Geography of the Mountains

The Ringing Mountains are composed of four predominate terrains: the foothills, the canyons, the mountains, and the forest ridge. Although each is distinguished from the other in many ways, it is sometimes difficult to tell where one region ends and the other begins. At the base of the mountain range, steep hills rise to either side of the sand heaped at the mouth of the canyons, and before you know it you have entered a canyon that winds deep into the foothills. The foothills gradually grow steep er and rockier, imperceptibly making the transition into full-fledged mountains. Other times, the transitions are more obvious. A rocky slope suddenly ends in a cliff that plunges hundreds or thousands of feet down to a canyon’s sandy floor. At the summit of the mountain range, a forest of tall trees suddenly appears, their leaf-laden boughs swaying in the wind as if to greet a weary traveler. Whether the transition is gradual or sudden, a smart traveler will always pay attention to the terrain he is in. It will provide him with valuable clues as to what he might find lurking around the next corner, the kind of hazards that could come crashing down around his head, and what is likely to happen to him if he makes a mistake.

The Foothills

On both sides of the Ringing Mountains, the great heaps of sand washed out of the mouth of the canvons lie piled high against the foothills. The foothills generally resemble the rocky badlands of the Tablelands in both appearance and terrain. They are filled with narrow, twisting canyons interspersed with steep ridges of higher ground. There are a few differences, however. The ridges between the canyons tend to be higher, and their summits are often rounded and quite expansive instead of sharp and narrow. Also, as you travel toward the spine of the Ringing Mountains, the foothills grow more dramatic. The canyons are deeper, the cliffs more impressive, and the summits higher. Assuming you're going toward (or away from) the summit of the Ringing Mountains, the easiest way to travel through the foothills is along the bottom of a ravine. Here there is often a dry creek bed that makes a fairly nice walking surface. It is even possible to ride kanks safely in these areas, if you can get one there in the first place. Occasionally, you'll encounter a field of boulders or a steep wall of stone that must be crossed or climbed, but otherwise your travel should be fairly easy. When traveling along these seemingly dry watercourses, however, carefully watch the sky over the mountains ahead, and immediately climb to higher ground if you see any dark clouds gathering up there. Should a rainstorm occur over the area from which your gulch drains (not an uncommon occurrence in the mountains), a wall of water may come rushing down the gulch without warning. Those caught in such a flash flood will almost surely perish - either from drowning, or by being battered against rocks as they are carried downstream. It is also fairly easy to travel along the ridgetops toward the spine of the mountains, thus avoiding the possibility of being caught in a flash flood. This route entails its own problems, however. Not infrequently, you'll find yourself working your way along the edge of a precipice that plunges hundreds or thousands of feet down into an abyss. When this happens, forget about riding your kanks or any other beasts of burden - unless you~value your life as little as your cargo. The crumbling ground along the edge of these precipices can be shifting and un certain, and will certainly collapse if too much weight is concentrated in one place. You'll have to figure out for yourself what is too much weight; sometimes the ground will support a full grown mekillot, and other times it will collapse under the weight of an unencumbered halfling woman. Traveling parallel to the spine of the Ringing Mountains is all but impossible. You'll find yourself climbing and descending ridge after ridge - a slow and exhausting process, even if you don't fall off a precipice or find yourself facing an impassable cliff. It's usually much wiser to go to the base of the foothills, travel the desired distance northward or southward, and then travel up a canyon or ridge that leads more or less where you wish to go. Flora and Fauna The flora and fauna of the foothills is the same as that found in the rocky badlands of the Tablelands. See Rocky Badlands in the Tablelands section above for more information about this.

