"An endless whispering, chittering, and skittering could be heard from those hills... they're bad news, I tell you. Never have I set foot in a more cursed place in my life. You're always looking over your shoulder, always questioning what you see and hear. It's not natural. Men weren't meant to be in the Voiceless Hills."
Stretching across Moonrise Point in a wide swath, the Voiceless Hills are a large range of foothills on the northern border of Penhurst Bay. It has been said that they resemble the pocked skin of a diseased man, with oozing boils and erupting steam vents. The valleys between hills are shrouded in swamps and mist, while patchy forests of half-living trees and scrub occasionally mark the hillsides. The terrain is rough and tiring, full of flooded depressions, dead timber, and lots of webs.
The Hills are steeped in myth and legend. From the creation of Korsythe,
Xugnos, The Mad God of Beasts and Chaos supposedly made the Hills the location of one of his rifts to protect the continent from outsiders, as evidenced by the many dangerous Beasts that inhabit these lands. They were also given their name because men who come face to face with a Beast there are too afraid to scream. Whatever the origin of these Beasts is, the Voiceless Hills provide the people of Curtil today with raw materials that the kingdom depends on.
Geography
The Voiceless Hills are located on the western edge of the kingdom of Curtil, where they cover the entirety of the peninsula known as Moonrise Point. It is a much smaller set of foothills than what is found in Gabriel's Land, with no major mountains rising up around them. The Hills are located on the north side of Penhurst Bay, which contains several major shipping routes for Curtilian goods. The Hills are visible from sea while rounding Moonrise Point, and while there are no known settlements in these wild lands, the cities of Usoria and Breedsey provide safe haven on either side.
While Breedsey and Usoria are a somewhat safe distance from the Hills, the castle of
Silver Rock was built direclty on the edge of the area and is meant to protect the civilized lands of Curtil from the dangers that inhabit the Hills. The Silver Guard, the self-titled band of warriors that inhabit the castle, are an elite band of Curtilian soldiers who often have experience fighting in other parts of the kingdom. They are sworn to protect Curtil from the Beasts of the Voiceless Hills and occasionally make expeditions inwards to try and route out the evil.
There are a few minor passes and trails penetrating into the Hills, but none that venture very far in any direction due to hazardous terrain and wildlife. The first trail, which heads south and west towards the ocean from Silver Rock, is known as the
Path of Peril. It is the shorter of the two and many well-prepared travelers, adventurers and miners who attempt to traverse it are often lost forever. The second trail, heading south from Silver Rock towads Penhurst Bay, is known as the
Haunted Highway. It is longer, wider, more well-trodden, and generally safer, though it does venture much closer to the heart of the Voiceless Hills.
The Voiceless Hills are littered with bogs, swamps, and slow-moving rivers. These swamps and streams all have different underground sources, but all seem to move in a general direciton of south and west towards the ocean. Snarled trees and snagging patches of bushes mark the brown landscape, while rocky outcrops and boulders mark the upper hills and sparse forests. Steam vents and cracks in the earth litter the landscape, blowing hot steam at seemingly random moments that will burn the unaware traveler.
History
The hills themselves have been a part of Korsythe since the continent's founding. Scholars believe that the Hills were once part of a land bridge that connected the island of Arkmond to the mainland. Millennia ago, as oceans rose, the landbridge was lost to the ocean and many parts of the once-dry Voiceless Hills were flooded. There are disagreements about whether the Hills were formed naturally as a part of plate movement or if the gods made them intentionally.
One thing that is known for sure is that one of Xugnos's rifts inhabits these lands. The rift was thought to have been put in place before the flooding of the Arkmond land bridge, as many of these Beasts have been found on Arkmond. The gnomes who inhabited modern-day Curtil in ages past had clearly warred with the Beasts, and have even left records and pictures of their battles. The gnomes used a mixture of technology and magic that is unknown today, and had an easier time combatting these Beasts than modern men have. Dwarves have few records of this particular rift as they rarely ventured this far from their mountain homes. Goblins seem to have tamed some of these Beasts through some twisted form of dark magic, as old gnomish depictions of goblins riding the Beasts were found in one ruin.
Upon human's discovery of Korsythe and subsequent colonization, the Voiceless Hills have remained an unfavorable destination since the beginning. Before Fluvian settlers landed at the mouth of the Lotus River and founded Saldstown, they sailed past Moonrise Point, eyeing it warily from a distance. As the first sight of land of the new Korsythian continent, many were eager to anchor up and swim to shore here. But the experienced commanders among the crew advised against it, and the captain was right to take their advice. The land didn't look right, they said, and that was all the convincing the old captain needed.
Since Curtil's settlement and founding, there have been a several outbursts of Beasts from the Voiceless Hills that have ended in deaths in the towns of Usoria and Breedsey. Silver Rock was the second of the "Four Bastions" ordered to be built by King Henricus Adamar, as he recognized the extreme threat the area posed. Since the castle's construction in 155 AS, the Silver Guard has maintained safety and security in the region and repelled any further raids from reaching past the castle's walls.
