Rhyqirja Mountains
At more reasonable elevations, away from feathery scholars, away from the pit and the world-eating worms, unassuming southlanders built cities in the shadows of ruins they dared not enter. Forgotten, ancient peoples had built great gates into the mountains, labyrinths that ran deep into their roots. Wind and snow howled out of the gates at all times of year, ignoring seasons, ignoring day and night, the very earth crying out without end. “It’s a song,” the tall woman told her children. “The mountains aren’t a very good singer, but let’s not be rude about it. Everyone gets to sing if they want to, right?”The Rhyqirja Mountains have played host to much of Sof Sator's history, containing the ruins of long-fallen Jeimr. The anthral nation of Pharaul, leader of the Rhyqir Valley Alliance, is built onto the mountain's slope, and its peak is home to the mysterious tercaelo.-Manique: Tunnels and Voices
Geography
The Rhyqirja mountains in southern Saf Sator are a sharp rise to incredible coastal cliffs. There are no passes through these mountains, no accessible resources, and nothing on the other side. For most of the peoples of Saf Sator, there is no reason to go here, and except for the anthrals of Pharaul few possess any knowledge or curiosity about these mountains. Ruins of ancient precursors, called aquil by the Pharaul or vedrfol by the tercaelo, hint that a coherent civilization once stretched between the lowlands, foothills, and peaks, but no such civilization exists today. For this reason, the tercaelo have lived largely undisturbed on the Rhyqirja peaks for a thousand years.
Hodm Glacier
With its highest peaks at an elevation of nine kilometers and most tercaleo living around five or six kilometers of elevation, the Rhyqirja mountains offer little plantlife for the tercaelo to make use of, besides extensive low-growing lichen with very little nutritional value. The peaks are covered in snow year round, with permafrost not uncommon at greater heights. The center of tercaelo population is the Hodm Glacier, trapped in a valley between the tallest peak, Ydras, and its lesser sibling, Meidr. Here a lake is formed by glacial runoff, as deep as fifty meters in the summer, its run-off forming a fast-flowing river that runs swiftly down into the lowlands of Pharaul. In winter, the runoff ceases, the river dries up, the lake decreases to a depth of fifteen meters and freezes over. There is a small population of fish that survives the winter in this lake and reproduces in spring, and is considered a delicacy by the tercaelo. The fish is deep-dwelling and difficult to catch, made all the more difficult by the migratory retrsok. These amphibious mammals are carnivorous pack hunters with lethally venomous bites, who spend their spring in and around the lake and are dangerous to any tercaelo attempting to fish it during this time. Attempts by the tercaelo to dissuade the retrsok or control their population have been unsuccessful. For this reason, the tercaelo largely avoid the lake during its most plentiful season, getting their water from its runoff and from ice melt, and hunting the less lethal animals who gather along the river.The peaks of Ydras and Meidr
The highest points in all of Sof Sator, Ydras and its lesser sibling Meidr have not been explored by any save the most adventurous tercaelo in recent centuries. Permanently frost-capped and often invisible above layers of thick cloudcover, these peaks shine forever in sunlight, moonlight, and starlight. The widest-spoken legends of these peaks are about lakes trapped at the very top of the world; beneath hundred-meter layers of ice are said to be isolated bodies of half-frozen water within which dwell a certain kind of fish with great magical potential. Stories speak of different legendary beings which could reach these fish and use them to fuel spells of all kinds. But if any such fish exist, nothing can reach them now.Pharaul
A city of marble and white wood built at an altitude of 3.8 kilometers on the slope of Meidr, Pharaul is both a discreet neation and the seat of power for the Rhyqir Valley Alliance. It rests on a plateau beneath a stony outcropping and is flanked on both sides, above and below, by immense gates that lead into the ruins of the ancient kingdom of the vedrfol, Jeimr. These gates are currently impenetrable, however, as an eternal blizzard storms out of the upper ruins and its the sucked into the lower ruins. Diverted by the overhead outcropping that protects the city, this creates an endless avalanche that surrounds the city on all sides; as some cities are built on islands surrounded by water, so Pharaul is built on one surrounded by flowing snow and ice. This, combined with a formidable array of cannons that can fire down the slope of the mountain, gives Pharaul a reputation as the most defensible city in Sof Sator. It's a reputation that has served Pharaul well in the The Thousand Year War against its rivals in Nor Sator.Localized Phenomena
The Rhyqirja Mountains are honeycombed with the ruins of Jeimr, the long-forgotten kingdom of the vedrfol. Immense gates give access to the frozen labyrinth of these extinct giants, though the magics that once preserved their societies have begun to break down and act strangely. Many of these gates emit endless storms of snow and ice, while others act in the opposite capacity and draw in air with a wind strong enough to ensnare passersby and suck them into the mountain. Inside the labyrinth are countless ancient relics and lost treasures, as well as magics long forgotten, and no shortage of unpredictable dangers to cut short the life of an explorer or treasure-seeker who braves the depths. Few have entered who have not perished within, and most that have returned have done so empty-handed and traumatized. Their stories are of endless pits in the dark, invisible magics that seek to assault the body and mind, and great golems that defend the depths against any trespassers.
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