Shudder Mountains

The land of the Shudder Mountains region, known to the superstitious and religious as the Black Mountains, has as much character as the individuals who reside within in. The Shudders have been the site of some of the first known civilizations in ancient history. The Mountains themselves run northeast to southwest along the northern border of Celdor, but the hilly region surrounding the glorious mounts is also considered to be part of that region known as the Shudder Mountains. To the north lies Otansphar and the frozen lands of Norcia. Eastward of the Mountains are the Kulnar Highlands. And to the west and to the south, the noble Kingdom of Celdor. From rolling hills, to pine-thick hollows, to stark peaks silhouetted against the sky, travel through the area brings a wayfarer face-to-face with an array of vistas both solemn and beautiful.

Reign of the Serpent-Men
The Shudder Mountains are one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world. They were formed hundreds of millions of years ago when the earth buckled as tectonic plates collided. Geological forces pushed the earth up from a shallow seabed, creating towering, jagged peaks of naked stone. The rising land drained the sea away, leaving the newly-birthed mountain range in its place. The early Shudder Mountains once soared up to 15,000 feet in height, a chain of stony giants running roughly northeast to southwest for several hundred miles. The world was warmer in those prehistoric days and the Shudder Mountains were nearly tropic in climate. The hot, humid mountain valleys were an ideal environment for cold-blooded species. Thus, it was the serpent-men who first slithered into the mountains, building their cities in the steep-walled valleys and gathering to conduct bizarre rituals in the caverns that honeycombed the earth below. The serpent-men’s grip over the mountain chain was absolute, and they waged decimating warfare against all who invaded their territory. Primitive dwarven tribes lusting after the rich mineral resources of the mountains were massacred by the serpentine overlords, and elven nomads drawn to the beautiful forests that filled the valleys could not overcome the serpent-men wizards that opposed them. As a result of the serpent-men’s dominance of the mountains, the long-lived demi-human races never established a foothold in the Shudders, leaving no legacy of dwarven holdfasts or elven glades. It would be humanity’s task to eventually break the serpent-men’s grasp and lay claim to the rugged land for themselves.

As undisputed masters of the mountains for eons, the serpent-men feared no other creature, but it would be the environment that ultimately brought about their downfall. The world began to grow cooler, heralding the first of several ice ages that arose in the ancient epochs. As glaciers pushed down from the north, many species fled the encroaching ice and sought sanctuary in the mountains. Herds of mammoths climbed into the valleys, followed by the Neolithic human tribes that hunted them. The serpent-men fought to defend their lands from these interlopers, but the cooling temperatures hindered the reptilian race, turning them sluggish and muddling their minds. Deprived of their strength and cunning, the serpent-men, once the apex of civilization in the mountains, found themselves falling beneath the stone spears of primitive humanity.

Rise of Humanity
The serpents withdrew from the valleys, abandoning their settlements to seek the protection of the mountain caves, leaving the Neolithic tribes as the Shudders’ new dominant species. For generations, the serpent-men continued to try and drive out the victorious human tribes, launching guerrilla strikes against mankind, but ultimately the snakes degenerated in their subterranean holds and abandoned the surface world to Man. The final fate of the serpent-men survivors is unknown, but it is said that the sound of strange drums still resound in the deepest caverns, hinting that the devolved ancestors of the snake-folk endure in the earth. And although the wondrously sinuous cities the serpent-men built in the mountains are long gone, faint traces of their mastery remain. Odd stones and the rare relic persist, awaiting discovery in forgotten corners of the Shudder Mountains.

The primitive tribes held the mountains for many generations, thriving in the bountiful, sheltered valleys. When the glaciers receded, Mankind remained, the haze of myriad campfires joined the morning mist to fill hollows of the Shudders. But like the serpent-men before them, they encountered a threat to their mountainous territory and fell to outside invaders. However, unlike the serpent-men, the enemies of these early human tribes came not from the northern lands, but descended from the night sky.

