Kalran: Tales of the four nations/Iron and Steel Class Powered Armor

Known as the hammerhead, the mountains will, the men of steel, and many other monikers. All of these names described the Dwarf elite soldiers wearing the Iron or Steel series powered armor.

Background
Made out of a skeletal frame powered by a small diesel engine with additional armor plating. The power armor further increases the Dwarves' already prodigious durability and strength, allowing them to take on a direct howitzer strike without flinching to lifting tanks like it was paper. Its monikers, Iron and Steel, refer to the weight and power between them, lending them to different roles.

Origins
The Dwarves' power armor, and the first power armor within Arkalion, had started out not as a weapon but as a tool.

It was around the (insert), just a decade before Oberon's mad reign, as the Dwarves' mining communes had struck a problem. As they were mining deeper they realized that some parts of their tunnels were too weak to properly support a cart track and most mining equipment, forcing them to mine and carry the ore by hand as using anything heavier could risk the tunnel collapsing. And even when they do their best tunnel collapses were still likely and had already lost a good number of workers in the first week working those tunnels, even an earth mage pushing themselves often comes too late to save the trapped miners. And when the next council meeting came they voiced their concerns, making it one of the greater communes' concerns with the mining communes working with the engineering commune to find a solution.

Eventually, this led to the miners being given a powered exoframe, consisting of heavy-duty pistons powered by an engine, which allows the miners to wear armor heavy enough that even they would struggle to move without the frame and carry twice their eight without effort.

Bronze Series
The first power armor built by the Dwarves. The Bronze series is the easiest series to make but suffers a set of drawbacks that makes it limited to civilian use.

Compared to the Iron and Steel series the Bronze is still powered via an external engine connected by large cables. This grants it the advantage of being able to run indefinitely so long as the engine remains fueled, one engine is able to power multiple Bronze frames, and its users are able to use their suits at maximum power. But this also presents a major drawback in that mobility is extremely limited, as once disconnect the suit will immediately shut down, and said cables has the massive liability of getting cut.

Thus all Bronze series is mainly limited to civilian work, often its users are tasked with heavy-duty lifting, mining, and/or construction in factories, docks, and construction sites. And whenever used in war are used far behind the frontlines as logistics, either making many of the Dwarves' war machines or carrying heavy ammunition.

Iron Series
Stripping out most of the armor around the frame, exposing some wiring, the joints, and the back. The Iron mk2 series is the most common armor used by the Dwarves in both civilian and military life. Built off the Steel series, back then it was simply the mark 1, weaker than both the Bronze and Steel series the Iron far surpasses both in mobility and endurance respectively. Using an engine and fuel tank strapped to their backs the Iron, like the Steel, is able to move almost anywhere its wants, so long as its fuel holds, and when compared to the Steel it's able to use more power with less fuel consumption, making it faster and last longer in the field.

Steel Series
Armored to the point it's easy to assume that it's a metal statue. The Steel mk1 series are specialized suits used within civilian and military life. Loaded up with enough armor to match a tank with built-in NBC protection, the Steel series is considered the strongest suit of the three, as its reinforced servos let it carry vehicle-class weaponry with ease. But this comes at a major cost of fuel consumption, often forcing its user to move at a snail's pace as any faster would severely reduce the suit's uptime, thus limiting them to be used as suits for extremely hazardous environments and rescue in civilian life, while in battle is either the guards, as they don't need to move quickly unless its an emergency, or as mechanized shock troopers, using transports to compensate for their mobility.