The Vein is the mountainous northwestern region of the Empire, famed for producing folk as tough and rough-edged as the stone, iron, copper that flows from its mines. The Vein was one of the last provinces to be added to the Empire, its mountain holdfasts only falling during the Great Imperial Consolidation after the holdout Aurelian Queen, Tarsillia Aurelius II, fell in battle and her heir was captured and forced to cede the remaining territory his family had held onto.
Northern Aurelia, or just “the Vein” as it was dubbed by its Imperial Governors after the capital of Northvein, became the whipping boy of the Empire for the next millennia after its conquest, its people drafted into the Legions and its resources extracted by callous taxmen and cruel noble overseers. Only the iron heel of the Old Empire on its food supply and the Legions’ constant presence kept it from rebelling; even then, small outbursts of rebellion and insurgency continued to pop up every decade or so, no matter how futile they might have been. When Resurgent overthrew the Legions, it was only her charisma, promises of economic and political equality, and ruthless pursuit of the corrupt noble houses of the region that kept the province from declaring its independence.
In Resurgent’s new Empire, the Vein has blossomed, no longer being sucked dry by taxes and abusive nobles. Benefactore flocked to the Province, setting up businesses and trade routes and turning its economy from one purely focused on extracting mineral resources into a true industrial powerhouse that is coming close to rivalling Hammerhall for productivity. The folk of the Vein are a rough and proud folk, able to endure great hardship with a grim smile on their face. They profoundly appreciate the various institutions built by the Throne after the Resurgence, greedily learning all that was denied them during the time of the Old Empire and seeking to help their people rise even higher now that those shackles have been removed.
Almost half of the food in the area comes from underground sources such as harvest caverns and crawn farms. While the towns in The Vein tend to be built above-ground, the lack of good arable land in the northern parts of the Province means that they draw almost all their resources from the mines, including their food. with only mutton, goats-cheese, and other sheep-based foods coming from above the ground. Their most valuable culinary export is their stone aged whiskey, aged in beautifully carved stone barrels that are kept secured and temperature-controlled in the mines for decades to add just the right hint of salt and stone to the brew’s taste.