Shoulders Of The World

The vast mountain range known as the Shoulders of the World mark the very western extent of civilization. Extending from the Mhul Pont where they descend into the waters of Inner Sea all the way south to the Pits of Mzrad where they are swallowed up suddenly by the Sundering-born Aruman Sea these mountains are broken only in a few places, most prominently by the high pass of the Sudarese Way. The western slopes of the Shoulders descend into the Battlewaite - the only truly dead land in Allornus where life that is not mortal cannot subsist. Where there is no sustenance, and where all things are ruin and poison for as far as any living thing has ever travelled.

The Shoulders are not a towering mountain range, some not even snow-capped in the far south. They rise gradually out of the surrounding lands with foothills and highland plateaus for leagues on either side ascending to fat, rocky peaks that taper not to willowy points but to long upturned slabs that descend into sheer basalt cliffs on the western face. The brown stone of the mountains looks blood red in the setting sun, and the ruddy scrub common to the dusty slopes almost to the peak does nothing to distract from the earthen hues of the mountains.

The Shoulders of the World are far from the impenetrable granite wall that the Sirolas Mountains are, and a number of goat tracks and precipitous switchbacks afford passage up the eastern slopes, but the descent on the other side is seldom simple. Still, many miners and prospectors (as well as the Mhulak of the pits) do make their way up the flanks of the range to stare out to the distant horizon of the wastes and plant their feet at the very end of the world.