Bergheim
A landlocked nation small in scale but noticeable in population, situated among almost the entirety of the Strahlerz mountain range. It has 2 super-large cities, the larger and capital city of Drestog, and the smaller but still large Klifval. Contains almost entirely Schausen, but the majority of the upper class is Marmeial.
Drestog
The gargantuan capital city of Bergheim, which is built into a massive pre-existing cavern supported by numerous ancient pillars. These ancient pillars are, in reality, the remains of a hythean-era facility shielded from the physical effects of Küranna’s Folly by the surrounding mountain rock. It did, however, deposit a great deal of gimyndine in the mountain, in addition to the high density of gimyndized luciants given the nature of the facility.
The actual nature of the facility was three parts: a long-term storage warehouse for delicate technologies, nuclear waste, and the like, a self-operating hybrid geothermal and nuclear power plant to ensure longevity of operation, and an underground city that arose just outside it as a natural consequence of the two.
The majority of the actual city of Drestog is located on the ruins of the hythean city proper, in the upper levels of the caverns. The nobility and guild-workers live and operate in the cooler, upper sections, whereas the lower classes find themselves bunching up against the freezing warehouses and sweltering reactors. Some of the more desperate even plunder the warehouses like game dungeons, fighting security droids to bring back marvelous trinkets for sale at the markets.
Bergheim
Main Fixations
The culture of Bergheim is centered largely around meritocracy, apprenticeship, and family units. These three concepts pervade almost every aspect of Bergian culture, from manners to marriage.
The Nine Disciplines
Meritocracy in Bergheim is largely represented by the Nine Disciplines, the largest guilds of the most respected professions. These professions each elect their leaders by annual relevant tournaments, and the leader is responsible for governing their respective sector under the supervision of the king.
Most notably, the monarch and rulership are treated as the 0th discipline, and in addition to primogeniture a prospective monarch must pass the King’s Gauntlet. Technically, any citizen of Bergeim can challenge the current monarch and seize the throne by claiming victory. The royal succession then uses them as a zero point and continues until the next disruption. However, the consequences of failing are complete banishment, and so no family in recent history has challenged house von Weiss.
Most well-known among the Nine Disciplines is the craft of kindlegems. In addition there is gimyndine engineering, artifice, gimyndine mining, and scriptcraft. The remaining mundane four are agriculture, military, artistry, and study.