Sunderpeak Mountains

Fan art of a speculative map of Issylra and Marquet, with the Sunderpeak Mountains shaded blue-grey and outlined in dark red, by Aaron Larsen. (Note that some locations, such as Vesrah and Shorecomb, are uncertain.)

The Sunderpeak Mountains are one of three known major mountain ranges on the continent of Issylra. Located in the southern reaches of Othanzia, two days' ride on horseback southwest of its major population center of Vasselheim, the steep, snow-capped Sunderpeak range divides the northern region of Othanzia from the lesser-known (and virtually unexplored) regions of Issylra to the south, including the lush Demithore Valley. This mountain range also includes an intensely volcanic region that is home to a rift to the Elemental Plane of Fire.

Notable places

• The Cindergrove: A petrified, ever-burning forest in the valley caldera atop the Sunderpeak Mountains, where the Rift of Flame leading to the Elemental Plane of Fire is located.
• Pyrah: The Fire Ashari keep a close eye on the rift from their village on the outskirts of the Cindergrove.

Creatures

• Ettins: two-headed giants

History

Before Campaign One

Vilya of the Air Ashari passed through Pyrah during her Aramenté, completed her trial with the Fire Ashari, and left to continue her odyssey around 800 PD.

"Aramente to Pyrah" (1x22)

Cartographer Tyriok Gadsworth described the mountains as pretty steep. Vox Machina, traveling to Pyrah, could smell ash and something like burnt cedar even at the base of the mountain range. To the untrained eye the mountains looked like unclimbable, sheer cliffs, but Vex'ahlia spotted very thin, steep switchback paths leading up. The party fought off an attack by ettins on the path, and reached a three-mile-wide, uncomfortably hot caldera coated with jagged obsidian and scattered pools of sulfur-emitting mud. As they made their way toward the Cindergrove within, they encountered the Fire Ashari. Flamespeaker Cerkonos confirmed to Keyleth that her mother Vilya had passed through ten years earlier, and he immediately led Keyleth to her own trial through the Rift of Flame. After completing the trial, Keyleth and the rest of Vox Machina returned with Cerkonos and the other Ashari to Pyrah, where they stayed one night before trekking back toward Vasselheim.

"Desperate Measures" (1x40)

When Keyleth and Allura scried on Pyrah, they discovered it had been destroyed, apparently during Thordak's escape from the Elemental Plane of Fire. Where the Fire Ashari village once stood, there was nothing but sundered wood, charred bodies, and trees flattened by an explosive blast. In the center, there was a large, ominous, flickering gash between the Elemental Plane of Fire and the Material Plane, roughly thirty to forty feet in width and height, as lava poured out of it. Wandering imps, elementals, and various entities peeked out and escaped from the portal into the mountains.

"Those Who Walk Away" (1x45) and "Cindergrove Revisited" (1x46)

Vox Machina returned to Pyrah, finding that only a fraction of the Cindergrove remained, and jagged obelisks of obsidian were jutting up from what had been a smooth shale plain. The volcano continued to erupt, but the surviving Fire Ashari, with the help of several Air Ashari led by Keyleth's father Korrin, were cooling the lava where they could. The party saw the incinerated remains of the dead of Pyrah, and a very large, central red rift pulsing with sun-bright energy.

The Ashari and Vox Machina split up to corral various fire-type elementals back into the growing Rift of Flame. Vox Machina met and secured the aid of necromancer Gern Blanston along the way, and defeated an efreeti, a salamander, and several fire elementals that came back through the rift to challenge them. The Ashari arrived, and the combined group re-sealed the rift. Korrin stayed to help the Fire Ashari rebuild, and Vox Machina left to continue on their quest to combat the Chroma Conclave.

References

Art: