The southernmost reach of the Widebarrow Mountains, the Blood Mountains take their name from the deep crimson iron ore veins that streak through the rock—and from the blood spilled extracting them. What should be Chimea's greatest treasure has become its most persistent drain.
Geography
The Blood Mountains rise sharply from the jungle floor, their peaks permanently dusted with red-tinged snow where iron particles have accumulated over millennia. The range runs roughly northeast to southwest, separating the Suki Jungle from the plains approaching Avalon. Below the surface, the mountains are honeycombed with natural caverns, ancient mines, and tunnels dug by inhabitants who arrived long before Chimea's legions.
The western slopes descend gradually into Chimean-controlled territory. The eastern slopes drop sharply into the Deep Warren—the domain of the Lyzine spider-folk of Mez, whose tunnels extend beneath the entire Widebarrow range.
The Aureum
Before Chimea, the Blood Mountains belonged to the Aureum—a dwarven culture that broke away from their underground kin after a devastating shadereaver incursion nearly wiped out their population. The Aureum developed an obsessive relationship with sunlight, engineering elaborate systems of mirrors and crystal lenses to illuminate their underground settlements. They discovered how to extract and store liquid sunlight itself, which became central to their culture and magic.
The Aureum kingdom lasted over a thousand years, their mirror-cities legendary even among other dwarven peoples. They were wealthy, well-defended, and utterly unprepared for what Chimea became.
The Conquest (3,070-3,150 SD)
After the War of Bone ended in mutual exhaustion around 3,070 SD—creating the undead-haunted Boneswamps that still separate Chimea from Dern—the Empire could no longer expand northward. So it turned its attention to the Aureum.
The conquest took eighty years. Not a single campaign but a century of economic pressure, diplomatic isolation, and periodic military action. Chimea controlled the trade routes. Chimea poisoned the alliances. When the Aureum kingdom finally fell around 3,150 SD, it collapsed from exhaustion as much as force.
Three generations have passed since then. The Aureum remember every year.
Life Under Occupation
The conquered dwarves are subjects, not citizens. They pay higher taxes. They cannot own weapons larger than utility knives. They are forbidden from military service—a restriction that simultaneously insults their honor and prevents them from gaining combat training. Their mirror-cities were dismantled "for safety," the crystal lenses confiscated for imperial use.
Resistance simmers constantly. Sabotaged equipment. Collapsed tunnels. Imperial officials who simply vanish. The rebellion has no single leader—cells operate independently, communicating through methods the Quiet Office hasn't cracked. The Empire's brutal suppression creates martyrs faster than it eliminates threats.
The Bloodlings
The Aureum were not the first inhabitants. Deep in the mountain's heart, where even dwarven miners feared to dig, the Bloodlings have dwelt since before recorded history.
These pale, translucent-skinned gnomes maintain an obsessive aristocracy based on ancestral bloodline purity. Their genealogies trace back thousands of years—elaborate family trees documenting which lineages carry the purest connection to the "First Bite," the legendary moment of their transformation into what they are now. Status in Bloodling society depends entirely on proving your blood is more ancient, more pure than your rivals.
They are vampiric. They emerge at night to prey on workers. They control the deepest and richest mines—the ones that would make Chimea truly wealthy—and they defend them with coordinated ferocity. Mining crews enter the deep shafts knowing some won't return.
The Three-Front War
Chimea faces an impossible situation in the Blood Mountains:
- Extract resources from mines that the Bloodlings consider their larder
- Suppress resistance from Aureum who dream of liberation
- Maintain occupation with military force that could be better used elsewhere
The Second Legion—roughly five,000 soldiers—is permanently deployed here. Replacements arrive constantly. The costs never stop. Every ruby, every iron ingot that reaches the capital in Chimus is stained with blood.
Settlements
Gilla — The primary administrative center, processing ore and coordinating Second Legion patrols. Imperial officials here have the highest mortality rate outside active war zones.
Jenolan Caves — A mining community built into the eastern cavern systems, uncomfortably close to Bloodling territory. Incursions are common; the population turns over frequently.
Jindivick, Gorokan, Hell Creek, Bumbaldry — Extraction settlements deep in the range. Life is hard. Bloodling attacks are routine. Aureum resistance makes every night uncertain.
Courangra, Narara, Boggabilla — Smaller mining villages along the jungle-mountain border, where the Second Legion's patrols thin and the jungle's predators add to the dangers.
Recent Developments
The Empire's position has grown more precarious. Colonial adventures in New Chimea drain resources. Emperor Morrigan's health is failing. And whispers suggest both the Bloodlings and the Aureum are planning something unprecedented.
A Bloodling emissary has approached the Imperial Court—the first formal contact in centuries—with an offer of peace in exchange for something unspecified. What could vampiric gnomes want badly enough to negotiate?
And among the Aureum, a coordinated uprising is being planned. Not spontaneous violence but organized revolution. Someone is smuggling weapons. Someone is coordinating the cells. The Quiet Office knows something is coming but cannot find the leadership.
The Blood Mountains are about to become much bloodier.