by Melantha
Rel Morde is cloaked in mountains – indeed, for most of us the very name invokes the vision of towering, tree-barren peaks. We’ve heard, too, the name ‘The Jagged Rels’, for a large part of the isle is made up of these – impossibly sheer spikes of stone whose foundations are composed of twisting masses of ravines and caverns. There is, perhaps, no more inaccessible place in Carador.
One of these peaks, in the Jagged Rels, has birthed more tales than any other. Not the largest of the mountains, it does possess a strange, half-skewed shape, and consists of numerous spiky outcroppings. Not a league from the shore, it has inspired more adventurers than can be told, and it is an established fact that none have yet returned from their attempts at discovering its mysteries.
What is it that so draws these bold explorers?
When Old World explorers first found Rel Morde, they noted immediately in their journals that one of the mountains upon the southern shore stood out.
‘Twas a strange apparition, nestled between two larger peaks, and though there were clouds higher in the sky, this peak seemed to draw them down, so that it was shrouded in mist. Upon closer inspection with our scopes, we saw that the mist seemed to be emanating from holes all along the surface of the stone.
The mountain thus gained its name. Though the covering mist has been well-documented, it is not the only characterizing feature of the strange mountain, for Shroud has many odd manifestations, none of which have been satisfactorily explained.
Lights are a common sight upon its surface, or sometimes glowing above the peak. Often they are pinpoints of various colors which seem to dance over the rocky faces, but at other times they are seen as shifting curtains of light, glowing blue or green or red. And oddest of all, perhaps, is the sound. It is heard only when the wind is such that it blows from the vicinity of the mountain, and people on ships near the shore will then hear a low, hollow sound, deep and echoing.
Even from the sea, with the use of a scope, it can be seen that Shroud is riddled with caves and strange formations, and some have suggested that it is the wind playing through these structures which creates the sound. But explanations for the lights and mists have engendered theories ranging from the presence of dragons to the idea that the mountain is a stronghold for the Fae. Whatever the case, numerous expeditions have gone in search of the mountain, but those who were heard from again were not able to find it among the twisting valleys and tangled ravines of the Jagged Rels.
The Native Rel Morde people had a story which very well might refer to the mountain Shroud. They told of an inaccessible mountain buried in the heart of the Jagged Rels, where strange lights played at night, and where old gods, long forgotten, had hidden away the souls of their favored peoples. They called the mountain Jirtyaan, and their oldest tales told of people from strange lands who came and stayed with them for a time, taking their dead away to Jirtyaan for burial. The ceremonies were elaborate, and the dead were said to appear just as they had in life, without decay.
Though the Rel Morde Natives left us no writing, we have records of a few of their stories. One verse translates as such –
Another from another land,
Strange with silver hair,
They brought their dead upon a sheaf,
to Jirtyaan for to bear,
Adorned in gold and gemstone break,
This ancient hero lay,
Remembered by the Gods, they said,
Till he awakens on far day.
Whatever it is that Shroud hides, it will surely continue to lure adventurers into the treacherous Jagged Rels, a place of uncommon beasts and uncharted expanses.