Added D-315, D-316, D-317 - The realms are at war. Some of them are fighting at home, and deserters and refugees from those wars end up climbing.
- Tower tech flows freely out of the valley and is reshaping the mundane world, its wars included. That is why every realm is racing.
- The city-state. The frontier is a neutral city-state, run for profit by the Cartographers' Guild. It looks weak, but access to Tower stone makes it a real threat to any realm. The realms cannot coordinate an invasion because their interests conflict, and a neutral city gives them all access to the stone. The treaty is that practical bargain: it keeps the peace between the large realms so the salvage keeps flowing.
- The Guild's coin. The city-state mints its own coin, and everyone trades in it because it buys Tower stone: the hardest currency in the world (D-326).
- The Guild governs, but not its own. Its offices run the city, hold the treaty's terms and banish offenders. It cannot command a Cartographer's route or secrets (§9). What the Lodge wants is unknown (§2).
- The Commission still pushes against the treaty (§26), and the other factions pursue their own ends inside it (§27).
- Banishment. Breaking the peace means exile from the valley: the offender is escorted out and forbidden to return. For a climber, the dream ends. Inside the Tower there is no law at all (§26).