The Hsaal Arrive
In those primeval days, a second moon rode the night sky, floating among the mysterious and beautiful Overworld plane known as the Void. This other moon was a twisted reflection of its mate, a disk of tarnished silver compared to its luminous twin. In scraps of surviving lore left behind by vanished empires, the moon was called “Luhsaal” and it was home to a race of lunar sorcererkings. This race was the Hsaal, a species of towering humanoids who incorporated magic into their civilization the way other races utilize brick and stone. The Hsaal demonstrated a mastery of magic as yet unknown beyond Luhsaal, but for all their sorcery, the lunar race required more mundane materials to maintain their prolonged civilization. Having mined their home plane bare of these essential elements, the Hsaal entered the material plane through mystical gates, establishing colonies in regions where the sought-after resources were abundant. The Shudder Mountains were one such site and amongst the earliest to be colonized by the Hsaal.

When the first Hsaal arrived in the mountains, the human tribes were wonderstruck. Glimpsing the 7’ tall race of lithesome humanoids with flesh the color of silvery ash and crested heads, the primitive clans thought the Hsaal to be emissaries of their primordial gods. Wonder soon changed to anger, however, as the Hsaal sought to enslave the tribes as laborers. Mankind, roused to barbaric rage, fought back against the Hsaal, but were no match for the unearthly magic the lunar race commanded. Rather than accept defeat, the human tribes took a lesson from their serpent-men foes and retreated into the mountain caverns. The Hsaal weighed the cost of rooting the tribes out of the caves and concluded the loss of Hsaalian life would be high. Rather than pry the original human occupants of the mountains from their subterranean refuges, it was more efficient to import slaves from other Hsaalian colony sites, places where the local populace had already been subjugated. It was these imported laborers that the current residents of the mountain, the Shudfolk, would eventually descend from.

Meanwhile, the native human tribes found themselves imprisoned within the caverns they retreated to. Like the serpentmen, attempts were made to continue an insurgency against the Hsaal, but their simple weapons and rudimentary magic was no match for lunar sorcery. The first tribes were pushed to the brink of extinction, but some clans survived in their new troglodytic world, adapting to the darkness. Whether these survivors discovered the descendants of their ancient serpent-men enemies and joined in battle once again is unknown, but explorers of the Black Mountain caves have reported encounters with a savage, human-like species of cannibals ideally suited for underground existence. These creatures may be the ancestors of the Shudder’s first human occupants, now long devolved. They called them the Lurkers.

As the imported slave laborers arrived in the mountains, the Hsaal made subtle alterations to their new workers’ bodies and minds, employing magic to optimize the human slaves for their new home and tasks. The sorcery-altered slave bloodlines gave birth to a strain of rugged humanity, well-suited for the hard conditions of both their work and their mountainous home. To ensure the slaves wouldn’t seek to escape, the Hsaal overlords implanted a geas in them, creating a desire in each servant to remain within the mountains and eschewing thoughts of what lay beyond the peaks. Once properly conditioned, the Hsaal put the slaves to work, carving out mines in the mountains to extract the minerals the lunar civilization required. These diggings remain to this day, pockmarking the slopes of the Shudders and mystifying both Shudfolk and flatlander visitors alike.

The Hsaal, like those who came before them, controlled the Shudder Mountain region for generations, gradually extracting the necessary resources from the earth and shipping it home to Luhsaal by mystical gates. The Satraps that ruled the colonies grew rich and decadent. Their slaves were too well-conditioned to revolt and specially-bred overseers, creatures that would be known later as the Abandoned, attended to the day-to-day management of the mines. The Hsaal of the Shudders enjoyed an idyllic life— until their world literally shattered.

