In the days of the shogunate, Redpeak Mountain was a stable mining village located in the Dehennan Mountains. The mountain itself was rich with copper, streams and lakes of clear water provided drinking water and rich fields kept the people fed. It was not a wealthy place by any measure, but it was able to survive on its own. But the village’s small prosperity could not survive the Balorian Crusade and the Great Contagion.
The water turned to brackish pus. The fields became barren. The copper mines remained, but there was no one left to extract and refine the ore. Spreading Hearth, the god of Redpeak, saw his people die and became desperate to save them, and then to save their legacy once he realized the full scope of the disaster that had fallen upon Creation. There were none in Heaven who could hear Spreading Hearth’s pleas. It fell onto a mortal to save a god.
By chance, a necromancer studying the Great Contagion happened to pass by the ruins of Redpeak. In exchange for the warmth and protection of a need fire, she agreed to use her power to help Spreading Hearth. She buried the corpses of the dead villagers deep inside the mountain and bound them with her fell sorcery. Every night, the dead rise and claw the copper out of the stone. Just before the crack of down, they leave the results of their labour just inside the mine’s entrance as tribute to Spreading Hearth. The god has since taken credit for their work and used the copper to attract the attention of the Guild. Redpeak Mountain is now a small trade hub between the silverholds of the Dehennan Mountains.
The slow yet steady rise of Redpeak has done little to assuage Spreading Hearth’s concerns, however. The god possesses only a rudimentary understanding of the necromantic wards that keep the undead inside the mines, and his priests even less so. The wards require specific reagents that are rare and difficult to obtain in the North. Spreading Hearth fears that the Guild will guess the true nature of his whimsical demands for tribute ̶ or simply grow tired of them ̶ and terminate their agreement or replace the god with a more competent sorcerer. Worse still, the mine’s copper reserves have nearly run out and the undead have been forced to dig their tunnels deeper under the mountain. Their tribute now includes generous amounts of iron, onyx and obsidian that are not natural to the Dehennan Mountains.
The Glass Library 