The Cracked Tooth

The Cracked Tooth is the largest of the five great peaks of Talevir, situated at the north end of The Spine mountain range.
The great cracked mountain reaches up above the rest of the Spine Mountains, casting its shadow across the hills to the north of Deer Valley in the mornings and bringing an early twilight to the north of Ranger's Reach. Its prominence aside, the mountain is easily identified by the deep cleft and fissure bifurcating its peak and running hundreds of feet down its center, running east to west.
The summit is 17,000 feet above sea level, with the next highest point in its vicinity only reaching 10,000 feet. The next highest peak in The Spine is the Water Horn, at 14,800 feet.
While not a volcano, the central fissure does appear to extend deep below the roots of the mountain - possibly much deeper than the sea floor of the seas surrounding Talevir. Stories tell of a great cataclysm that rent the mountain, sending its former summit into the hollow to the east.
The largely dwarven city of Deep Hollow is the one permanent settlement on the base of the mountain. The fortified, walled city sits at the gate to a great cavern leading under The Cracked Tooth to several clans' holdings deep underground. Above ground, the city acts as trading hub for the people below as well as a safe haven for mountain herders to house their goats and other livestock overnight to protect from predators.
The surrounding subsidiary mountains surrounding The Cracked Tooth historically was home to many potential dangers. Several orc tribes have grown and shrunk from the north and east to sometimes ringing the mountain. Wyverns inhabited many of the smaller peaks and some of the foothills to the west and east. Ogres, trolls, and hill giants are well established in the mountains to the north. Aarakocra tribes can sometimes be sighted around the slopes of The Cracked Tooth and to the south, as can the occasional Roc.
Stone and metals mined from the mountain's depths can have strange properties. Some individuals have had their minds irrevocably altered and their bodies infused with powerful magical energies by mere contact with some of these materials.
Fortresses stand on lower mountain peaks to the west and east of The Cracked Tooth, acting as garrison points and watch towers to guard against the emergence of subterranean threats that have poured from rifts in the mountain in the past. Remnants of multitudes of wizard towers ring the mountain, both due to the magical potential of materials excavated from within the mountain as well as relics of old conflicts that required a network of powerful mages to contain the forces and entities said to have come out of the Deep below.
Runoff from the glacier on the east slope cascades down to eventually give rise to the Eastpointe Antler River, which runs through a canyon pass to the south of the mountain. Melt water from the glaciers between the north slope and northern subsidiary peaks give rise to both the Northpointe Antler River and the Gap River flowing to the east and south sides of Northponte Watch peak.

by Thomas Smith

Type

Mountain / Hill