The sorcerer-kings of Luhsaal lived and breathed magic, but magic, like an animal, can turn on its master. The Hsaalian wizards pushed their magic too far, setting off a chain reaction that spread like wildfire across the moon. Massive rifts erupted in the lunar surface, cities died in conflagrations, and the magical catastrophe grew to apocalyptic proportions. As the Hsaal of the Shudder Mountains watched in horror, their home moon of Luhsaal tore itself apart in the sky and plummeted through a titanic rift in time and space. As it vanished from the sky, echoes of the magical disaster rippled out of the Void, following the mystical ties the Hsaal colonies had with their lunar home. The forces of the magical cataclysm blasted through the transport gates, reverberating across the landscape. Mountain peaks were reduced to rubble and the entire mountain chain rumbled under the power of the blasts. Killing waves of lambent black fire chased their way across the sorcerous ties connecting the Hsaal of the Shudder Mountains, destroying their bodies and spilling their once-restrained magical power across the land. In a matter of moments, the Hsaal colonists were destroyed, leaving their slaves without masters.

The Free Shudfolk
Once the aftershocks faded and the mountains grew silent again, the slaves looked out across the devastation, their souls filled with a mixture of abject horror, uncertainty, and— strangely—elation. For the first time in generations, the slaves found themselves free. Their overseers, the Abandoned, lacking orders and bound to their mines by duty and sorcery, cowered in the diggings. Some slaves returned to the mines, uncertain of what else to do and never emerged. A far larger number of the now liberated workers gathered together, and fled from their former workplaces, seeking shelter in the myriad remote hollows of the mountains.

The former slaves, still under the influence of the ancient geas that lay upon their bloodline, remained tied to the mountains. Despite the horrors they endured during their servitude and in the wake of the lunar cataclysm, this strain of man felt a profound peace in the shadow of the mountains. Over time, the refugees fragmented into separate clans and families, building communities across the region. After the passing of untold generations, the former slaves grew from foraging to learn agriculture and master metal-working, eventually becoming the Shudfolk who dwell in the mountains to this day.

The Shudfolk remained an isolated society for generations, but ultimately other cultures came into contact with the mountain people. As borders expanded and traders sought new markets, outsiders began climbing into the pine-covered mountains and encountered the reclusive Shudfolk. After a few violent conflicts with the mountain clans, Celdorian negotiators convinced the outermost families of the benefit of trade between the hillfolk and the flatlanders, establishing trading partnerships and routes that exist even today. For the first time since their ancestors were brought to the mountains, the Shudfolk sampled from the world beyond the Shudder Mountains are gradually becoming familiar with the outside lands. Despite this acclimation, the Shudfolk fiercely maintain their culture’s heritage and resist any large scale changes to their way of life. The Shudfolk have benefited from their contact with the outside world, but not so much that they’re ready to sell their cultural identity for luxuries from beyond the mountains. This does not mean that life remains constant in the mountains, however.

Six decades ago, an event occurred that changed the tone of life in the mountains. Three demons, minor princes in the dark hierarchy of the Abyss, were drawn to the Shudders. Perhaps it was the Hsaalian taint in the Shudfolk’s veins or the spoils that stain the landscape that caught the attention of the infernal entities, calling to them the way the mountains sing to the Shudfolk’s souls. The three, Anector, Haade, and Modeca are by no means allies. Instead the demons, known as the Three, are rivals for the souls of all sentient creatures who dwell in the mountains. Each attempts to increase the number of mortal souls pledged to them in servitude, raising their status amongst the Abyss' hierarchy in the process. The Three constantly contest with one another, using the mortals who pledged their souls as pawns on their mountainous chessboard. In return for service, many witches have been granted—temporarily—great power by their infernal masters. The Three’s interest in the Shudders has resulted in a rise in the number of witches who call the mountains home and the Sovereign Church finds itself assailed by dark sorcery from all sides. This is what has earned the Shudders the name 'Black Mountains' amongst the faithful. Given the superstitious nature of the Shudfolk, many of them believe a time of reckoning is coming when the forces of good and evil square off against one another. There is no doubt in their minds that it will be the Shudder Mountains that will serve as the final battleground.