The Stoneborn

Short, broad, deep-voiced folk of the Northern Rampart who quarry the bones of the dead Imperium and the deep stone the Karth swallowed. They trust worked metal over any spell — whatever quickens lowland spellcraft finds no purchase in granite, and none in them.

The Stoneborn live where the Vale turns to mountain, in galleries cut under the Northern Rampart and along the gorges the Karth carved. They raised the chain-works and bridge-stones at Karth Bridge, keep the best forges north of the river, and reckon the Imperium's leaning column-fields a quarry the old empire was good enough to leave standing. Stone doesn't move for pretty words, and neither do they — whatever it is that haunts the lowlands and quickens a caster's hand finds little purchase in Stoneborn blood, which dulls magic for and against them alike. They are short and slab-built, clannish, slow to move and slower to forgive, and they would sooner hand you a good blade than a good word.