The Canyons

The foothills are broken every twenty to forty miles by a major canyon that leads deep into the heart of the mountains. These canyons are usually between one and five miles wide, and kanks can usually be ridden up to forty or fifty miles into them. The first five or ten miles of canyon floor is usually covered with heaps of deep sand that have been washed down out of the mountains over the years. Often, there is quite a bit of water trapped beneath these sands (having trickled or washed down from the mountains), so it is not uncommon to find copses of small trees, fields of grass or flowers, or even hedges of thorny bushes growing here. These sandy fans make good grazing land, so it is not uncommon to encounter nomadic herders camped at their bases. The herders are usually happy to let a party of travelers pass through their territory, but tend to frown on anyone stopping to graze their animals for more than a day or two. Further up, the canyon floor consists of stony barrens, and is littered liberally with boulders of all sizes. Here, the vegetation is a little heavier than in most stony barrens, for rocky cliffs rise high on both sides of the canyon, providing shelter from the sun during much of the day. Every ten or twenty miles, there is usually a pool of water hidden in some rock crevice, left behind by the last flash flood. Travelers should think twice before drinking from such a pool; often, it has been standing stagnant for years. The greatest hazard of this area comes from predatory creatures. The ample vegetation supports a large population of grazing creatures, which in turn draw a larger number of carnivores. In addition, the confined spaces of the canyons make it easy for hungry predators to work their territories, and there are plenty of crevices and fissures in which they can hide. Plan on losing at least a third of your pack animals, and perhaps one or two of your friends, as you pass through this area. Near the top of the canyon, you may reach a steep field of boulders. Leave your mounts behind at this point, for even kanks cannot hope to cross this treacherous terrain without breaking a leg within the first mile or so. In fact, as you cross this area, be careful yourself. If you misstep even once, your foot may lodge in a gap between two boulders, snapping your leg like a piece of dry wood as your momentum carries you forward. As you step or jump from one boulder to another in this area, it is difficult to tell when your weight may tip a stone's balance and send you tumbling into a mass of sharp-edged rocks. Even worse, the shifting boulder may dislodge others above, burying you beneath tons of jagged rock. It is because of the hazard presented by boulder fields that many merchants who travel in the mountains insist on taking an Earth Cleric along with them; such an individual can prove invaluable in stabilizing a particularly loose area of boulders, or in moving a great mass of stone if a rock slide should occur. Above the boulder field, near the head of the canyon, there is nearly always a large field of scrub. These fields range in size from just over twenty miles in diameter to nearly a hundred. They exist, in my estimation, for three reasons. First, the boulder field makes it difficult for grazing creatures to reach them, so the plants live longer. Second, they are close to the summit of the Ringing Mountains, which means they are close to a water supply. Third, the temperatures are a little cooler at these altitudes, so the grasses are not punished as severely by the heat of the day. Sometimes, a hermit or a small tribe of herders will make their home in such areas, having carried their beasts into the field as young animals. Such individuals (or tribes) are very suspicious of strangers and protective of their territory. It is far from a rare occurrence for a tribe of raiders to slay them, steal their herds, and make the mountain meadow their home base. Obviously, this means that anyone entering one of these areas stands a fair chance of running into a raiding tribe - which is never a pleasant experience. Occasionally, these high mountain meadows are not protected by a boulder field. Avoid such areas at all costs. They are often defended so jealously by hostile nomads or raiding tribes that to enter them is to insure an ambush. If this is not the case, then they are filled with nervous herbivores and ferocious carnivores, all of whom will defend their territory aggressively against any intrusion. The only exception to this that I know of is the scrub land surrounding the city of Tyr, where the city nobles consider it a great sport to hunt down any vicious animals that intrude upon their territory. This is an exciting sport, for the nobles fall victim to the animals almost as frequently as they are successful in their hunting. Flora and Fauna Near the bottom of a typical canyon, the flora and fauna corresponds to that of the sandy wastes (see Sand Dunes in the Tablelands section above). At the top of the canyon, there is usually a region of scrub land. This area is covered with a lush carpet of grass, and dotted with tall, puff-ball trees bearing small waxy leaves. The wood of the trees is extremely hard and is excellent for making weapons, but the tree is otherwise inedible. Watch out for single blades of a tough purple grass in this area; they tend to grow with other clumps of grass, and are so sharp that they can cut the tongue off careless beasts and slash the feet of unwary travelers to ribbons. In place of the cacti of the rocky barrens, the midranges of the canyons are covered by dagger plants. These strange plants have dozens of long, dagger-shaped leaves that radiate out as much as three feet from a central core at the top of the plant's root. Each leaf ends in a sharp needle. The needle is tipped with a mild poison, and paralyzes any limb it pokes will be paralyzed for up to ten days. Some varieties of these plants have leaf edges as sharp as an obsidian blade. Most kinds of animals can be found in the canyons, especially those of the predatory variety. Fortunately, since animals in the canyons are very territorial, once you have dealt with the primary predators, chances are you will not be attacked again. Mountain gith can be a real hazard in these canyons.

