>>5313621>>5313621You hastily retire from the training-ground, returning to the mountain’s interior to calm yourself. To stem your indecent arousal, you taking reading from your retinues new collection of books, charts, and maps… Especially those about divination by stars and naturals signs, and those relating to the local area.
>+DivinationThough the ethnographies and political geographies are sadly out-of-date, by centuries or even millennia, you learn quite a bit about the natural environs and weather of this area… And how this, and the star-ordained fates, dictate how and where settlements and nations arise here. Where the kobolds currently dwell, great powers have long been nested. The mountain interior, properly utilized and with the volcano active, is a perfect fortress for those incline in fire-magic, denying entry from below and offering power in the form of natural earth-mana to the defenders, as well as an excellent terrain advantage to the mountaineer (or those who, like a dragon, can soar above the difficult, army-stymying ravines and chasms.
Elsewhere, in the forests below, the woodland is lush and replete with opportunity for smaller groups, fed on game and grouse, fruit and berry. Rarely does a lasting power of note form here, for there is rarely need to band together in great number… Save when aggravated by the mountain above and, with the plentiful food often available negotiation is often easier than rebellion. That humans dwell there now, untamed, is a quirk of your own race’s fallen fortune… But a lack of known natural resources easily accessible to ignorant surfacers explains why no great human kingdom has come from the further forests and plains to extend their dominion hence.
The real resources are further into the mountain, and deeper down. You have heard kobolds grumble of dwarves, their natural enemies in this place—of dwarven ‘corporations’ of prospectors scoping out veins of ore or clusters of gems, or other earthborn valuables, and setting up company-towns around them.
“They don’t retreat, even when it’s foolish! Kill kobolds for nothing of use! Just…. ‘Honour’.”
“They hold grudges… Never forgive, never forget. Raid because MUST! Dwarf says, ‘raiders must die,’ and they mean raider’s hatchlings and siblings, also.”
“They dismantle kobold traps… And leave critiques! Little notes, insulting workmanship! Easy for dwarf to say, all fat on iron, buying food instead of hunt!”
Studying the star-charts tells you where magic and fates form confluence most often, aside from the place where you and your kobolds currently dwell—a messy intersection of leylines at the ‘heart’ of the mountains. The mountains are home to many small dwarven settlements… But their central trading hub will be THERE, wheree the mountains begin to wear down and flatten with age, and where there is greater access to the sea.
