File — Pact Heptarchy

1. Where it is

46° to 54° N, the deep east and northeast. The territory of ancient Vehrannon. ~800 km north-south, and a western border that is the Limbus Mundi — the trail of the wave of the Archangels, frozen where it was stopped in 1786.

The three facts of position that decide everything:

1. It lies behind two rain barriers — the central axis and the Iracundo Range. It receives 330 mm, the least on the continent.
2. It holds Seal VII, the epicentre. The rupture began here in 1780, beneath Ivandir, and the fissure is the largest in the world.
3. It is built on top of itself. The pactuary cities stand on the ruins of the Veheranic cities, and the cellars belong to another civilisation.

2. Relief

Unit	Altitude	Characteristic
UnitVychodstep	Altitude100-400 m	Characteristicdry steppe, rolling, treeless. Drying by 20% since 1820
UnitIracundo Range	Altitude800-2,400 m	Characteristicigneous, warm to the touch at high contours. Seal VII
UnitRuins of Vehrannon	Altitudesubsoil	Characteristicthe ancient cities, beneath the new. They produce nothing and contain everything
UnitLimbus Mundi	Altitudevariable	Characteristiccorrupted land, vegetation of the wrong shape, a permanently orange sky

3. Climate — figures

January mean	-6 °C
July mean	+26 °C
Precipitation	330 mm — and falling
Growing season	165 days
Fissure anomaly	+1.5 to +2 °C above what the latitude would give
Ambient temperature in the Limbo	lukewarm — at the temperature of a body

4. The chain — therefore, therefore, therefore

It lies behind two rain barriers and has the heat of the fissure, therefore it receives 330 mm and has been losing precipitation since 1820, therefore the cereal fails more and more, therefore the White Famine of 1834 killed some four hundred thousand people — and therefore the courts had to decide who ate, which produced exactly the accusation they make against Rome, resolved exactly as Rome would resolve it.

The dry steppe gives pasture and does not give bread, therefore the economy is cattle on an enormous scale, therefore there has been meat four times a week since 1830, therefore the pacted are four centimetres taller than the Christians who fight them (The pact body). And therefore the Heptarchy depends on imported cereal, therefore the forbidden trade route across the Limes has existed since 1848 and has never closed — because closing it would starve both sides. One in every nine men on each side eats off it.