THE
BROKEN
DREAM
GAP |
The Broken Dream Gap is the
wide, low altitude pass which runs form east to west between Mount Wraelen and
the Three Maids in the Santharian province of
Manthria. It is is a fairly even forty
peds wide the whole way
along its twenty strals of
length. Outside of the wide, paved strip on the northern, uphill side it is
mostly bare rock and muddy soil, with little in the way of vegetation. Its
northern side is a cliff where the feet of Mount Wraelen abruptly break off
into a sheer-sided drop of ten peds. It is this surprisingly smooth drop, along
with a few of the other features of this gap and the Maids to the south.
Concerning the latter
Compendium researchers theorise that
they led
to the myth of the creation of the Broken Dream Gap, called the Tale of
Three Maids.
This fable says that the name
‘Broken Dream Gap’ comes from long ago when the Three Maids Mountains were all
in love with Mount Wraelen but he sent them away to the South, thus shattering
their hopes and breaking their dreams. The legend tells that the Gap was gouged
from the earth as the result of this
movement of the three mountains.
Description. The
Gap is a strange looking phenomenon. The
Mitharim dwarves have in fact been
known to regale travelers who travel with them through the gap with their
thoughts on the oddness of the rock formation, and will sometimes even follow
up with a telling of the legend about its origins. This is somewhat odd as the
tale is thought to be a human legend, given
the prominent roles of the Twelve in the story and it is supposed by some that
the dwarves do this in a somewhat
tongue-in-cheek manner, poking fun at over-credulous
humans.
Broken Dream Gap is about forty
peds
wide the whole way along its twenty
strals
of length, and fairly straight. It is somewhat sunken into the
earth, and gives the appearance of being
the result of a god having dragged the
Three Maids in the south away from the
Mithrals proper, gouging the rocky Gap out of the earth as it moved. The
eastern and western ends both ascend gently to reach the level of the
surrounding land. Its northern side is the sheer, surprisingly smooth cliff on
the southern side of Mount Wraelen. The southern edge of the Gap also has
cliffs, though not nearly as high or as smooth as those on the north side. They
are fairly low, and at one point about three fifths of the way through the gap
there is a small trail which winds up between two steeper areas of the wall,
leading into the sheltered, oasis-like space between the
Three Maids.
The Gap was paved by the Mitharim
in the year 880 to facilitate its use as a trade-route from their home on the
eastern coast to the wealthier towns of central
Santharia and beyond. Despite the length of time since the stones were
laid, the dwarves still hold the memory of
the underlying form of the base of the Gap – not greatly surprising given both
the long lives of dwarfkind and the regular
use of the pass. It is recalled by the
Mitharim as being smooth rock, scored with three wide ripples running from
north to south.
Despite this paving by the dwarves, the
floor of the Gap still retains something of one of its original features. Where
the southern cliffs slope up from the base of the Gap there lies a strip of
boggy, muddy puddles which in the spring - because of the rains - can become a
small attenuated lake. The northern side was engineered by the
dwarves so that it is level, but a strip
along the southern side was left unpaved so that it acts as a natural drain,
channeling rain and mud into the unpaved third of the Gap and thus avoiding the
majority of the flooding which was common in the Gap before its remodeling by
the Mitharim. It can still be a
somewhat muddy, inhospitable route in the spring when the rains bring volumes
of muddy soil from the higher ground down onto the trail which are too great to
be entirely caught by the natural drain, but the ever-pragmatic
dwarves have solved this problem by tending
to make trading expeditions to the eastward port town of Marduran during this
season, and trading to the west in summer, autumn and winter. However, the
debris left by the spring rains does not take care of itself. The first caravan
out from Tyr Ethran in the summer has the slow and unenviable job of clearing
the paths for the expeditions which will follow in that year and, by
association, any other travellers who pass through the gap that year. As the
Gap is at such a low altitude, snow is not a problem here. Some heavy frosts
will reach the stony walls, but very seldom does the cold weather ever inhibit
the dwarves from trading.
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Location. The Broken
Dream Gap lies between Mount Wraelen on its north side and the
Three Maids Mountains on its south, in
the Santharian province of
Manthria, at the southern end of the
Mithral Mountains. Brok’s Way, a dwarf-made
road runs from the doors of Tyr Ethran through the Gap, right until the Dead
Ogre Pass in the south from where the Eastern Mithrun Trail leads on to
Marcogg and central Santharia.
Nearby settlements are the trading post of Kolbruk
and the dwarves’ Tyr Ethran, but it is
really quite far from most places – thirty
strals from Tyr Ethran and
a full hundred strals as
the corbie flies from
Kolbruk.
