Blackthorn Mountains

The Blackthorn Mountains is a long mountain range that extends in a southwesterly direction from the northern peaks of the Abjurer Mountains. Many cultures have viewed the mountain range with suspicion. Even when tens of thousands of dwarves lived at Firock Stronghold they avoid expeditions to Blackthorn. Their written and oral history spoke of a insatiable hunger that lived in the mountains.

The Blackthorn can be divided into two distinct sections:

1. The Eastern Blackthorn is made up mostly of volcanic mountains
2. The Western Blackthorn are fold mountains

The Eastern section of the Blackthorn are comprised mostly of large cinder cone volcanoes and the high plateaus they created over time. This section is dominated by high peaks and depressions. Several of these volcanoes are still considered active and most belch smoke at least once every few years. Eruptions occurs at least once every two decades (20 years) and a major eruption once every century (100 years).

There are several good minerals found in these mountains that are rarely exploited.

The Western section are a clustered range of smaller mountains and high ridges. Far easier to traverse with several low passes. Most of the copper and salt mines are found in the western section. There are ruins from many different cultures that have settled in this area over time.

The Blackthorn range hold large veins of salt, coal, and copper. Smaller amounts of iron and manganese are found in the Western Blackthorn while molybdenum can be found in the Eastern.

The mountain range runs along the subtropical zone with a dry summer and rainfall during the cooler months.

The Blackthorn is heavily covered with a range of evergreens and deciduous trees and dense shrublands. Olives, pines, cork oaks, myrtles, strawberry trees, sage, and junipers are all common throughout the range. The western range is more densely populated that the volcanic region of the east.

Higher up the range the land becomes almost like a desert with little or no vegetation.