The Jackal Mountains form the central spine of the Dalizi Highlands, a vast wall of stone that separates the eastern ranges from the western approaches to the Dalizi Confederation. Named for the packs of dire jackals that hunt the lower slopes, the mountains are the largest single range in the highlands and the primary reason no roads cross from east to west.
Geography
The Jackal Mountains stretch roughly one hundred miles from the Foggy Mountains in the east to the Titan Stairs in the west, with an average width of thirty miles. The range runs roughly east-west, forming an almost continuous barrier of peaks exceeding 10,000 feet. The highest summit, unnamed on any map, reaches approximately 14,000 feet.
The mountains are young by geological standards, their peaks still sharp and unweathered. The slopes are steep and unstable, prone to rockfall in summer and avalanche in winter. Snow covers the upper elevations year-round; glaciers occupy the highest cirques. The rock is primarily granite, dark gray and iron-hard.
The range has no passes. Travelers who need to cross the Dalizi Highlands must go around the Jackal Mountains, either through the Marrow Valley to the east or through the Chull Lands and Titan Stairs to the west. Both routes add days to any journey; both are dangerous for their own reasons.
The Dire Jackals
The mountains' namesake inhabitants are significantly larger than common jackals—adults stand three feet at the shoulder and can weigh over a hundred pounds. They hunt in coordinated packs of ten to twenty individuals, using tactics that suggest unsettling intelligence.
Dire jackals prey primarily on the mountain goats and deer that graze the lower slopes, but they're opportunistic. They'll take livestock, pack animals, or humans if the opportunity presents itself. They've learned to ambush travelers at narrow points along game trails, cutting off retreat while the pack closes in.
The jackals are most active at dawn and dusk, their yipping calls echoing through the valleys. Experienced travelers know to be inside shelter by dusk and to wait until full light before moving. The space between is jackal time.
Interior Terrain
Few have penetrated deep into the Jackal Mountains, and those who have describe a landscape of vertical rock and hidden valleys. The range is riddled with box canyons that lead nowhere, cliffs that appear climbable until halfway up, and slopes that look gentle from a distance but prove impassable up close.
Water is scarce on the surface but abundant underground. Springs emerge from the rock at scattered points, their locations known only to those who've explored extensively. The vegetation is alpine meadow in the lower valleys, bare rock and ice above.
The Hills of False Rubies
At the western edge of the Jackal Mountains, a cluster of red-tinted hills has attracted and disappointed treasure hunters for generations. The hills are rich in red crystals that look remarkably like rubies—until examination reveals them as worthless quartz colored by iron impurities.
The Central Mystery
The heart of the Jackal Mountains has never been mapped. The few expeditions that pushed past the outer slopes and the jackal packs reported finding strange features: carved stone that predates any known civilization, cave mouths that exhale warm air, valleys where the snow melts despite the altitude.
One expedition—the Muyinba Survey of 3,287 SD—claimed to have found a city built into the mountainside, its windows glowing with light despite apparent abandonment. The expedition returned with three survivors out of twelve, none of whom could lead anyone back to what they'd seen. Subsequent expeditions found nothing.
The Dalizi don't explore the Jackal Mountains. They go around them, and they encourage others to do the same.
The Truth (GM Information)
The glowing city is real. It's called Vetharak, and it was built by the same civilization that constructed the ruins throughout the Dalizi Highlands—a pre-human culture that understood the titan sleeping beneath the Thundering Mountains and built their society around managing its dreams.
Vetharak still functions because it's powered by the titan's dream-energy, channeled through leyline conduits that the builders installed. The city maintains itself: lights glow, doors open and close, mechanisms operate. But no living inhabitants remain. The original population either died, fled, or transformed into something else when their civilization collapsed.
What happened to them (choose one or combine):
- The Hollow Ones: The inhabitants didn't die—they became the city. Their consciousness merged with Vetharak's systems during a magical catastrophe, and they now exist as the city's animating intelligence. They're not hostile, but they're no longer human in any meaningful sense. The city "remembers" visitors and may try to absorb them into itself.
- The Ascended: The inhabitants achieved a form of transcendence, shedding physical form to exist as pure thought within the titan's dream. They're still there, in a sense, but they've forgotten how to interact with material beings.
- The Fled: The inhabitants saw what was coming—some catastrophe, some prophecy—and abandoned Vetharak before it arrived. The city runs on automatic, waiting for masters who will never return. The catastrophe they fled may still be pending.
Why can't anyone find it twice? The city exists partially within the titan's dream-space. Its location shifts based on the titan's sleeping thoughts. To find Vetharak reliably, one would need to understand the titan's dream-patterns—or enter the dream directly.
The warm cave mouths and snowless valleys are side effects of Vetharak's power systems, venting heat from processes that have run continuously for millennia.
Related Locations
- Thundering Mountains — North, the continuation of the highland wall
- Rattlespit Hills — Northern transitional terrain
- Hills of False Rubies — Western edge, site of the disappointing crystals
- Troyan Mountains — South, separated by the Chalaari River valley
- Marrow Valley — East, route to the Foggy Mountains
- Chull Lands — West, the lowland between ranges
- Titan Stairs — Northwest, the western highland approach