Hagga Shan
This is a small range of mountains nestled against the edge of the Yal Tengri. Heavily blanketed under snows blowing off the ocean, the Hagga Shan is a lonely range, little visited by merchants. The forested slopes are used by the nomads in both the summer and winter. The Hagga Shan provides building materials, pasturage, and shelter from the snows of winter. The Hagga Shan is also the home to a community of dwarves who came across the Yal Tengri from the Highlands in Terraguard. These dwarves, the red- bearded Herlinga Clan, live in caverns on the western side of the Glittering Spires, as they call the Hagga Shan. These peaks are so named for the brilliant white caps of snow they bear year-round. Here the Herlinga mine tin, smelt it, and then sell it to merchants from Naupau.
Contact between the nomads of the steppe and the Herlinga is rare, so rare that the nomads have a superstitious dread of the “little men.” The Herlinga, accustomed to more casual treatment in the west, find the nomads’ fears comical. The dwarves often play upon these fears to close bargains or commit practical jokes, which only strengthen the fears and suspicions of the nomads.
The Herlinga are relatively new to the region. They arrived in the mountains only 300 years ago. Some of the oldest members of the clan remember the early days when Ilsik Herlingson first discovered the caverns of the Glittering Spires. The Herlinga still maintain many of the ways of their original homeland in the Highlands, although the clan is slowly becoming more oriental. Silk has become more common, along with exotic foods and spices of the east. The dwarves obtain these goods on their infrequent trips to the market at the Ni-Ko Oasis. To make the trip to the distant trading center, the Herlinga have taken to raising goats for carrying the ingots of tin. The goats are easier than mules or camels for the dwarves to manage and are hardy enough to survive on the slopes of the Hagga Shan.
