordinary soldiers before Dominic develops this test shield.
• Shield of Frozen Vengeance: This second test shield grows from the same design consultation; Pops's specialist enchanting methods remain the benchmark Dominic invokes while adapting the plan for Alexis.