Balatai is a mining settlement situated 3 days travel from Darkin, to the Counter-Night. Here a line of jagged hills are to be found, from which the famous Green Stone of Balatai can be mined in lustrous slabs. Caravans travel from Balatai to Darkin, and then Nightwards to the river valley. (A cart of Green Stone is Value 7). Balatai itself is a rough and haphazard settlement built in the shadows of empty quarry pits. Fresh workings are nearby in the surrounding valleys. A small amount of copper is also mined from the same hills, and spoil from the mines litters the slopes.
Balatai is often a destination for escaped Slaves, or penniless Freemen, hoping to make quick coin from manual labour. New Miners vie to join an existing gang, and take a share of the profits from the stone they excavate. The Clerks in charge of the mine pay the gang bosses, who decide how to distribute money to the members. The town has a few simple and rough taverns for the miners.
Borruk is a settlement located deep in the Ice Hills, on the edge of the glacier zone. It is situated in a steep sided valley of granite and obsidian known as Night's Valley, where dark trees crowd the snow banks and jagged mountains soar high enough for the unseen sun to catch their peaks.
It is a crude and simple place, little more than a trading post. A stockade of wooden posts surrounds a cluster of huts half-buried under snow and earth. The fires here burn constantly, and the small windowless rooms are insulated with draped pelts and woven carpets. The walls are lit by huge dangling lanterns, with charcoal fuel and sides of parchment, that create a small oasis of light in the night.
Borruk lies at the highest navigable point of the river that flows through Sorgan's Fall. Beyond Borruk's log-cut walls the river flows only under a blanket of ice (fur-swathed Keldians must keep the port clear with stakes). Borruk is primarily a supply town for travellers and prospectors, though it also provides a trading hub for trappers and loggers operating out in the dark. It is also heavily fortified against the predations of the Night Goblins that infest the hills around it.