Recently, two enterprising dwarves have turned tar mining
into a profitable business. Durex and Haltham Ghodan,
brothers and free citizens from Raam, first encountered
a tar pit on a trip to the House Shom trading village
of Cromlin. They quickly realized the potential of tar
business, and took building materials and 20 slaves (both
crafters and laborers) to a large pit about two miles due
south of Cromlin. Now they have a thriving enterprise.
They use the tar to weatherproof a variety of useful and
necessary items that they produce in the craft shops they
set up next to the tar pit.
The Sky Singers and other local traders provide bladders
or leather that the Ghodan brothers' crafters fashion into
valuable wineskins, crew-size water containers, sandproofed
armor, sails for silt skimmers, and anything else that needs
to be sealed against the elements.
Twice a month, a Ghodan caravan travels to Cromlin
to sell their weatherproof wares to House Shom. These
caravans have become frequent targets of bandits, raiders,
and even gith (who value the goods for their intrinsic
value more than for what they could fetch at market). The
caravan leaders try to vary their exact routes from time to
time to throw off the raiders, but the trip is a short one
and there is little room for deviation. For this reason, the
route is considered extremely dangerous, and guards will
be well paid for escorting the trains through safely.
