Climbing Mount Klodor
Most Lizardmen seeking to reach the summit of Mount Klodor either fly, use the Temple Stairs or the switchbacks known as Temple Trails.
Climbing the mountain the hard way is certainly possible. As mountains go in the Spine of Sotek, the Peak of Xholanka is neither the tallest nor the steepest. You don’t need to be a brilliant mountaineer to climb it, just a competent mountaineer.
If a would-be climber is traveling light and in decent physical shape, they don’t even need any special climbing gear. If a person (or lizard) is climbing with heavy armor and the full gear load of a typical professional soldier, they are going to want climbing gear.
Lizardmen sometimes opt to climb the mountain simply because climbing the mountain is difficult. Some climb the mountain for recreation. Some view the climbing of the mountain competitively. Skinks, Sauri, and Kroxigor often make a contest of it to see who can climb the most difficult stretches of mountain the fastest. Others climb the mountain as part of military training.
Some Skinks and Saurus choose to climb the mountain as a sign of religious devotion.
Normally those who are not direct attendants and guards of the Slann are not permitted access to the temples at the mountain summit in peace time and they are expected to perform their basic worship at the groundside temples in Klodorex proper.
If one of the First who does not hold high social rank decides he still wants to visit one of the temples to worship at, the guard are not likely to let him into a temple unless he physically climbed the mountain the hard way. In its own way, the difficult climb is seen as an act of devotion to the Old Ones in and of itself. It shows dedication and sincerity for the one making the pilgrimage from the simple fact that it’s hard.
The city’s leadership encourage recreational, competitive, and spiritual mountain climbing. Mountain climbing is good for building strength, agility and stamina. Beyond that, the military leaders are aware that they may have to one day fight Daemons, Skaven, or who knows what else on the mountain slopes someday. The more the Klodorex’s denizens know about the nuances of the mountain, the better they will able defend the mountain. Any Skink or Saurus assigned to guard duty on Mount Klodor will periodically be ordered by his superiors to scale the mountain as part of a training regimen, and they are ordered to never use the exact same route up the mountain twice.
Could an Enemy ever climb the Mountain?
It's possible, in theory. It’d be a legendary feat to sneak an entire enemy army up the slopes this way, but scaling the mountain the hard way is the best way to try to take the mountain summit through trickery. If the army climbing the mountain the hard way includes war machines, climbing the mountains is near impossible and is certainly not possible to do so stealthily. So far no enemy has even attempted to ascend Mount Klodor the direct way. Every enemy that actually made it to the base of Mount Klodor either flew up the mountain or they took the switchbacks colloquially known by the local First as as Temple Trails.
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