Gonnak Mountains

The Gonnak Mountains are a large old-world mountain range which split the continent of Natua from north to south. While they are old mountains, and are thus no longer significantly tectonically active, they are still difficult to pass due to their sheer height, jaggedness, and weather which persists in much of the highest areas. As such, there is no communication between those who live to the west of the Gonnaks and those who live to the east. A large portion of the Eastern Gonnaks are controlled by the government of Tajj Neta, and contain many mining sites, research outposts, and military training camps; however, the majority of the mountain range is cold, barren, and inhospitable.

Geography

The Gonnak Mountains are characterized by tall, jagged peaks covered in permanent ice and snow, with some of the fastest-blowing winds in the world. The Gonnak Mountains have not been tectonically active for millions of years, and there are many long-dormant volcanoes scattered throughout the range. Many calderas are now invisible, sleeping deeply underneath a thick blanket of snow. The lower portions of the mountain range are much more verdant and are home to several different ecosystems: in the north, between 500-1000m in elevation, hot and cold steppes dominate, with sparsely wooded areas and non-diverse but stable ecosystems; from 1000-3000m, the area becomes a cold desert, with hardly any wildlife and thin sheets of permafrost. In the southern portions of the mountain, where temperatures are significantly higher, nearly everything below 3000m is a hot, dry desert, almost as difficult to cross as the glacial peaks at the Gonnaks' highest points.

Natural Resources

The Gonnak Mountains have long been a source of many different mined materials, for the Tajj Netan Empire as well as all those that preceded it. While many historically significant mines have indeed run out of resources, new sites are discovered frequently. The most frequent metals found in the Gonnak Mountains include iron, copper, gold, and silver, although other materials do crop up from time to time. See the below map of ore deposits in Natua for reference.