What do we know about Wyrms High Pass?
I haven't found a great deal of information about the pass, although I realise I may just not have found stuff in sources I've got, so I've put a few tentative ideas together based on the snippets I'm aware of.
@Jeff Richard's session at the Kraken last year on creating Gloranthan places was very useful - unfortunately I don't think it was filmed, but its essence was to pull together what is known or inferred about a place from Gloranthan sources and use them as building blocks for creation of both the place and its adventurous potential. This is preferable to initially looking to real world examples and basing a place on them as you run the danger of creating a sense of space or culture that is too derivative rather than firmly rooted in Glorantha. (Jeff - I hope I haven't got this too far wrong!)
Anyway, here goes with a few thoughts:
Name: Wyrms High Pass
So, there are wyrms there. From Anaxial's Roster I gather that wyrms thrive in warm or hot conditions, so I'm positing a pass that is heated by volcanic activity with hot springs and rocks covered with strange coloured deposits. Perhaps Lodril has a role to play here?
Also, the Empire of the Wyrms Friends is likely to have taken an interest in the pass. So there's scope for ancient structures, perhaps a crumbling monastery high on a cliff ledge or hugging a strange spire with the remains of spiral steps up to it?
And its shape - it has to be narrow and winding like the body of its namesake.
Location
High in the Rockwoods. So if it is a hot pass it's going to produce some interesting anomalies. I envision constant steam as heat from the pass meets cold air above. Thick fogs fill the pass and Iphara is strong here. When heavy snow falls it rapidly evaporates, creating pools of water along the valley floor which may be heated to extreme temperatures by gaseous discharges. The cliffs of the pass are characterised by spectacular waterfalls as runoff from the ice and snow to the sides of the pass melts and cascades down.
Balazar's aldryami High Woods lie to the north, the uz lands of Dagori Inkarth are south and dwarven Greatway is west. So the pass is obviously a contested place, which lines up with historical references I've found. There's certainly recorded conflict between aldryami and uz either side of the pass, but if we accept it has rich mineral deposits then I suggest dwarven interest has shaped its history too.
Also to the south is Bagtrap's Pass, another location I've found little about. I've created a tale of a cave by the pass which always looked like a viable place to stay for a night. But this cave had strange walls and floor, leathery in texture. Those foolish enough to stay here found that they had camped in a huge bag placed in the cave by a cunning giant, who would pull it closed with a drawstring which went up through a funnel in the roof to the cliff above.
Which leads to another important point about location. There are giants either side of the pass and they sometimes travel through it too.
History
I haven't found many specific references to the pass in sources, but events around it give hints. Here are a few human-centric points.
- End of First Age: Tribes from the south swarm through the pass, burn the aldryami woods and some join the Votanki already in the north.
- Empire of the Wyrm's Friends: The pass flourishes as both a crossing point and place of pilgrimage.
- Post-Dragonkill: People no longer come from the south and the Balazarings avoid it. The destruction of Dykene in 1250 effectively gives the south-east of Balazar to the aldryami and people forget about the pass.
- Dykene's resurgence, 1580: Begins renewed exploration of the pass.
- Joh Mith: I've elevated the role of Joh Mith to the person who quested to properly reopen the pass. He speaks the Wyrds of the Wyrm's Way and he fills the Giant's Bag.
- Fall of Sartar 1602 and onwards: Refugees come north through the pass and are accepted by King Yalaring of Trilus, leading to building the Lightbringer's Hall there.
What do you know?
Well there's a few ideas. But what do you know or suggest about the pass? I'm keen to find out about anything written about it over the years, anything those well versed in Gloranthan lore can tell us and also about depictions of it in anybody else's adventures.