>> Remember, the plateau is one big, mostly barren rock >> (although it probably has a spring somewhere).
> Could someone who understands geology comment on this,
> please? I have a nasty suspicion that springs are
> unlikely.
Unlikely indeed, but not necessarily impossible.
Whitewall sits on the flank of the most prominent peak of Destor's Hills, not on the top. There is a possibility that further up the hill there is a "natural cistern" gathering rain and condensation into some underground reservoir.
We know that the hills at least around the city have white rock. This leaves us with possible white limestone or chalky rock (Dover, cliffs of Heortland), gypsum or alabaster, white feldspar, or quartzite. The whiteness of the mineral may vary, too.
From what I see, the hills are there mainly because there are river valleys to the northwest and southeast. They don't seem to be part of the Stormwalk upfolding (be it by Larnste's foot, Vestkarthen's spear, Urox's hooves or Orlanth's hands - preferably all of them). No myths about slain giants, dragons, or sleeping gods that I know of.
Of course Hillmaker Vestkarthen is known in the region.
I'd like to come to grips with the non-mythical aspects of the regional geology, anyway:
We get sedimental rock as far up the pass as Snake Pipe Hollow, but then the cube of Earth spent an indeterminate period of Godtime within the Sea before surfacing, allowing for as much sedimentation of soluble minerals as we like. (Think of the Earth Cube as a gigantic pearl within the living body of the endless Ocean, crusted by layers of deposits.)
We know there was a glacial period _after_ Destor explored the region. We have several incidents of riverine activities, too. Most of them uphill or cross-country. (Now that would be a find for Opportunity...)
We have extreme erosion in the Storm Age - Hedkoranth seems to have been big into gravel production.
And we have fertility asserting itself within the soil, probably creeping into gravel as it lays there.
>> Boat shape means it comes to a prow (where the >> temples are) like Masada's plateau. It also allows >> me to have some Helemakt references..
> Well, of course! Can't have an odd-shaped rock without
> the myth of why it's that shape even in the RW, never
> mind Glorantha.
Note that BA says "peninsula" rather than "plateau".
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