World Note:  The History of the Isles - The Hammerfell Mountains

Justicar Keep lies along 'Ambassador Way'; a long stretch of road which connects the Darian city-states.  The keep serves as the front line between the Merchant Kings and the Covalian Nobility.  The keep also rests along the foot hills of the Hammerfell mountains.  Taking its name from its past inhabitants, the Hammerfell dwarves.  The ridge of mountains itself has several names, depending upon which ridge or peak you are referring to and in which language.  There are several important landmarks, such as 'The Tears of Calus', 'Bear's Mount', and 'Crestar's Peak'.  

The majority of the mountain is bordered to the east by numerous rivers and wetlands, leading out to a deep bay which separate capable of handling ocean faring vessels.  It is possible to sail up to Justicar Keep's outer villages, allowing for the order of knights to keep their own naval fleet of 'Lawbringers'.  Their flat bottoms allowing for sailing up the final miles of the bay.  These wetlands host all manner of game animal, making it popular hunting grounds for tribesmen, Deltans, Darians, and Covalian trappers.  It also serves as food to more primitive races.  Ogres and Hynn frequent the wetlands, trapping boar and Loric Cranes - great birds with 12' wingspans and brilliant amber and white plumage.  Hobok packs scout the ridges at night, searching for Quarlin Wasps.  Nearly as big as your thumb, the venom makes for a potent weapon.  Being active during the day, the Hobok can steal into the stone colored hives at night and make off with the grubs.  The little critters bursting with paralytic poisons for use on their arrows. 

To the west of the mountains lie gentle slopping grasslands and thin forests.  It is here that the Hammerfell once made their homes.  Under Bear's Mount, nestled in a great valley, the dwarves would build their homes along the rocky foothills.  Unlike the Forgen, the Hammerfell lived under the open sky.  They tilled farms and raised goats and sheep along the terraced hillside.  It was only the great city itself that was built into the mountain side.  Like a keep overlooking its county, Hammerfell juts from the mountain side looking like a castle which is being slowly eaten by a stone bear... giving Bear's Mount its name.  Today, all that is left of the dwarven villages are the terraced hillsides and the stone foundations of burned buildings.  The charcoaled remnants long since eroded away.  The mountainside castle still overlooks the empty valley, but its rumored that the Gistasch have taken steps to ensure that no dwarf will ever reside within its walls again.

Separate from the devastated valley, the rest of the land is pristine.  The goats and sheep have done just fine without shepherds, roaming the foothills in wild herds and serving as food for the ogres, hobok, hynn, and hynid; small tribes along the coast which have found little resistance to their presence.  The occasional giant can be seen in the peaks, especially as you move south.  This is where the 'Tears of Calus' still weep. 

The last attempted Darian settlement was along the southern coast of the Hammerfell mountains.  As Justicar Keep serves as the bookend of the north, the ruins of Calus lie at its south.  200 settlers made the trek from Traton to the southern coast.  They established a successful village and began stretching north to the foothills and along the ridge.  Over a generation or two, the city swelled to nearly 1,000 inhabitants.  A copper mine was built and the city had trade to give merchant ships reason to come.  As the first shipment of copper left the city, the ports shook.  The miners came flooding out of the copper shafts like bees from a hive.  This underground evacuation was followed by the tears.  The mountainside cracked and magma poured from the mountainside.  With slow and inevitable certainty, the mountain swallowed first the mine, then the villages, and finally the port.  The buildings burned and the people fled or be turned to ash.  The mountain wept for 3 years straight before slowing to the predictable cycle we see today.  The city of Calus had been encased in porous stone and ash.  Nothing remained, though Dranite historians often report seeing spirits near the foothills where the mines once stood.  It's thought that many did not escape in time, forced to die slowly from the heat and ash as they baked within a copper oven.  For the adventuresome, its possible to find 'Pyrodium' nuggets along the foothills of the ruins.  The rare metal is a treasure to a good smith, allowing for those skilled with a hammer to forge weapons infused with raw fire.

Of all the dangers of the Hammerfell mountains, it is important to speak of the Wyvern separately.  This top predator is mythic in both tale and tail, but like any animal, it can be lived with and beside.  The Hammerfell shepherds learned to hide their sheep during the dawn and dusk, knowing that these were the common hunting times for the winged beast.  The villages would burn great open fires throughout the early evening, knowing that the smoke and flames would discourage them.  This also lead to many great superstitions amongst the dwarves which have passed on to the Darians of Covel and Justicar Keep.  'Never dismount your horse on the open rode, for the wyvern will snatch your saddle away'.  'Before hunting cranes, be sure you've found feathers.  It may be a wyvern you're shooting at'.  Many more of life's little annoyances are blamed on wyverns, regardless of how improbable.  It's no wonder though that one of the most prized possessions of a Hammerfell warrior is a wyvern stinger drinking cup.  If you are going to have your poison, what better way to hold it?