Metanarrative: Economic Section

The Irra, knowers of a great many histories, trade many things with their fellows. Many prefer the deep and dark places amongst the caverns, and it is there that they find curious flora and fungi. While the memory of their use as poison testers may provide indignity, the Irra can identify with a taste what strange mosses and lichens might be edible and used for trade. The Kobolds trade eagerly with the Irra, eager to try the strange and obscure foodstuffs dragged from the depths below. The Irra have also mastered the techniques of printing, and are able to reproduce their written works at relatively inexpensive cost. Irra texts deal in many topics, ranging from trade, medicine, history, philosophy, religion, and many other things besides. All of the most prominent Kobold clans use Irra scribes to record their histories. Even the Lymantria express an interest in the written records of the Irra, and it is no small secret that some of the strangest and most arcane works in Irra archives are the result of Irra recording scrap of information shared by Lymantrian correspondents.
The small and organized nature of Irra communities, combined with the formidable (if at times hostile) natural bounty of Irrum Vath itself, means there is rarely a risk of starvation. As such, it can be said that the Irra have a chance to appreciate the art in most things they do. Though they lack the ravenous appetite for raw materials seen in the kobolds or even the Bajir, Irra are nonetheless formidable craftsmen. Their lives are long, and their offspring are rare, and this is reflected in the tools they build. Irra build things to last, and tailor their creations extensively to the individual they are intended for. Irra are likely to see the inherent value in giving those among them the tools necessary to do their job. Among the Irra, it is seen as unremarkable that a craftsman would provide a customer with their product in exchange for debt. Most Irra are extensively in debt to one another in some form, and all of it is meticulously recorded. The Irra see no issue with this, as they see all this as no more than a reflection of the inescapable debt that all members of a productive society owe each other. Furthermore, Irra debts are not passed on to descendants upon death, and interest is only charged to outsiders.
The Kobolds have an abundance to trade; staple crops, livestock products, ore, and tools and trinkets, all this forms the backbone of their economic strength. There are very few Kobolds that do not know how to pick up a hoe and till the land, as when a field needs tending the community but sends up a shout for aid, and those with able bodies will flock to the source. Moreover, Kobolds from differing tribes will often mingle together under the guise of employment. Tribal rivalries and political interests are set aside when it comes to these individuals, and to bring harm to an outsider who has pledged themselves to a local cause is seen as a social taboo.
Kobold lairs are often formed by mining material from the cave systems under Irrum Vath. Kobold clans tend to have the highest portion of their people be farmers or miners. Kobolds use divination magic to locate new ore deposits and gems when the existing sources begin to run dry. Mining activities are carefully and meticulously planned with little being left to chance. Kobolds can use their domesticated dire weasels as shepherd animals to herd livestock into the depths. The kobolds raise and breed these animals for eggs, dairy, and meat products. Kobolds relish crafting jewelry from their mined gems and precious ores. Much effort is placed into their craftsmanship. Fine jewelry stands out among Kobolds as most of their tools, clothes, and the like are practical and functional over extravagant.
The native Bajir are hunter-gatherers, at best subsistence farmers. They live separately from the other races, due in part to the fact that the Irra and the Kobolds are at best indifferent to them and at worst even hostile. As such, they are separated from the benefits of the more advanced economies of Irrum Vath. Only the Lymantria trade with the native Bajir without bias, and yet as with all races they are careful to give up at best only scraps of their secrets and fragments of their most powerful tools. Nevertheless, more than one internal struggle among the Bajir has been shaped by the meddling of curious moths. The outlander Bajir, on the other hand, have done much to throw the economic norm of the mountain into disarray. They have brought their own skilled workers, whose worth have been proven more and more as they continue to establish themselves and improve their infrastructure. The outlander Bajir have sought to establish a home in the deeper mountain, and have built a number of complex settlements. They have also proven the worth of their produced goods to the other races, and have already established links with some Kobold tribes. This arrangement promises raw materials and foodstuffs to the Bajir, who have struggled with food supplies until now, in exchange for the Kobold tribes becoming privy to the outlander secrets behind the refining of better metals and more accurate engineering. The Irra have been rather blindsided by this, as they have long relied on using their position as superior craftsmen as an important form of leverage over the Kobolds. Though the Irra appreciate the more ordered nature of these newcomers compared to their native kin, the economic competition has created points of tension they are unused to dealing with.
The Lymantria, for their part, provide advanced and intricate pieces of artificery, as well as textiles alleged to be produced from their own silks. Their craftsmanship is not regarded so much as masterful as it is wholly supernatural. An Irra smith can forge a masterwork longsword, just as a Kobold cave mucker can know exactly how to excavate a collapsed passageway. But only Lymantria can fashion a blade that whispers warnings to its wielder when an ambush is nigh, or assemble a floating orb that will wield blasts of light and heat to carve an entire room from solid rock before exploding upon completion. The moths trade these creations in exchange for rare objects and truly odd requests such as unrefinable ores, the index finger of every Bajir buried in a mass grave, stone tablets written in unknown languages, a live kobold wereweasel, cuttings of uncommon plants pickled in the salts of one specific hotspring, and other stranger things besides. Inevitably, the miraculous creations of the Lymatria will break in some manner or another, and any attempts to understand them will be met with failure. Most grumble that Lymantria deliberately choose to only share their most shoddy work with outsiders, no doubt as they are keen to make sure their creations are not hoarded and turned on them. Though in recent times, it seems that the Lymantria have struggled with the dying of magic as much as any of the races. They have come to make strange trades more often, and stories abound of some Lymantria even offering to repair their old relics in a form of payment.