The Mountains Come to Life in The World of Cartyrion | World Anvil

The Mountains Come to Life

For several centuries, life brought forth by the gods of the Elves and Orcs flourished across the sunlit land of Cartyrion. But apart from a few shallow-burrowing creatures, and perhaps a few of the earliest Gremlins, the places deep beneath the surface of the world did not know the spark of life. This changed with the arrival of the Duagnar, the gods who would Awaken the Dwarves.

Food for the Children

After bringing forth the first Dwarves deep beneath the mountain of the First Delve, the gods realized their new children would require sustenance. Trudanna provided this by creating a variety of fungus foods. A variety of mushrooms appeared in the side caverns, many quite large and fast growing to provide bountiful harvests, others much smaller, but much tastier. The Dwarves, and later the Gnomes and Goblins that came to live in subterranean realms, learned to cultivate these gifts, which drew their necessary nutrients from the rocks themselves.

When the Dwarves began to venture forth from the First Delve into the surface world, they discovered that their mushrooms could thrive where many green plants could not, though they preferred sheltered, damp, shadowy places where they did not feel the direct sun.

The Dwarves also learned how, with magical aid, to modify some of their foodstock to serve other purposes. Shriekshrooms were bred to emit piercing alarm sounds, and were planted near places the Dwarves wished to defend from enemies and thieves. Sleepshrooms were also grown as more serious defenses to be planted in places. The Doomshrooms, the most potent and dangerous of their agricultural effots, were used to defend against those who would invade their Delves - most notably the Giantkin.
Other creatures were also created and given to the industrious Dwarves and Gnomes to aid in their endeavors. Tunnelworms could bore through solid rock faster than any pickaxe-wielding Dwarf, and they could be even be trained to sniff out specific ore veins.

Gelatinous masses the Dwarves simply called Green Slime could break down organic refuse, leaving little residue and no odor; these were used in trash pits to keep the Delves neat and orderly. Others, called Grey Oozes were used in the forges. These slimes devoured metal. Besides being useful for dealing with slags and waste scraps, a skilled crafter could use the Oozes to help shape finished products.

But perhaps the most remarkable creations of the Duagnar were the Shroomfolk - a sentient but simple race that seemed to be made of the same stuff as the mushrooms they tended. Goranin created these beings to do the work of tending the fungal crops in the caverns of the Delves, thus freeing his Dwarves for more industrious work of mining and forging metal.

The Arrival of the Jotunar

The Duagnar were not the only race of Astralar to arrive at Cartyrion and look towards its mountains to be homes for created peoples. It was not long before the The Jotunar appeared, and begin seeding the high places of the world with their creations.

In the foothills and along the lower slopes of the great mountain ranges, Ogres and Hill Giants appeared. Higher up the slopes, the Mountain Giants and Stone Giants established homesteads in the natural caves. Sometimes, these caves would lead to subterranean works of the Dwarves, and when they did, clashes were the outcome.

Atop the highest peaks, the Jotunar's placed the tallest, most powerful, most intelligent, and most magically aware of their children. But they did not expect that, with great intelligence came free will, and free will backed with magical might inevitably led to some of their kind willing to go to extremes in pursuit of power. Two factions, Frost Giants and Cloud Giants, would come to wage war on each other throughout the ages.

Mistakes Were Made

As the centuries passed, more of the Folk were Awakened, and interactions among them became more common. While some of these encounters - especially the earliest ones - were unpleasant, in time they led to exchanges of information. Once relationships with the Taxlatl People were established, a group of Gnomes living in the First Delve took an interest in the fascinating creature breeding principles of the lizardfolk. They began to experiment - looking not only for new sources of food or useful domestics, but also for creatures that could defend against some of the darker things that also began appearing in the dark passages over the years.

Unfortunately, many of these experiments had unintended outcomes when the creatures inevitably escaped into the wild and began multiplying freely. Instead of creating defenses, they inadverntently created new adversaries that they, their Dwarven cousins, and anyone or anything else venturing in the dark depths would need to deal with. Notable among these are the Stonespear, the Tunnel Lurker and its larger relative, the Cavern Lurker. But perhaps the most fearsome of all were the Giant Tunnelworms, some of which reached enormous proportions and could devastate entire subterranean outposts in a single encounter.

Credits

Mushroom cave banner Image by Sabrina Young from Pixabay

All sidepanel images of playable Folk parentages by RPGDinosaurBob using HeroForge


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