Geography

The Roof of the World is a rugged mountain range, the northmost edge of the known world. It begins at the northern edges of Torrigan and the Forest of Kéthiel, and blocks almost all travel north from there.
The mountains of the Roof are very high and steep, and the heights are cloaked in ice and snow even during the summer. Few can survive travel through the Roof of the World during the winter, when heavy snowfall blocks the one viable route in, the Ice Wall Pass. The Ice Wall is, perhaps, falsely named, for it does not lead through the Roof--only into it. Nobody has traveled to the other side of the Roof of the World and spoken of it afterwards.
Not much lives or grows in the Roof; the plant life there tends to be scrubby and tenacious, brush and tough grasses, mosses, lichens. The animals there consist mostly of birds and rock-mice, wild sheep and goats, and the powerful mountain lions that feed on them. Gargoyles and the great northern dragons also inhabit the Roof of the World, but they are much rarer and not often seen.

Few people actually live in the Roof of the World; there is too little flora and fauna for anyone to live on, and the climate is too harsh. However, there are two cultures associated with the Roof of the World. The first are the Dakoi, the mountain tribesmen. They travel everywhere, but live primarily in the Roof of the World, herding sheep and goats and gathering rare herbs. The second are the Avarel, a mysterious race of winged people who live in the southern reaches of the Roof where the climate is warmer.

Copyright © 1999 Abigail Laughlin and the members of the Circle of Stone.