Cheska Ovar. The Heart Endures.
Office of the High Warden
Luxemburry / History / Modern Luxemburry
The modern Realm begins with a mine and ends, so far, with a ski school. Between them come the races, the lift, the anthem, the first woman High Warden, and a Realm that chose to stay small.
Abselet II opened the first mine at Mount Cinder in the 1840s for Obsidianite, the black glassy stone found only there. It made the Realm modestly rich and paid for the roads, the school in every town, and the Archives. The mine closed in 1931; the stone is still worked by the craftsmen of Purgnar from the old spoil.
The first ski races at Purgnar were held under Abselet III, on the slope that is now the lower half of Cinder Peak. They were open to every Luxian from the first year, and the anthem, Skada Ovar, was written for them. The Luxian Descent, the torchlit night race of the last weekend in February, dates from the same decade.
Abselet IV built the first lift on Mount Cinder, a single chair, and the four resorts grew from it. He also gave the Sentinels their red and gold winter suit, on the argument that a guard should be visible on snow.
Esther, Abselet V, was the first woman to hold the office, under the rule of eldest child set by Zevi the Great. Her reign of thirty two years is the longest since the founder. The silver Luxfranc of 1994 bears her portrait.
Lorenz, Zevi IV, held the office from 2011 to 2020 and is remembered for the gold coin of 2014 and for a son who won two golds at the Winter Alpine Championships in 2018. That son, Prince Umberto Labio, became Zevi Abselet II on March 21, 2020, and founded Luxians on Snow the following year.
Luxemburry has 38,400 people, about what it had in 1900. It has kept its passes open, its coin its own, and its Council out of every war of the last three centuries by the simple method of closing the passes. It is, by choice, a small country that skis.
Thirty eight thousand people, four resorts, one coin, and passes that have been closed to every war since 1723.
