The Iron Mountains, named after the rich iron veins they harbour, are amongst the Stoneheart Valley’s mightiest mountain ranges. They surround the flat basin of Aberdeen, and provide a very effective geological barrier from the rest of Golarion- fairly convenient for the arguably xenophobic nation. The zeniths of these mountains are forever sheathed in rime, and usually obscured from the naked eye unless the climate is exceptionally fair. The Aberdeenians’ xenophobia is almost understandable, as it is hard to imagine anything good descending from those looming peaks.
It is here, where the fog and wind, the heavy rains and violent electric storms dash themselves across these jagged earthern teeth, where the Tengu dare to build the monasteries dedicated to their unique arts.
Unlike the Aberdeenians living below the cloud cover, whose lives are spent scrabbling for and fretting over their lipservice to Abbadar, the Tengu do not dedicate their lives to any one deity of the Stoneheart pantheon. Traditional Tengu beliefs are instead steeped in a kind of animism, where any part of the world- natural, supernatural, artificed or otherwise- can be said to house a spirit of variable power.
In this light, the gods of the Valley are spirits of immense power, but still just a single spirit within a multiverse made entirely of spirits and matter. A religious Tengu may pray to the spirit of a particularly old local tree, perhaps to encourage it to grow more fruit, just as often as any god of the seasons or fertility. Some of the more enterprising and/or desperate birds may attempt to curry favour with one god by declaring their devotion to them, even enacting the same rituals as the most fervent of believers, only to later shift their allegiance when their circumstances or desires have changed. Some even turn the worship inwards, praying to the spirit that animates their mortal frame so that it may do better next time.
Now not every Tengu is so wildly superstitious. However this peculiar outlook on life, where gods and monsters and everything in between are essentially made of the same stuff, is still fairly prevalent in their culture and practices. And so we turn our eye back to the Tengu monasteries.
The most striking feature of these structures, aside from the dizzying height at which they’re built, are the several long thin metal tubes set upright into their highest roofs. These tubes are actually the metal bores used to construct Tengu firearms, placed there in hopes of attracting one of the weather spirits outside. Tengu traditionally feel a kinship for spirits of the air- birds, winds, clouds and fog- but the thunder spirits are the most coveted for firearms. A metal bore that survives a lightning strike is said to have been chosen by the thunder, and whatever damage the bore sustained is decorated with charms to keep the spirit housed there. Such a piece is considered supremely valuable to the monastery, becoming the base component for a masterwork or even magical weapon. It also goes some way in explaining the disastrous misfires these weapons are infamous for.
