Burning Hills

The **Burning Hills**, previously known as the **Valley of Dragons**, were a large subcontinent located south of the Danderillon and north of the Fallo. It was bounded by some of the planet's most dramatic mountains. Though historically a lush subtropical basin, it was scorched by a coronal mass ejection in the year 0 and became an arid desert of red-orange sands, from which its name is now derived.

## Names in Other Languages

### Modern Languages (as of the Collapse era)

* Euluska - *Skarrolth Zundërin*
* Fallonese - *Escarrone Iccitoria*
* Vist: *Čaronoi Sûnend*
* Nadûra: *Kharose Thûren*
* Vortai - *Drudis Avarusse*

All mean 'Burning Hills' ('burn' gerund + 'upland or hilly landscape')

### Dead or Antique Languages

* Old Nethir and Nethir: *Amhruqa Alta*. (Old Nethir was used in antiquity, and became Nethir around the year 0 TE. Nethir itself became a minority language in its own land from the 1200s onwards when Vortai colonisers imposed Vortai as the *lingua franca*).
* Old Euluska - *Sundila* ('Charred')
* Old Fallonese - *Swndyla* (from Old Euluska)
* Vrei - *Doręja Hrąos* ('Scorched Earth')

## Brief History

### Prehistory

The area was long ago a subtropical valley full of deep blue rivers and verdant banks. It was home to a lot of early hunter-gatherer tribes which migrated into the area around 240,000 years ago, splitting off from populations who would later become Fallonese and Lakayan/Vortai. In addition, the people who would later populate the Danderillon and even Gildegra and Rakkimar had to migrate through the Burning Hills - it was the route out of the peninsula.

### Cavemen vs Dragons

Dragons on the Cradle were solely native to the Burning Hills. They lived in the harsh mountains, thick jungles, and large caves. The early settlers rarely had to contend with them, for they were lazy and preferred larger prey. However, eventually settled human communities began to learn to hunt dragons during seasons of necessity or times of bravado. They used song, bait, or speech to bait them into traps that ensnared their wings to stop them fleeing (e.g. vines, ropes, mud) and used rivers or mud to stop their elemental breath. Within a few tens of thousands of years of arriving, humans had become master of the dragons. The draconic population had dwindled, but evolutionary pressure drove the surviving dragons to be the most powerful.

### Draconic Ancestry

Cruor (silver substances in the blood that allow magic-use in Indratera) was present in dragons in very high quantities, especially the subcutaneous tissue and skeletal muscle. It was sequestered into carcinogenic proteins when stored anaerobically. When stone age humans felled dragons and ate them, the strongest humans among them (hunters, warriors, chieftains) would receive the lion's share. The strongest tribals would suffer the most mutagenic effects and, over time, evolve into more and more draconic beings, like modern dragonborn or kobolds.

### The Mage Synod

From about the 3rd millennum before zero until the year 0, the people of the Burning Hills were loosely allied under the 'Synod of Dragons'. This central authority began in antiquity as a yearly meeting of the clan elders on places like the shores of the gulf, on sacred plateaus, or at the geothermal pits. It soon grew into a theocratic council that electively governed tribes - like a moot or summit, or like the Iroquois confederacy. They both revered dragons and believed that humans should rule them.

The synod's mages and ritualists became more and more powerful. The land was the leading magical hub of the world for quite some time during the final millennium before-zero. The Synod began performing rituals to raise their towns and cities floating above the earth, ripped from the rock by hands of force. Imprisoned in each city was a powerful dragon captured by mages, and its roars and bellows powered the engines at the heart of the cities.

The Synod met at the clay city of Xinlelal at the mouth of the Dvoryac river.

### Coronal Mass Ejection

In the year 0, a huge coronal mass ejection destabilised many of the cities - many of the dragons breached containment in the overload and wrought havoc. Or perhaps, the dragons were helped to escape and the sun scorched the land after. No one is truly sure. Either way, the Burning Hills became the Burning Hills. The land was entirely scorched, ripped clean of vegetation and water. Most of the population who didn't die ended up fleeing the land in a great exodus, north or south. Hereafter, the Nethir people dwindled to a tiny number compared to their former glory.

