Perils of the Ashenwood OOC

[Palanan]

Herewith a brief overview of the Ülgurül Hills and the lands to their east:

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The Ülgurül Hills are just shy of low mountains—a long range of broken-toothed peaks and high stony passes, with steep flanks of rubble and scree descending into dense pine forests on their lower slopes. The Hills are not one long ridge, but several ragged ridges running parallel from north to south, with steep narrow valleys between them, holding chill-misted forests draped across soils too stony and poor to be worth the effort of clearing.

On the easternmost ridge of the Hills, a broader forest spreads into a wide sloping ribbon down to the broad eastern plains beyond. This forest is the Wealdmarch, the western border of the dwarven lands, beyond which the rule of the dwarf-lords does not fully extend.

From the Wealdmarch the land opens into immense vistas of level plains and rolling hills, threaded by small meandering rivers and reaching for hundreds of miles into the east. This great expanse of country is the Rèidhean Mòra, known in the Western tongue simply as the Ride. Across this terrain, horse-clans and herdsfolk migrate with the seasons, while scattered towns and walled burghs subsist on crops and trade.

All those in the Rèidhean Mòra are taxed and governed by the dwarf-lords of the north, who of old have made their home in the Cynehelmbeorg—the great arc of the Kingshelm Mountains, curving in high ramparts across a hundred miles. Outside the Cynehelmbeorg extend low weathered hills, bent in the same fashion but now much worn, sloping south into the plains of the Ride. While many in the Ride complain of the taxes, the dwarf-lords consider it just recompense for their labors, defending the Ride against foes in further mountains to the north of the broad curve of the Kingshelm.

From the south and east flanks of the Kingshelm race the streams which join to become the Abhainn Mhòr, the great river running south along the far eastern extent of the Ride. Beyond the eastern banks of the Abhainn Mhòr rise the Beanntan Àrda, the immense eastern mountains marking the edge of the civilized world, whose ice-draped heights are the forbidding gateway to the barbarian lands beyond.

The Abhainn Mhòr runs south for hundreds of miles alongside the Beanntan Àrda, drawing from countless mountain streams, before bending southwest and flowing into the Caol Mhuir, the great inland sea, beyond which lie strange lands which few have seen. Of old much dwarven trade traveled south on the Abhainn Mhòr; but the river is no longer safe so near to the Beanntan Àrda, and trade must find other routes—not many of which are safe themselves.

Those traveling west have but few choices. To the south of the Ülgurül Hills extend the Mòinteachan Leathannan, the great moorlands into which none willingly venture, and whose mists are troubled by the ghosts of lost Mōrfæsten.

The northernmost ridges of the Ülgurül Hills widen into the Geur Cùlagan, a maze of broken heights and treacherous gullies in which a few wild folk live, ever at risk from things which have crept out of the northern mountains. Between the jumbled outer edge of the Geur Cùlagan and the western curve of the Kingshelm is an inhospitable region of cold downs and stony plains, named Wanspēdiglond by the dwarves; against its wildness stand the fortified dwarven settlements of Byrneceastre and Gārceastre.

Thus it is that knights, pilgrims, traders and other folk most commonly take roads leading through the heart of the Ülgurül Hills when they travel to the Baronies and realms further west. The Ülgur-dwarves are not of the same kindred as the dwarf-lords of Kingshelm, and hold themselves free of the Helm-tax; but neither do they refuse passage through their vales, and they can be welcoming to travelers who respect their holds and their ways.

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See also Further Notes on Geography & Populations.

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