| Overhead, large and heavily armed skyships armed with magically enhanced cannon float through the grey mists, navigating by the skill of their pilots who routinely sail high to get bearings in the mist. Cloud Riders often face many terrors, such as hungry fliers or pirates who lie hidden in the cloudbanks for fat prizes to pass.
The ships bring necessary trade between large settlements which often have large floating sky-docks for the ships. The ships sail using the steady currents called the 'Trade-Winds' to the different continents, and use smaller air-flows for smaller trade areas.
Due to the magical nature of the ash clouds, earth that has been thrown into the sky due to a past cataclysm maintains its position, giving rise to many small villages, hermits, ancient towers, bandit dens or pirate havens to which people who wish to escape the laws of the 'Landbound'. Some areas are quite large, and the ease of which small air-boats can be made means travel between nearby cloud-villages is fairly easy.
The local villages often net the mainly harmless creatures that float in schools through the clouds, or hunt some of the larger creatures.
Smaller groups of adventurers can often be Cloud Riders, who seek to find ancient artifacts or lucrative trade areas between the land bound or the different settlements in the skies above. Such adventurers are often called 'Ashies' due to their grey coloring for too many hours spent fruitlessly sifting through the ash clouds for ancient treasures. Many small groups form for protection of the local villages and criminal groups flourish in the environment.
'Stormies' are also known as 'Storm Riders', a powerful group of mages who focus on cloud and weather manipulation who wield great influence in the clouds for their own ends. | 
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