This module adds the Hiisi entity to the game, a group of reclusive alchemists and technologists with lots of unique items and creatures . . . whether they’ll let you have any of it is a different question.

Warning: no graphics. Use at your own peril.

Description
Hiisi are considered a variation on dwarves, with a similar stature and stockiness. They both have insatiable greed, yet for hiisi this greed is for knowledge and power rather than avarice. In fact, hiisi have almost no affinity for craftsmanship and live ascetically, isolated in frozen tundra to carry out experiments. Hiisi have knowledge of the cave system, travelling far below ground to produce food and retrieve exotic reagents for alchemy.

The hiisi are not outwardly xenophobic in their isolation, they simply do not see interacting with the rest of the civilised world to be conducive to their goals. What those goals are few know, but it can be said for sure a hiisi visitor is a sign you may have something they want.

Attempts to penetrate into hiisi outposts by outsiders have been largely fruitless. Official delegations tend to find themselves bouncing between a byzantine web of magistrates, overseers and bureaucrats before leaving in a huff, refusing to spend another day in a hiisi inn. Indeed, many have commented on the dour nature of their taverns, lacking the merriment associated with other drinking cultures and leaving visitors wondering why they exist at all.

Gameplay
Hiisi are intended to be a late game semi-optional threat. They have a lot of unique equipment that is usable and better than that available to your own dwarves. However, they aren’t just going to give it to you, nor do they think you have anything valuable enough to exchange for them. You will have to obtain them through power projection, and don’t expect them to take kindly to such insolence.

Hiisi on the battlefield are dwarves’ equals, if not superiors. While not as physically robust, they use steel of the same quality, wield swords and axes designed for armour penetration, and use powerful arbalests that have no problem skewering elephants straight through. Most daunting however are their pets: the automatons. Powered by mysterious magical intelligences, these six-legged walking machines can stomp dwarves into paste with their massive bronze stilts and feature a projector lens with which to deliver defensive or offensive magical effects. They are not, however, golems like bronze colossi and the various elementmen, and have internal mechanisms as points of weakness. Make sure to soften them up first!

If you manage to subdue a hiisi hillock into a tributary however, you can expect great boons. In addition to the above weaponry, the hiisi have also unlocked alchemical properties of cave plants and have developed a number of distillates from them. These, in addition to being alcoholic, can have secondary positive effects for the consumer including boosted strength, speed and recuperation.

Inspiration
Hiisi started out as a direct implementation of the hiisi from Noita - they retain their blue-green skin, weakness to toxicity and love of firepower and mechanics, albeit medievalised. This then evolved to encompass all of Noita’s themes regarding esotericism and they came to encompass being knowledge hoarders in general.

I wanted to give one entity a totally convoluted and byzantine administration prone to intrigue and I figured the enigmatic tundra folk would be a perfect candidate. In that regard, the hiisi started to take on the aspects of House Telvanni from Morrowind - Unconcerned with outsiders, devotion to magical arts and a certain might-makes-right ethical flexibility when it comes to leadership.