✎ mountains [Firmament]

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=========The Heights=========
//It's not an easy place to live, but if you play your cards right, it can be a rewarding one. Be safe, be prepared, have friends you can rely on, and you can make a fortune. And though the people there might not seem that friendly to outsiders, there's a sense of community it's hard to find elsewhere. Well, there has to be – between the wolves, the blizzards, the pyroclasms, people have got to look out for one another.//

//And... I suppose it's beautiful, too. There are places there, where – Skanaster willing – you can tread where nobody else ever has, see caves and cliffs that haven't been seen with human eyes for centuries. At night, the mountains seem like stairways right into the sky...//
      *Anais Sawell, Royal Envoy to the Heights

{{ :detail_from_hunters_in_the_snow_by_pieter_bruegel_the_elder.jpg |}}

**A politically volatile yet resource-rich region that depends upon mining profits and community spirit to guard against threats natural, economic, and political.**

The Heights is a tough, uncompromising place, and those who live there prize resilience, practicality and community spirit. Travel between the peaks and valleys that compose the Heights can take weeks, with no guarantee of survival. However, much of Esharia depends on the Steel produced by miners here, and the unfolding political situation demands the attention of the rest of the country.


======People of the Heights======
=====Nobility=====
The Nobles of the Heights are rather more inclined towards realism than those of the lowlands. The climate of the Heights, combined with the impossibility of travel in inclement weather, puts nobles at considerable risk along with the peasantry – sure, they'll be the last ones to starve, but that doesn't mean starvation isn't a threat. Unity and purpose are necessary for survival, and so nobles will do whatever is necessary to ensure that the people under their care – usually those in a few isolated mining villages – are united and strong. Sometimes this manifests as a more caring, communitarian approach to leadership, and sometimes it results in brutal, uncompromising rule justified by appeal to necessity. 

Given the increased mortality rate, it is more common for noble families to adopt lowborn heirs, so as to minimise the odds of dying out. Indeed, when travelling, one heir is traditionally left behind as insurance, lest the whole group perish in snowstorm or pyroclasm. Given the importance which mining yields hold to the region as a whole, and the increased prevalence of adoption, there is a distinctly meritocratic streak to the nobles of the Heights – those who get results can expect good things, bloodline or no, and those that are dead weight tend to come to sticky ends – lazy heirs have been known to be replaced by ambitious adoptees from mining Clades.

Finally, the nobles here are characterised by a sense of detachment from the rest of Esharia, a detachment that brings with it more than a little resentment. They live in inhospitable conditions to obtain materials that are going for ever-decreasing prices, and cannot easily travel between regions in the way that lowland nobles can. 

Many of the Nobles present in the Heights were in fact banished there, 'offered' remote and inhospitable positions after offending the Queen. This only contributes to the chip that so many of those in the Heights carry on their shoulders.

====Great House Morelli====
The Great House of the Heights is currently under the leadership of **Grand Duchess Ciliano Morelli**, often known as Ninefingers because of her extensively frostbitten right arm. The Morelli family were reassigned land in the mountains in 0EA after the civil war that they rather grievously lost, and have been resentful about it for almost 200 years. The Morellis are proud, resilient, and believe that with the proper preparation, no battle is unwinnable. They are also practical, and look down a little on the other houses that do not have to keep their people safe in such inhospitable conditions.

They also have a particular dislike of Great House Diite, which roundly defeated them in the civil war and has profited from the increasing shift towards craftmanship and trade rather than industry, something that has adversely affected the Morelli's holdings. Resentment between the two has been a near-constant of Esharian politics, and this shows no signs of abating any time soon.

The Morelli are based in the de facto capital of the Heights, the sprawling valley of **Stormhalt**, known for the tenebrous blue flowers that grow between buildings and up into the peaks. Their crest displays a pair of horses rampant, and their house motto proclaims "From Scars, Strength".

====Other Houses====
===House Bianchi===
Once a mercenary unit, the leaders of House Bianchi were formally given land and property almost 400 years ago. They retain a powerful military force, and believe that most problems can be solved through strength of arms. Their most famous member is **Alessandra Bianchi**, the Butcher of Blackwall.

===House Greco===
House Greco controls the Great Forest, the closest part of the Heights to Hashat, and consider themselves to be more cosmopolitan than most of the other Heights houses. They are also one of the most materially wealthy, thanks to better trade links with Hashat and the Petty Kingdoms. **Cesare Greco** is known for his extensive feud with the Bianchi.

===House Romano===
A very minor house, the Romanos have recently attempted to open smelting facilities with which to manufacture weapons within the Heights themselves, rather than sending the raw materials into the lowlands. **Marquis Luca Romano** has had little success with their venture as of yet, but that may change.



=====The Clades=====
Not everybody in the Heights is devoted to mining, true, but most of them are, and those that are not – farmers, merchants, and so forth – spend most of their time providing for miners. The risks associated with mining, the colossal importance of excavation, and the extensive history of exploitation by avaricious nobles have led most miners to join their local Clade. The Clades are locally-organised soviet-like groups providing communal support and industrial leverage to their members. These are not a recent development – historical records of the Clades stretch back at least 200 years. As a result, most Clades have a large amount of tacit support among the peasantry and a substantial informational advantage over the nobility, consisting of much-coveted techniques and expertise. The power balance between Clades and nobles tends to define Heights politics in general. Though the Clades do have a significant ability to put pressure on the nobility, mining conditions remain abysmal; the average life expectancy for miners is 31.

