Raantchlaan

Formerly known as Naarvil, Raantchlaan is all that remains of the once towering stratovolcano that laid waste to the area now known as the Gouge.

Geography

Located in the southeast of the Gouge, even in it's desolation, Raantchlaan's caldera towers above the surrounding peaks. It is said that in the old times, the mountain of Naarvil was so tall that you could climb to the heavens upon it's slopes.
The region surrounding Raantchlaan has largely been smoothed by the pyroclastic flows, and most Vesikatli settlements are built on natural rocky outcrops protruding from the ashen soil, though terraces built from large blocks of quarried stone are not uncommon where space on such outcrops is at a premium.
Water in the region comes at a premium, as the mountains are not high enough to maintain any significant degree of snow, and the seasonal streams that appear during the wet season quickly become clogged with a thick slurry of volcanic ash, blocking up their streambeds and rendering the water undrinkable without careful filtration.

Ecosystem

Raantchlaan remains a barren wasteland, even centuries after the eruption, with only the hardiest of grasses and most well-tended of crops able to eek out an existence on its slopes. Fauna is also rare, composed primarily of hardy insects and the birds that fly to the mountain to hunt them, as well as several species of strange, eyeless fish with thick, boney scales living in the crater lake atop the mountain.
Beliefs among the Gougeborn peoples hold that the mountain is cursed, and that all creature of sufficient wisdom avoid it--a notion the Vesikatli rarely take kindly to.

Alternative Name(s)

Naarvil (literally "spicy mountain" in the Kaatanvikl language)

Type

Volcano

Location under

The Gouge