Heijarl, Father of Dalhal

Known as the "Father of Dalhal", Heijarl was born roughly seven hundred and fifty years ago in a small village of The Nonary Land known as Whiteferry.
Spending the first few decades of his life as a ferry-worker across the White Lake, Heijarl's mind was one of pulleys and gears from a young age.
Fourty years into his work, he took his savings and his family and moved to Whitelake itself - where he rented a dock and bought a small mountain of iron and timber and set to work. Considered mad by his peers, he spent all his savings over the course of fifteen years, constructing a modular, steam-powered ocean-faring vessel; a home for him and his family that he named "Shining Hall" - Dalhal.
Once it was clear that his new home was not going to sink, become lost, or fail in some other spectacular fashion, more and more residents of The Nonary Land, especially fellow dwarves, set out to join him - and so, over the course of many years, more and more modules were constructed to be added to the Shining Hall, until it became the mighty citadel that would come to dominate the Bluecap Sea for centuries to come.