Who's Hills?

From: bethexton <bethexton_at_...>
Date: Thu, 04 Apr 2002 21:35:19 -0000


We all know that Sartar is a hilly kingdom. There is much talk on this list, and even in official material, about hill clans and people taking to the hills and moving sheep up into the hills in warmer weather, etc.

But I keep having this suspicion that we aren't all visualizing the same sort of hills. Now, I'll grant you that there will be variations even within something as small as Sartar, but getting some sort of common ground might be a useful thing.

For example, when I think hills, I think of the precambrian "Canadian Shield" that I have lived around the edges of for most of my life. These hills are the ancient granite core of the continent, bent and twisted and fractured by over a billion years of drifts and shifts and occasional meteor strikes, stripped down by repeated glaciations, leaving granite knuckles with stips of lake, creak, pond, and occasional decent ground between them. They mostly are not very high, but passing over them is incredibly difficult as the edges are very steep and closely spaced, and there is a lot of water and bog and the vegetation includes a lot of bushes. Really the only good way to travel is by canoe, assuming that any of the creeks go the right way for you.

On the other hand, the other week I had the opportunity to be driven along the coastal hills north of San Francisco, which have much greater elevation, tend to be widely spaced ridges, quite steep near their narrow top ridges, but sweeping down gradually into valleys in between. These would be easy to follow along the valleys, but getting over the top of the ridge would be challenging except where a pass exists.

On the third hand (see, that chaos taint comes in handy sometimes!) I recall seeing the hills in Luxembourg (is that the Ardennes? The mental picture has stayed with me more than the name on the map). These were almost sine-wave shaped hills, quite steep in the middle but flatter on top and bottom. Literally the middle part of the hills would be forested, while the valleys and hill tops were cleared for field and pasture. You don't go over those hills quickly, but there seemed to be many routes to get around if you don't mind taking round-about ways of getting there.

There are, without a doubt, many other sorts of hills.

But what are the hills of Sartar like?

Now, a quick follow on question: I presume the Rockwoods are high mountains like "young" terrestrial mountain ranges (the Rockies or Alps, for example). But what about the Quivin mountains? Are they more of the same but maybe not quite so high, or are they more rounded like "old" mountain ranges like the apalachians?

Regards;

Bryan

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