The population dwindled into only small villages here and there by oases, and the plants underwent slow succession. Even in the modern day the land is still arid and scrubbed. Exceptionally dry parts are prone to wildfires and firenadoes.

### Colonisation

Though no agriculture is possible in the Hills, the minerals are to die for. Besides rare metals and crystals melted into now-solid veins by ancient fires, one of the more sought-after modern commodities was sulfur, the main ingredient in Indrateran gunpowder.

The Lusken Empire ignored the Burning Hills during its era of colonisation and conquest from around 0-300 TE - there was just not enough there to warrant stationing, even if there was little to no local resistance. Sulfur was not used at this time as gunpowder had not been invented.

Once gunpowder was invented and commercialised in the late 13th and early 14th centuries, the Vortic Mercatorium - who at the time (and still today) were the world leaders in naval warfare and gunpowder warfare, thirsted for sulfur for their guns and metal for their ships. The Vortics invaded the Burning Hills' gulf and established several large cities, including their capital, Charteyn. They also invaded and renamed the city of Xinlelal, turning it to the protectorate of Singakafta. The Vortic Protectorate of the Burning Hills lasted for hundreds of years. The Vortics drained the geothermal pits dry of sulfur, and overfished the gulf. They unleashed a brutal repressive regime on the Nethir people, and from the 1400s to 1600 they almost entirely wiped out the Nethir people except for some small mountain villages.

### Boom

The Vortic mandate of the Burning Hills also had a population boom when in the early 1500s, the Vortic Lakayan Alliance sacked the capital of the Lusken Empire, Luskan. The Vortics occupied several Fallonese cities that were very near to the southern Burning Hills, and there was some population growth and influx.

### The God Wars

When the God Wars were beginning in 1621, the situation was complex.

* The **Lakayan Federation** (Lakay and Halcyon)'s oilfields were being threatened by the **Boreal Alliance** (Rakkimar, the Xant, and Datria).
* Initially, the Vortics were going to remain neutral.
* However, the Lakayan Federation proposed a treaty with the Vortic Burning Hills, for continued access to the northern Burning Hills for metal mining.
* In addition, the Vortics warned Datria not to move their armies any further southwards - if they did, they would be encroaching on the eastern Burning Hills, and the Vortics would defend themselves
* But then, the Boreal Alliance threatened the Vortics into neutrality.
* The Lakayan Federation then allied with the **Luskan-Brist Commonwealth** to form the **Euluskan League**.
* But then a move backfired. The Bristi navy of the Euluskan League blockaded Sanctum, which was the Vortic's second overseas capital. They also stationed troops on the Nethir Upland, which is where the Burning Hills meet the Danderillon. These two moves were to try to say 'You ought to join us so we don't destroy you'. However it backfired horribly and the Vortics entered the God Wars on their own third side.

### Post God Wars

The God Wars weakened the Vortic's hold on the Burning Hills - much like most other world powers, they lost their overseas territories. Some of the Vistu people, who normally inhabited the south Danderillon and were descended from the Vreigardt peoples of the -3000s to the 1400s, inhabited the northwest Burning Hills, whilst a collection of scattered Vortic, Nethir, and other people lived in the other small villages. The Vistu people inhabited the capital, which they named Visdvoryac (Vist for 'mouth of the Dvoryac river'). Vist was the official spoken language of the northern Burning Hills, which were now a small nation, **Athame** (Vist: *Athejm*).

The demographics of Athame were - about *55% Vist; 30% Vortai; 2% Nethir; 5% Draconic lineages; 13% other*. Vist was the official language, Vortai was the secondary language, Euluska and Fallonese were minority languages, and Nethir was a once-moribund now tiny revived language with a few hundred speakers.