People. No people live
in the Gap, but in most seasons there will be a fairly regular flow of merchants
and travelers – both dwarven and otherwise –
traversing the gap to get from the eastern coast area to central
Santharia, and vice versa. From early summer to the
end of winter, dwarven trade caravans make
bi-monthly forays to and from towns and cities which are accessible by Brok’s
Way.
Climate. "In summer,
warm / In autumn, calm / In winter, cool / In spring it’s full." - This simple
little verse is recited by the dwarven
children of Tyr Ethran describing the weather in the Broken Dream Gap. There is
little wind there all year round and this
contributes to the pleasant heat in the Gap during summer. There is not much
rain in this season, and the heat is such that the stagnant pool of
water which sits in the drain on the south
edge usually evaporates more or less completely during the month of Burning
Heavens. Autumn is cooler and is quite a pleasant season during which to travel
through the Gap. Winter is cool, but not icy. Frosts will often come to the tops
of the cliffs, decorating particularly the smooth northern side with glittering
silver-white patterns, but ice and snow have never in the memory of the
dwarven traders reached the path. This is a
great help to travelers meaning that this route stays open even in winter. In
the spring however, the Gap is difficult and sometimes dangerous to travel
through. The paved surface means that it is possible to traverse it, but heavy
rains and melting snow can lead to flash flooding when the natural drain
overflows, drowning the path in water and
mud from the surrounding mountains – hence the use of the word “full” in the
dwarven rhyme.
Flora. Few plants grow
in the Gap as the unpaved areas are mostly rocky and what soil there is tends to
be drowned each spring. What plants there are are mostly the fast growing weeds
like skyweed and some of the more
persistent grasses. They grow in clumps mostly on the southern side of the Gap,
on the opposite side of the drain where they are difficult or impossible to
reach. Some of the higher crannies in the southern cliff house small bushes or
trees, the meldarapple being a
common, if frustratingly out of reach, sight. Small pines will also often sprout
up in crannies on the southern wall or in drifts of dirt, growing to a
fore or so tall in the
three dry seasons, only to be washed away in the spring. Less immediately noticable but
equally common are the mosses and lichens which colour the cliff walls and, from
time to time after a spring when the conditions have been particularly
favourable to the moss, the path, making it treacherous until the
dwarves clear it from the road.
Blackmoss grows in the shadier patches
cheek-by-jowl with sou’cald moss.
Rockmoss can be found also hiding in
crannies on the southern wall. Certain lichens which are not averse to
sunlight are the most easily spotted, as
the mosses tend to prefer the few places in the Gap which are out of direct
sunlight. The red varieties are the most
common but blue, yellow, brown and white lichens have also been seen lending
their natural but cheering tints to the stony environment of the Gap.
Fauna. As far as fauna,
there is not much to be seen. The lush sides of the
Maids and the well-forested
Mithrals proper offer such dramatically
better cover and sustenance than the Gap that it is rare for any non-insectoid
animal (other than those of the human or
dwarven varieties) to be seen here.
Stingflies and other swampdwelling insects, flying and otherwise often take up
residence in the Gap during the months when the drain is wet, but bigger
creatures are rare as this food supply does not last the full year. Occasionally
a sneaky kuatu or a curious
corbie will descend to pester camping
travelers, but other than these it is very unusual to see any fauna at all in
this stony, bare place.
Resources. The lack
of resources makes the Gap a dreary and inhospitable place to pass through.
There is no fresh water to be had (except
for rainwater during the spring, and then there is too much!) unless one is to
make a side trip up into the Three Maids.
Travel rations are relied upon usually exclusively while traversing the Gap, as
both edible flora and fauna are scarce and unobtainable.
Myth/Lore. The Tale
of the Three Maids is told both by the
villagers of Kolbruk and the
Mitharim dwarves,
although it is said that the dwarves tell it
only to human travelers whom they meet in the
Gap, and then with their tongues planted firmly in their cheeks!
History. Broken Dream Gap’s only real historical milestone is
that it was paved in 880, when the
Mitharim dwarves first began trading with the
central Sarvonian towns and cities. The
dwarves chose to make use of this Gap as
opposed to tunneling as they otherwise would have because they had fairly
recently (in 856) excavated a network of beautiful caves under Mount Wraelen and
the Dragonback Ridge. These caves were home to a large group of
dwarves who were mining the last of the
mithril in shafts nearby. As such, there was not room for a trade route and the
alternative was a much longer way than just giving up and going aboveground. It
is said that the elders of the time reasoned that it would be character building
for the younger, unmarried members of the clan out on trading 'missions',
thinking it would do them good to experience the vicissitudes of nature
aboveground.
Information
provided by
Grunok the Exile
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