Expeditions
There have been a number of Curtilian expeditions over the centuries from adventurers, pilgrims, scholars, and miners seeking to make their riches, slay a Beast, or simply do their job and feed their family in the Voiceless Hills. No successful attempt at reaching the heart of the Hills where the rift is said to lie have been recorded, though several people have claimed to have gotten close.
in 8 AS, shortly after founding the town of Saldstown, Fluvian settlers landed on the very tip of Moonrise Point and made the first expedition into the Voiceless Hills. Conayn Bodwyn, the trip's commander, allegedly made landfall at the highest point of a full moon and felt an eerie presence embody him as he splashed to shore. After three days exploring the Hills, Bodwyn was the only one of the original six to make it back alive, and the first to describe the Beasts that would be known as
Direwolf Spiders.
One of the most famous attempts to explore these unknown lands was one that ended in tragedy. In 145 AS, a group of twenty scholars, including seven women, set out from Breedsey to thoroughly map the Voiceless Hills. This group is now known as the
Audouin Party, after their leader,
James Audouin. None of the party survived.
Since the founding of the Silver Guard in 155, several military expeditions have ventured into the Voiceless Hills to attempt to eradicate the eight-legged Beasts that live within. The most recent attempt occurred in the year 373, where 30 seasoned warriors of the Silver Guard set forth into the Hills on an expedition funded by the governor of Breedsey himself. The governor,
Hughet Isembard, believed that his family was owed a debt from the Voiceless Hills, as his son,
Willet Isembard, a merchant miner with a penchant for adventure, had died to a direwolf spider on an expedition four years prior. Some believe that Isembard's son was dabbling in forbidden magics and seeking gemstones to power some ancient artifacts, and the expedition was an attempt to retrieve the evidence before anyone else found out, but these rumors have yet to be proven true.
Spirituality and Pilgrimage
The Voiceless Hills may have been a sacred place to the gnomes, depending on who is interpreting the records. Certain accounts have the gnomes venturing into the Hills with a sort of reverence, while others depict them attempting to slay the Beasts at any cost. Either way, the gnomes and their traditions are long gone.
Goblins, on the other hand, will still make the occasional pilgrimage in the Hills. After the truce of the Second Goblin War in 155, the first goblin pilgrimage was allowed to enter the Voiceless Hills to pray to an unknown altar. A total of five goblin pilgrimages to the Voiceless Hills have taken place between the Second and Third Goblin Wars, all escorted up to the border of the Hills by Curtilian guards. None were ever seen again.
Recently, Curtilians have been making secretive treks to the Voiceless Hills under cover of night. As religious freedom is permitted in the kingdom, the crown cannot legally stop those in the dark cults from practising and praying to whom they choose, but the practice is still frowned upon by the commoner. Some religious zealots have even been known to enter the Hills under pretense of a mining expedition, just to sacrifice themselves to the dark Beasts that roam the Hills.
Ecosystem
The Voiceless Hills inhabit a unique position on Korsythe, backed up against the ocean with warm sea breezes softly blowing through the valleys, while shallow swamps and bogs make up the lowest parts of the hills. The gently rounded hilltops themselves are humid, with the warm stench of rot accompanying those who venture in at all times. A light drizzle is common there, and the brown plantlife never grows too much due to a persistent fog. The humid sea breezes keep the Hills relatively snow-free in the winter months, although travel is still cold and miserable. The summer months make for buggy, sticky conditions that encourage the Beasts into more fervent activity.
Fauna
The most unique part of the Voiceless Hills' biology is the species of Beasts that takes up residence here known as
Direwolf Spiders. These monstrous eight-legged Beasts closely resemble their smaller brethren, only at a massive scale. Their bodies are light brown with two darker brown streaks down the back, and their eight eyes glow an unnatural violet color. At their highest point, they come to 5-6 feet off the ground, and from leg tip to leg tip they are around 15 feet long. They are robust and agile hunters with excellent eyesight, especially in the dark. While they live mostly in solitude and hunt alone, they have been known to form packs on occasion for larger, organized hunting parties. Individuals do not typically spin webs, but those living in groups do. Truly fearsome creatures, few have ever been known to battle a direwolf spider and live to tell the tale.
The shorelines of the Voiceless Hills are home to
crabs, a multitude of
fish, and
seals.
Wild sheep and
deer make excellent prey for direwolf spiders. The occasional
rock bear will venture forth from its den to feast on fish,
ptarmigans, and berries.
Kestrels and
hawks inhabit the lonesome hillsides, feasting on smaller prey and taking to the air whenever a larger predator gets close. Hissing steam vents provide heat to creatures large and small, and direwolf spider nests can often be found resting on top of one.
Natural Resources
The Voiceless Hills are formed largely from igneous rocks on top of a deep-seated active volcano. This makes for very rich veins of natural ores strewn throughout the Hills. There are large concentrations of
limestone and
marble deposits throughout the region, proof of the fact that the land may have been underwater at one point. Both limestone and marble are quarried heavily and sent all around the kingdom for construction work, making mine owners from nearby Usoria and Breedsey very rich.
Deposited seemingly at random throughout the Voiceless Hills are dozens of large
sapphire mines. The Hills are the only known region in Curtil to produce sapphires, and only the second in all of Korsythe, with the other being in the Berngan Mountains. This can make sapphire miners who are brave enough to venture into the Hills very wealthy, as there are rumored to be plenty of untouched mines still waiting to be discovered.
Gold, iron, and copper are also found in smaller quantities, which are all highly sought after by human and dwarven blacksmiths alike. The occasional foolish miner wanders into the Hills to seek his fortune in gold, but more often than not comes face to face with a direwolf spider.
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