[The Black Vale] The Ravenpeaks

A vast expanse of towering ridges, the Ravenpeak mountain range is a massive, circular chain that surrounds and protects the Black Vale from external threats. Five kilometers deep at its shallowest point, the range is almost impossible to traverse, and is largely unexplored, even by the Vale's native inhabitants. The range is unbroken but for two entrances: one narrow pass wherein the ridges loom ominously over those who enter, and a river that cuts through the ridges from the sea to the east.

The Ravenpeaks get their name from the dark stone that can be found here, a magically-sensitive rock harder and stronger than granite called "Blackstone". It's the Vale's most profitable export, as it can be used to build structures thicker and stronger than normal stone. It is perfect for magical construction as well, given its magic sensitivity, and can be used as an effective channeling stone for teleportation rooms.

While the mountains are inhabited by your standard mountain fare, such as snow leopards, goats, gryphons, highland cattle, manticores and elk, there are also a number of stranger creatures unique to the peaks, such as megaloceros, megatherium, and Ravenpeak Stormbirds. Two of the most widespread and prolific of these unique beasts are the Ravenpeak Giants and the Storm Dragons.

The Ravenpeak Giants are an early bronze age society of humanoids that stand at twenty feet tall on average, with denser body hair than the average human and thick, leathery skin to protect them from the biting cold of the mountains. They worship a pantheon of animistic gods, including the prime diety, the Storm Lord Perekunos, and his consort, the Lady of the Earth Nateripe. They hunt Storm Dragons ritualistically as sacrifices to their gods.

The Storm Dragons are massive, elegant occidental dragons with shimmering silver-white scales, long, sinuous necks, and narrow leaf-shaped heads sporting four backward-curved horns. The greatest recorded wingspan of any Storm Dragon was greater than the diameter of the Vale's largest city, and ancient dragon bones unearthed in the highest reaches of the mountains imply that they can grow much larger. They are intelligent, and they even speak, though their language is of an old tongue forgotten by mortal men. There are theories among the Vale's dracologists that they have a communal, proto-urban network of caves that they meet in to socialise and mate, as mining activity and quarries have unearthed old, long-abandoned caverns deep within the Ravenpeak range bearing claw marks, large artifical constructs evidently built for creatures much larger than men, and other signs of draconic activity.

The weather in the mountains is fickle and sporadic, in large part due to the movement of the Storm Dragons. On clear days, though, the scenic views from the peaks are unmatched, as they are some of the tallest mountains in the world.