The Ash Hills are a wide war-torn march of dry ridges, ruined camps, and stubborn little communities strung between wells and roads. Every hill has a name, and most of them are insults remembered from older feuds. Life here is practical, hard, and richly political, because salvage, water, and safe passage matter as much as land. Magic is common, but local charms depend on exact words, old relics, and obligations that are never cheap.