Ceiling of the World

Ceiling is a city located in the continent of Bigboy.

Overview
Despite being a fairly massive city, Ceiling sees the least travel of all the Freeholds. Tucked away on the peak of one of the highest mountains in the Spines, only the hardiest can even survive the trek up there, let alone live there day in and day out. The thin air, of course, doesn’t bother the aarakocra who have collectively made Ceiling their nest, and the craggy cliffs make ideal places to train their young to fly. Every season in Ceiling is winter to varying degrees, and there are only a few weeks of each year where the snow recedes and outdoor activities become viable for those not used to the cold and ice.

Oddly, living in harmony with the aarakocra of Ceiling are a large number of goblins, who, as they are unable to fly, have constructed a wide-ranging series of bridges and pulley systems to make living on the mountain more hospitable. They’re a largely peaceful lot, and they seem perfectly happy living under the rule of the aarakocra matriarch and her shaman advisors.

In part because they don’t see many visitors, the people of Ceiling are fairly standoffish when it comes to strangers. They may behave snidely, or aggressively, and may refuse service to travelers unless they’ve shown themselves to be worth the effort. This is, again, only partially a result of Ceiling’s social isolation. It also is extremely difficult to get goods into Ceiling, and as a place with few natural resources, the residents here are loathe to part with what little they have for coin that does them little good in the grand scheme of things—they prefer barter when trading within their own borders.

The extremely notable features of Ceiling—its main draw and source of external income—is the series of greenhouses built above hot springs along the mountainside the city is built against. Rare herbs of all varieties are grown here for export, as for many of them, the mountain air is excellent and their goblin caretakers more than adequate. And so it’s in this way that the aarakocra and the goblins form a mutually beneficial community; the aarakocra give the goblins a sense of stability, they hunt and are largely the protectors of the city while the goblins help create a source of material income to get goods from outside sources that Ceiling couldn’t function without.