Granites of Veltsgorsk
Overview
The Granites of Veltsgorks are found deep in the mountains of Brez, in the Varushkan territory of Volodmartz. Custodianship of the Granites of Veltsgorsk grants an Imperial title; a seat on the Imperial Bourse; and a seasonal bounty of valuable white granite.
The Resource
In the mountatins of Brez lie the open mines of Veltsgorsk. The white granite that comes from these mines is sometimes streaked with pink quartz - storytellers claim it is steeped in the blood of all those who have died fighting over Volodmartz in the past, and will help give life to nearby vegetation as a result. This makes it a popular choice among those Varushkans responsible for tending forest groves - as well as with many Navarr. Indeed, control of the quarry is assigned by Varushkan forest owners; it is standard practice for them to sell their votes to potential candidates in return for an agreed share of the white granite over the coming year.
The workers of Veltsgorsk are a tough-minded, hardy breed, almost as hard as the granite that they mine. They mine the granite in big blocks, seeming to saw along the ground, before hammering in wedges that will break the granite into a neat, rectangular block. So practiced are they that each block needs hardly any dressing before it is ready to be stacked. Once broken from the mine, each block is raised by a team of workers, all of them aware that what they are raising is a block of pink granite easily large enough to crush them to death were any of them to fail in lifting correctly.
It is common practice for the quarry overseers to engage a storyteller to work alongside the labourers, calling out tales of the Varushkan heroes whose blood is said the suffuse the granite. As each block is raised, the cry of "Remember!" will reverberate around the mountains, shouted by both storyteller and worker alike. While some overseers have seen the practice as being a waste of money, and a distraction for the workers, stories claim that whenever a storyteller is not engaged, accidents among the workforce increase tenfold. At least one volhov who has visited the quarry claims that the presence of the storyteller, and the reverence for the past, is not mere superstition but actually helps to propitiate some (potentially) malign force associated with the quarry.