Nawadzi Valley

Yoogobü nawadziipü, “the valley that was hidden,” lies tucked into the Eastern Sierras of California, somewhere west of Big Pine in Inyo County. In common Folk usage the name has shortened to Nawadzi Valley (waadzi is Owens Valley Paiute for “to hide”). It is inaccessible by vehicle and invisible to aerial survey, and it holds the Nawadzi School for Forgotten Folk at its center.

Finding the Valley

There is no road. Hikers on the trail to Big Pine Pass will pass, at a very specific point, a large boulder they have no reason to remember. To those who know to look, walking through the boulder begins a side-trail that continues for several more miles before opening out into Nawadzi Valley itself.

The boulder-gate recognizes active enrollment tokens and the signet pieces carried by sanctioned visitors. To anyone else, it is simply rock.

The Anti-Teleportation Ward

Teleportation is forbidden throughout Nawadzi Valley and actively prevented by the valley’s oldest and most carefully maintained ward. The ward does not distinguish between friendly and hostile intent: no one, not even senior faculty, can blink in or out. A place that cannot be reached in an instant cannot be raided in one either.

The Underpath

The Underpath is a goblin-controlled "abandoned" mine shaft that threads beneath the eastern ridge of Nawadzi Valley. The Eastern Sierras are studded with genuinely abandoned silver and tungsten mines from the 19th and 20th centuries, and the goblin clans use a handful of them as surface cover for their own, still-active workings. The Underpath is one such operation: officially a dead shaft collapsed in 1889, actually a maintained tunnel with a small, courteous, and well-armed toll house at either end.

↗ Underpath

The Stewards

The valley’s long-term caretakers are Owens Valley Paiute families whose relationship with the school predates its formal founding. Their current role as Stewards of Nawadzi is detailed on that page. It is enough to say here that the Stewards know every contour of the valley, every ward-anchor, and every goblin in the Underpath by name, and that neither the school nor the goblins conduct significant business in the valley without their knowledge.

Winter

Nawadzi Valley sits at sub-alpine elevation and receives full Sierra winter. The peaks around the valley accumulate 20 to 30 feet of snowpack in a normal year. The valley floor around the school gets less, thanks to a dampening ward, but is still decidedly winter country. The Big Pine Pass trail and the boulder-gate are buried from roughly late November through April or May.

During these months, the Underpath is the only ground route in or out of the valley.