Rocky Highlands

The land

• Ground: pale heath, colder in colour than the Woods' grass, with bare grey stone where the ground is roughest.
• Height: the highlands rise in terraces, up to 8 levels high. The heights build up away from the land's borders into great massifs and saddles, so the middle of a highland region is the tallest part.
• Crags: in craggy places the land steps up two levels at once. A hop only climbs one level, so you need to jump (Space) up these cliffs. See Lands.
• Water: fewer lakes than the Woods (small tarns), and rivers that run as narrow streams.
• Trees and plants: crag pines and juniper bushes, and wild potatoes and strawberries. Its sister tree is the Ironwood, which gives Ironwood. See Trees and Wild Plants.
• Weather: every kind, shown as it is (see Weather).

Animals

Sheep graze the heath, with a few cows, deer, foxes, birds and ravens (Sheep, Cow, Deer, Fox, Bird, Raven). White wolves and grizzly bears roam here; far out from where you started, some of the bears are polar bears. Mermaids may rise from deep water.

Night things

At night (Day and Night) the highlands send out their own creatures as well as the common four (Gnawlings, Longlegs, Crawlers, Scuzz):

• swarms of Flitterbats (up to 8 about);
• bands of Kobolds (up to 6 about);
• Gargoyles, sitting still as statues (up to 2);
• Crag Wyverns on their perches (up to 2);
• rarely, a Cairnback (one at a time).

Villages: the Ironwrights

The highlands' villages are towns built along a single high street, the houses standing shoulder to shoulder on both sides of it, in slate and iron. The Ironwrights are miners, shepherds and knitters. They carved the stone guardians that still sit out on the crags, and when mist comes down off the fells a ridge bell rings the flocks home. Village names run like Cragholm or Heatherfell. See Villages, Village Quests and Keepsakes.

What it gives

The highlands' trade is wool and iron: Iron Ore, Ironwood, Wool and Heather are found here, and wool is worked into Woolen Cloth. These go into iron gear, the Satchel, Tank's coats, and companion gear from iron up. On a Spirit Wager, the highlands' water favours Earth.

Dungeons: the Basalt Heart

• The highlands' dungeon mouths are a mine entrance cut into a rock face, or a stairwell down into the ground.
• Inside, every highland dungeon is the Basalt Heart: halls of blue-black basalt columns, long tunnels of crushed basalt with old miners' rails down them, and vents of heat with red crystals of the Oathfire growing by them.
• Besides the common creatures, Flitterbats turn up; Mild and harder dungeons hold Kobolds and Gargoyles; Grim and harder may hold a Cairnback.

See Dungeons and Chests.

The lair: Giggos

Each highland region has one lair, its great gate set in a sheer outcrop near the region's middle. Its boss is Giggos, fought in his basalt hall, where the floor's heat follows him. Clearing your first highland lair wins The Oathfire, the highlands' red Jewel.

Creatures

KoboldCREATURECairnbackCREATURECrag WyvernCREATUREGargoyleCREATUREFlitterbatCREATUREMermaidCREATUREGiggosLAIR BOSS

What its traders sell

A village trader here carries some of these, more as you hold more Jewels:

StoneCREATURE PARTIron OreOREIronwoodWOODCopper OreOREHeatherMATERIALThistleMATERIALHideCREATURE PARTRaw MeatCREATURE PARTArrowsAMMOWoolCREATURE PARTCharcoalMADE MATERIALLamp OilMATERIALWoolen ClothMADE MATERIALWolf PeltCREATURE PARTBear ClawCREATURE PARTBlack FeathersCREATURE PART

Fish found here more often

TroutFISHPikeFISHGlasseyeFISHPerchFISH