Pillar Corridor

Basic Info

Region: The Boiling Hills

Motto: Move Forward or Stand Aside

Alignment: Chaotic Good

Capital: Mechanorise

Cities: Coolgrotto, Towertown, and Gatetropolis

Ruler(Race): Pokalitas the Murismo (Forgeborn Gnomes)

Government Type: Geniocracy (Lead by the most intelligent, Any leader can be challenged any time)

Languages: Common, Draconic, Dwarven, and Gnomish

Religion: Religious practices are limited to private places

Qualities: Learning and Science Primary Focus. Spells, Magic, and Industry Secondary Focus. Art, Commercial, and Trade Minor Focus.

Racial Breakdown: Half Forgeborn gnomes, half Cosmopolitan.

Common Classes: Wizard and Gunslinger common, Alchemist and Sorcerer less common, Fighter and Slayer uncommon.

Quick Description

Similar to the Nexus Peak’s Crown, the Boiling Hills are nearly inhospitable. Covered in craggy ravines, little to no water, it can reach nearly 130 degrees. To the Forgeborn Gnomes whose ancestors challenged the Frozen South, this was just another challenge to overcome with ingenuity. Though not ever a pleasant temperature the cities use arcane magic and ingenuity the lands of the newly christened Pillar Corridor have become a haven for those who wish to make a name for themselves as inventors of new technology or magecraft. Over the last fifteen years, with the consent of an incredulous Prekrine Dominion, they have made a Gondola system that takes travelers past the majority of the desert. Taxed by the Dominion, this has created a new expensive way to travel or ship light goods across the desert without travelling on foot. Over the next fifteen years they intend to make the connection all the way to High Table creating the first international mass transit system linking their capital to the center of The Dycides. No one doubts their ambition after what they have accomplished.

History(Coming Soon)

Government

The leadership of the lower offices around the Pillar Corridor change constantly and tend to disrupt any uniform national change. At any time someone can challenge any government official to a logic, riddle or puzzle game to take over their office. So a single office can get swapped multiple times in one day. The Murismo is the title for the leader of the nation, which is Pokalitas Snubgear, after years of random challenges she has asserted herself in the position strongly enough that challenges are years in the making. Calm lighthearted and kind, she values the sovereignty of her nation and its ingenuity most, and helps support it’s aims. In her seventeen years of tenure so far she has designed many clockwork mechanisms that have increased the speed of the Great Gondola (and decreased fatality rates). She has also opened the Colosseum of Gatropolis, and established new safety guidelines for all mining in the Pillar Corridor, all of her work has been cheered or booed but her consummate challenge is “This is a rough draft, write me a final one!”

Laws

Laws are followed or not in the Pillar Corridor. Most crimes are handled with gold costs, or at worst jail time, but there are two taboos that matter most to the population of the Corridor avoiding necromancy and not taking another’s intellectual property without asking. Those that dabble in necromancy, especially after events in Ethium, are likely to be exiled from the Pillar Corridor forever. Those that steal intellectual property (designs for new spells, potions, mechanisms, recipes, and even music) are branded, fined, and generally shunned by their people. If someone requests to use a component that another designer has made they negotiate a price per unit sold. Many gnomes make their living designing internal components in automatons and once they become essential bits of design they make their money one copper piece at a at a time with only a 1% share.

Attitude

Often ambivalent towards feuds, wars, and end of the world events, most people of the Pillar Corridor care about advancement. This is achieved through ingenuity, talent, and presentation. Selfishness is encouraged in that way, but more important than a single member of the community prosper, if the while community prospers that is even greater advancement. While most people in the Corridor are business all hours of the day, they are also known to throw violently passionate parties when they create something new. Most have learned the hard lesson that diligent encoded notes will help when you come back from blackout drunk.