High Cromlech

High Cromlech
Location information
Location	Shatterjack Mountains
Language(s) used	Quiesy, also known as Deadish
Dominant race(s)	Thanati Ab-dead Human minority
Religion(s)	Unknown
Government	Necrocratic aristocracy
Population	Likely >100,000

High Cromlech is a large city-state located on the northwest of Rohagi, around the Shatterjack Mountains. Almost everything that is currently known about High Cromlech is derived from Uther Doul and Silas Fennec.

Overview

Populated by various types of un-dead and ab-dead, as well as living humans, High Cromlech has been described by Silas Fennec as incredibly quiet. The city's primary workforce is composed of expensive zombies, although the living supplement the zombies by doing work that is too delicate or too risky.

Culture and politics

High Cromlech has a perpetual scent of flint dust, rot, ozone, myrrh, and embalming spices.

Thanati culture is based largely around social maneuvering and the cultivation of political relationships. The political element is likely responsible for the culture of dueling between members of thanati nobility.

The city likely has at least one dominant religion, evidenced by the existence of "cults and heresies", although no details are revealed.

Trade

High Cromlech is known for trading labor and spices in return for artworks and unspecified "secrets" from Hinter. It is also likely that its proximity to the Shatterjack Mines plays a role in its trade relations.

Architecture

One of the city's major roads is the Bonestrasse, apparently where the thanati nobility live. The great houses that line the side of the Bonestrasse rest on ornate catafalque, and at the end of the thoroughfare is a majestic view of the Shatterjack mountains. Leaving, and presumably entering, the city requires taking the funicular railway.

Castes

Thanati

See also: Thanati

High Cromlech is a strict, caste-based nation ruled by undead nobility, called "thanati." Thanati are addressed with the title of "Deadman" or "Deadwife".

The Quick

The living (called "the quick") are a minority in High Cromlech. Most of the living are bred and raised on "farms", and are eventually "snuffed and recast as zombies." Some living are reared by the thanati, to be "slain and welcomed to dead society" once they come of age, but this is rare.

A small fraction of the living are born free. The freeborn living life in Liveside, a ghetto. The freeborn living survive by doing work that is too skilled (or too dangerous) for semi-sentient, and expensive, zombies. Well-to-do living are addressed with the title of "Liveman" or "Livewife".

Ab-dead

At the bottom of High Cromlech's social ladder are the "vampir", which are referred to as "ab-dead" to distinguish them from the thanati. The vampir are considered little more than vagrants and addicts, living in shanty towns and coming out at night to beg the living for blood.

Language

See: Quiesy

Known former residents

• The Brucolac - A former resident of High Cromlech, the Brucolac departed several centuries prior to 1780. He acquiring a moonship, the Uroc, during his departure.
• Uther Doul - Doul spent his childhood and teenage years in the city, where he became involved in various cults and gangs. He departed the city around 1760.

Notes

• High Cromlech is first mentioned in Perdido Street Station, when the authorities are discussing creating a fighting force to oppose the slake moths. They note that unlike Cromlech, New Crobuzon can't create zombies in sufficient numbers, or of the quality required.

Places and locations of Bas-Lag