High Mountain, the Industrial City on the Mountain
High Mountain is a heavily industrialized city situated on a mountain range. By pure coincidence, the mountain was found filled with rich resources such as metals and coal and coal gems. As such, many people came to stake their claim. Soon enough, what became a small camp became a small town. Somewhat longer, it became a city. It industrialized rather quickly with the plethora of natural resources at it’s disposal.
Eventually, they decided to stake a full claim as an independent city-state. Quickly, they throw together a council of leaders of most of the groups in the city, or at least those that want to stay in this new sovereign state. The goal of this council was to find the best system to govern the new city. In the end, they decide that a council of each of the major groups as they had was the best idea. Though, as the groups became as one, they eventually phased out and voted for the five most influential people in the city as the Council of Five.
Meanwhile, the city heavily industrialized. There were many problems with this though. The first was a coming lack of land to build on. While there was plenty of space originally, as the city grew and they produced factories, space grew needing. Their first remedy to this was to dig into the mountain side building a lot more of the city into the old mines. While this was not the best solution, it was the most efficient at the time. These housing areas were for those who more often than not mined. Not because they were discriminated against, but rather it made it easier for them to work. In addition, the city was also built up the mountain, utilizing elevators and stairs where necessary.
The second problem was water. As they were high up on the mountain, natural water was hard to come by. To get around this problem, they developed a system to draw natural water from a local river. It worked for a while, but they found that people were getting sick. They narrowed the problem to a certain problem. The heavy industrialization in fact pumped out a
lot of the “Black Fog” that covered the ground area of the mountain. The water was unsafe for drinking. With little other choice, they continued drinking the until they contacted the Werneath Institute. The Institute assisted in creating their purification system for the small price of a friendly alliance with it’s home state of Coalmire and the rights to build a branch of the Institute inside the city. High Mountain of course, accepted.
The third problem, and sadly most pressing, is food. High Mountain has no natural source for food that is easily accessible. While it’s a problem, the city handles it in the only real way they know how... Trade. Yes, they trade their surplus of natural resources for the second essential of life. At first, it was fairly easy. The traders would come through the natural passages up the mountain, but as time went on, this method became more and more perilous. Not because of bandits, but because of the same problem that plagued the water source, the “Black Fog.” There were two things that they had as options. The first was the more permanent solution, they carved paths under the ground, safe from the Fog that haunted the above ground. The Grand Path, as it was called, was decently long but was wide enough to allow multiple trains to travel to and from the giant elevators that carried cargo to the city itself.
The second solution to food is the more modern method of Airships. While grand and faster, they are also rarer and less cost efficient. Luckily, there is no lack of supplies in High Mountain. For now.
As far as they go militarily... There is no real organized army. Rather, they are a state of researchers, inventors, engineers, miners and with the addition of the Institute, arguably scholars. Instead, they have training in firearms for every citizen at the age of 12 as a form of state militia. That said, many of their fields of study have to do with the field of firearms or or things of the sort. Mostly, because weapons tend to sell for a lot. There are other things that are produced of course, but when one hears of High Mountain, they think of the guns. Well, maybe just the natural resources.
But, while they are not highly known for it, they also produce armor and other feats of engineering such as small explosive devices called Grenades albeit somewhat primitive.
Education on High Mountain is highly valued, though it’s less in the sense of going to university and more on the tracks of trade schools and apprenticeships though more “formal” education is available with the Werneath Institute. Since much of the work available is related to metal-working or stoneworking or mining, there is a number of schools teaching such skills if not just on the job training. Though,it is also considered proper in the society to learn some skills outside your trade to emphasis ingenuity to think outside the box.
Just be careful lest she makes Ros too jealous of her own ship. Although Little Starburst 
