Rangdum is a high-altitude desert.
There is no wood for kindling fires during the freezing months. There is no electricity, no phone access (landline or cellular), no work–not even arable land.

Only one job is available to the residents of Rangdum: caring for the livestock. These sheep, goats, cows, and yaks provide the milk, butter (the base of the local diet), and wool that constitute the residents’ only local source of sustenance. Butter and wool are also their only source of income, sold locally to provide families with the means to procure rice, barley, flour, and a few vegetables.
The local people do have small gardens for family use, but the altitude and long winters mean that can only be cultivated for 4 months out of the year. Even the livestock can only count on a few months of fresh pastures, and to find even that much they often have to wander far afield.