The Mountains

If your intention is to cross the Ringing Mountains, or even to reach their summit, sooner or later you'll have climb the mountains themselves. Those who have been traveling in a gulch or a canyon will have no doubt when this moment has arrived. They will find themselves standing at the base of a sheer wall rising thousands of feet into the sky. There will be no easy way to continue forward. If they have somehow managed to bring pack ani- mals this far, the gravel-covered slope, the huge boulders looming overhead, and the intermittent cliffs will leave no doubt that the only way to continue is climbing on their own feet. The realization will come slower to those who have been traveling along the ridgetops. They will notice that the slopes are growing steeper, the precipices deeper, cliffs more frequent. Their pack animals, if they still have any, will grow nervous and afraid. Even the docile kanks will refuse to move, and, if they are somehow forced to continue forward, the poor beasts will inevitably lose their footing on the sheer slopes and fall to their deaths - strewing all that they were carrying as they tumble thousands of feet down the mountainside. In either case, as you shoulder your burdens and start to climb foot-by-foot up the steep slopes, this is where you will feel the worst effects of the mysterious mountain-sickness. Breathing will become difficult, your head will pound with pain, you will feel sick to your stomach, and you will feel tired and listless. In serious cases, you may even lose all desire to continue your journey and turn back for no reason you can name, or even sit down and wait for the freezing embrace of the night, when the temperatures will plunge far below zero. Assuming you have the necessary willpower to continue onward, however, the mountain peaks will probably be covered with loose gravel and stones, for little grows on the windswept, sun-scorched terrain. For every three steps you take upward, you will slip backward one. At any moment, the entire slope might coming sliding down on top of you, burying your entire party under tons of dirt and rock. If the mountainside is not covered in gravel, chances are that you're Climbing a cliff of solid stone. You must be sure of every step, always securing every move with a good handhold, for one slip will send you plummeting thousands of feet. Even if you friends bother to descend the mountain and are lucky enough to locate your remains, all they will find is a pummeled mass of flesh. The one good thing about the mountains is that predators will not be as great a concern as they are in the canyons. Few land animals have any desire or reason to journey into the mountains, so the only hazard will come from large flying creatures that may be looking for an easy meal. Usually, the purpose of their attacks is not so much to kill you directly as to cause you to lose your footing and plunge to your death. In fact, they seem to prefer meat that has been tenderized in this fashion. I once saw a wyvern ignore several pounds of freshly killed erdlu in order to knock a man off the mountainside, then fly down and feast on the pulverized body. Flora and Fauna Vegetation is not common on the rocky slopes of the high mountains, but here and there, the gnarled trunk of a six-foot ranike tree snakes out of a crack in the cliffs. While there is nothing edible about this tree, when burned, its sap gives off an aromatic fragrance that is repugnant to insects, including the rugged thri-kreen. The only animals you are likely to encounter on these slopes are flying reptiles and birds of prey, all of which take advantage of the security offered by the rocky heights to make their nests. Needless to say, they do not appreciate having their territory violated.