Dearworth Valley Overview

Running roughly from Briar Lake to Tenpin, the Dearworth Valley follows the Little Shally River along a majestic broad curve.
While parts south and east abound with volcanic plains and mesas, most of the topology of Dearworth is rolling hills and large broken rock outcroppings, similar to the Ozark mountains. There are also scrub canyons, high mountains, and some swampland in Sourwood.
Though geographically a part of the Highlands, which have rarely been troubled by fog, much of Dearworth has been inundated for the last four hundred years. The high points, Sharing and Tenpin, have remained in the clear, but many of the Valley’s low-lying cities lay dead or dying between 1200 and 1500.
Most evergreen species in Skye have some tolerance for deep fog. This is a natural result of this ancient weather phenomenon. They can spend more than a hundred years in hibernation, waking up when the thinnest rays of sunlight break through the gray.
The oldest fog in Dearworth is around Green Lake, just north of Tenpin. Fannuck and Stone Cais have been dark for more than four hundred years, and the Sourwood is a low-lying swampy forest of mostly dead trees.
Moving up the Little Shally, most of the deep-valley towns have been dark for 200-300 years. Rising up into the hills, many hamlets have stayed in the clear for the duration. Summer heat rises with the fog, so elder farming communities like Weter, Dowery, Sumat, and Loughre are changing to cold-weather crops as the growing season slowly moves downhill.
The valley went through a period of rapid clearing and rejuvenation starting roughly in 1540, remaining fertile and mostly clear for the next 40 years. It is during this period that After the Fog is set.