Godzen comes from a long line of iron miners. His tribe took pride in its smith's skill with iron and steel and had great respect for the miners providing the materials necessary to perpetuate the trade. Godzen was playing with pickaxes before he had learned to walk, and until his twenties, that was his life, as it was the life of all before him. That was, until the day a fault dynamite rigging caused an unexpected cave-in, crushing Godzen's body from the wait down.
Left unable to walk by the incident and despite the best efforts and care of doctors, clerics and shamans, he was all the same unable to work in the mines. He was put in charge of accounting and helping his father with the export of minerals as a way to not see him excluded from the tribe's affairs, but these tasks were usually left to the elderly of the lineage, not to the young orcs, and the sting of humiliation pierced his heart, aided by the saddened, pitiful looks his tribesmate were trying to hide.
His new responsibilities took little time of his day, so he took to studying. The smiths of the tribe were skilled, the techniques ancestral, true, but that's just another way of saying "obsolete". In the two decades that followed, he proved himself an intellectual and practical juggernaut, and propelled his people's craft to a level that could rival the finest artisans of the region.
During this time, he also discovered clockwork and steam engineering from a passing group of adventurers. He took to it like a fish to water, and in half a decade, with very little tools and technology on hand, managed to fashion a revolutionary suit of armor. How revolutionary ? When he put it on, he was able to walk again. That revolutionary.
After accomplishing this miracle, his ego swelled and the confines of the tribe felt limiting and almost carceral. Now that he could walk, he could see more of the world... The Old, and the New. Nothing could shackle him anymore.