Liarath

Work Below the Frozen Ground

Little on the tundra above ground repays the labour of working it, so Liarath's work goes downward. The settlement is small, low and built to shed wind, and its reason for existing is the ore beneath the permafrost. Digging in such ground is its own discipline: the frozen crust must be thawed or broken before it can be cut, and what is thawed will slump if it is left, so the workings are propped, drained and watched with a care that has nothing to do with caution and everything to do with experience. The hauling season is short. Everything the settlement takes out must move while the ground and the roads will bear it.

Few Hands, Long Winters

Liarath has never held many people. The Liarans are Lohanar of the west who came in on the fourth wave of expansion, and the place has stayed small, held together as much by shared work as by law. Darolas rules it and its allegiance runs to Keberun, which reaches the tundra as ore expected, service expected, and the discipline such a country imposes on everyone living in it. Their faith is the Religion of the Ruby, tended by its priestesses, and in a country this cold a kept fire is not a metaphor.