Ice Mountains

Considered "too numerous to name", the Ice Mountains long cut off the peninsula of Ruhal from the northern cultures of the northern continent. Throughout recorded history they both protected Ruhal from invasions and prevented cultural interchange, except through the nomadic Celebrant tribes who occasionally made the long, difficult passage to the warm valleys of Ruhal:

"The northern valleys reveal themselves slowly to the traveler. The coastal plains seem to start hunching into smooth green hills, or turn slightly like a dreamer awakening beneath a blanket. Even the traders who make the journey two and three times a year are surprised each time to find that the horizon has narrowed when they were looking elsewhere, and suddenly, as if by a spell, the only unimpeded direction is North. There are mountain passes, and some of the valleys widen out again into flood plains along a river. But almost all of them, at last, narrow into steep canyons reaching toward the ice mountains, too similar and unnamed to differentiate, seeming innumerable, ravines dim with shadow throughout the day."