The practices of the Clades - how they govern and operate - are not well-known outside of the heights. They acknowledge no official leader, but it is known that the one-eyed miner Cosima, more commonly referred to as **Boss**, has a lot of sway in Clade politics.

=====The Monks=====
On some of the highest peaks in the Heights, above the cloud layer where skies are blue and temperatures are routinely sub-freezing, can be found the Ivory Monks. Very little is known about the monks – they do not seem to receive deliveries of food and supplies, appearing to be self-sufficient, and very rarely descend into the lowlands. Those who have met them report strange, magically-affine people who are keen on monastic contemplation and mathematics.

The magical orthodoxy would really like to clamp down on the hedge magic they allegedly practice, but the Monks are so remote and so disconnected from society that it doesn't seem to be worthy of the effort.



======Geography======
The climate of the Heights is broadly cold and inhospitable. Civilization clings to the valleys, hunkered down against the freezing blizzards that blow across the peaks. Flash snowstorms can render roads impossible to traverse for weeks, and the climate can shut villages off from the rest of the world for months with no real warning. Worse, the snow-choked roads and endless pine forests are home to wolves, bears, and, some say, darker things...

Cold is not the only problem faced by the people of the Heights; the area is in fact a volcanic hotspot, and occasional pyroclastic flows or poisonous eruptions pose a similarly sudden and terrifying danger to the unwary traveller or miner. Many mining expeditions have been lost to the “Quiet Death”, an odourless, invisible gas that occasionally turns up in caves, and once, around fifty years ago, some miners inadvertently breached a primary magma chamber and filled most of the mine with volcanic deposits.

Areas of interest include the Morelli Palace, which sits at the edge of the region, near the holdings of Great House Diite, the politically complex province of Blackwall, a rich mining site with a turbulent political history, and the expansive forest owned by the more cosmopolitan House Greco, said by some to have never been fully mapped.


======Religion in the Heights======
The inhospitable nature of the Heights has resulted in a populace that tends to be more religious than those of more temperate areas. The gods of the Heights are a powerful force with the power to make life very difficult for those who displease them – through freezing blizzards, collapsing cliffs, and the occasional volcanic eruption - and so a healthy respect for deities is encouraged. However, the importance of mining means that the people of the Heights believe firmly in humanity's ability to change and reshape gods. The result is religion as symbiosis, stressing the importance of a relationship with the gods founded on mutual respect.

Worship tends to be on a much more local basis than elsewhere in Esharia, given the isolated nature of most settlements. Most small villages will worship their local god, and pay only minimal attention to others – after all, worship is a relationship, and a practical one at that.

=====Skanaster=====
Skanaster is unique in that it is the god of all those places not claimed by others – the uncharted path, the wild peak. Skanaster rewards the daring and stubborn, but is nonetheless uncompromising, inhospitable, and brutal. Though Skanaster is revered across the Heights, it is usually worshipped in a negative sense – supplicants pray for Skanaster to let them pass peacefully, or to have the necessary skills and preparation to withstand Skanaster's power. Skanaster's priests often claim that it predates the other gods, that it owned all the Heights once, and that when humanity has gone, it will do so again. This is a somewhat heretical belief, but the priests never seem to act on it.




======Recent History======
 As Esharia's economy has become more and more trade-focussed, the economic advantages of the Heights have dwindled. Though the Grand Duchess has requested protective tariffs for Esharian steel and ores, these requests are generally laughed off by those in Hashat. The result is that the nobles of the Heights are struggling to maintain their holdings in the face of ever-decreasing yearly product, and this has resulted in miners working longer hours in harsher conditions for less pay. Grand Duchess Morelli has made it known that anybody who can bring economic security to the Heights will be richly rewarded.

In addition, it is rumoured that political tensions have been increasing as a result. Some rumours say that the Blackwall area is in open revolt, but Duchess Morelli - and Blackwall's Overseer, Alessandra Bianchi - insist that such suggestions are nonsensical, and that the situation is, as ever, entirely under control.


======Popular Opinions======
Though there is a good deal of variation in what constitutes 'popular opinion', and players are under no obligation to agree with it in any case, the following are reasonably common and representative thoughts from various inhabitants of the Heights.

===The Queen===
//She's a good 'un, for the most part, and Skan knows we'd all lay down our lives for her. But she's surrounded by greedy, backstabbing courtiers who only care about the profits they can make on the coast. Just between you and me, I think she's forgotten about us a bit.//
      *Boss Cosima, of the Clades

===Great House Diite== 
//Stuck-up fuckers, if you ask me. They take the materials we send down into the lowlands, stick them in a forge for a bit, and charge twenty times what we made. Every scrap of prestige, food and security that we lose, they gain. Apparently we fought them in the past – I can't be the only one thinking that perhaps we should do so again.//
      *Alessandra Bianchi, "Butcher of Blackwall"

===Great House Toqare=== 
//Those lowlanders have it easy, if you ask me. That said, the farmers don't have anywhere near the power we have under the Clades. Seems to me we're fighting a similar battle, but the rebels under Toqare seem to be losing far harder and faster than us.//
      *Daria Demonte, of the Clades 

===The Breach=== 
//If the reports are true – ships flying out of holes in the sky, blasting mountains with great beams of light – then I hardly dare wonder what comes next. Clearly we are facing an existential threat to our way of life, and we must respond accordingly.//
      *Grand Duchess Ciliano Morelli
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