Kaldsfang

Warning: This page concerns archaic world setting information from the I.C.E. Age of GemStone III. It is not canon in contemporary GemStone IV, nor is it canonical for Shadow World as the details may be specific to GemStone III. It is only historical context for certain very old parts of the game and these things should not be mixed.

Kaldsfang is the I.C.E. Age term for what was later (at least transitionally) called the Trollfang mountains and forest. While it is called "Kaldsfang" in the Quellbourne source book for Shadow World, and so by the people of Kelfour's Landing, in Saralis it is called the "Saral March" and in the Rhaya tongue of Jaiman (at least in later books) it is known as the "Dragonsfang." This is a point of confusion because Dragonsfang has a narrower meaning in the Quellbourne book (1989). The term Kaldsfang was converted to "Trollfang" in the De-ICEing (1995), while the forests and street labeled Dragonsfang became "Dragonsclaw". However, they are officially the "Dragonsclaw Mountains" on the play.net website, in spite of Trollfang mountains or range still being referenced in the De-ICE'd room descriptions.

This inconsistency is an artifact of the De-ICE and the term "Trollfang mountains" should probably be considered intermediate or transitional, in much the same way "mein" still exists in a few places in spite of the word "glaes" ultimately being the replacement for "laen." In the Quellbourne source book the trolls resided in the "Upper Kaldsfang", though refers instead to the Upper Dragonsfang in the weather tables.

In the Quellbourne source book the Dragonsfang are actually a subset of the Kaldsfang Mountains (which is presumably Seoltang, likely simply meaning "cold fangs", as it is a pidgin language.) They are the western four mountains near Claedesbrim Bay, which is now called Darkstone Bay. These are Rihtoth, Smatoth, Weytoth, and Lyftoth. They are roughly two to three miles in height. The outer mountains of Rihtoth and Lyftoth are taller than the inner mountains of Smatoth and Weytoth. Smatoth is now Sentoph, and Lyftoth is now Zeltoph. Wehntoph corresponds to the position of Rihtoth, and there is no mountain in the position of Weytoth. The unaltered phrase "dragon's fang" is still referenced near Glatoph, which would instead be following the Lower and Upper Dragonsfang convention from the weather section.

Mountains

The Kaldsfang Mountains exist partly in the game, but seemingly or not obviously all of them. The originals were all Seoltang. There are some that were given new names but were disregarded, while others do not seem to be on any known list. It is theoretically possible these words are still referenced somewhere, if not in the room descriptions then perhaps objects, even items in lockers or inactive accounts. In the maps of both the modern game and the I.C.E. source books there might easily be small mountains in the range that do not have established names. These were the major named mountains.

I.C.E. Name	Seoltang	De-I.C.E.'d Name	Dragonsfang?	Exists?	Modern Analog
Rihtoth	"upright" + "mountain"	None?	Yes	Maybe	Wehntoph
Smatoth	"small" + "mountain"	Sentoph	Yes	Yes	Sentoph
Weytoth	"road/path" + "mountain"	None	Yes	No	None
Lyftoth	??? + "mountain"	Zeltoph	Yes	Yes	Zeltoph
Rototh	"red/copper" + "mountain"	None?	No	Maybe	Thanatoph (peak 1)
Hetoth	"high/tall" + "mountain"	Zeltoph	No	Maybe	Thanatoph (peak 2)
Blototh	"blown" + "mountain"	Glatoph	No (*)	Yes	Glatoph
Straketoth	"strike/ore-vein" + "mountain"	None (**)	No	No	None
Galtoth	"poison/bitter" + "mountain"	Keltoph	No	No	None
Feortoth	"far/isolated/fear" + "mountain"	Startoph	No	No	None

(*) Blototh is not one of the four Dragonsfang mountains. However, it is called the easternmost one in the game itself, similar to the apocryphal Rhaya usage.
(**) In theory "straketoth" would be "straektoph", as "strake" terms were listed as "straek." Lyftoth and Hetoth were inconsistently changed.

Straektoph, Keltoph, and Startoph would theoretically be on the north side of Darkstone Bay, in the Seolfar Strake (Modern: Lysierian Hills) region past the part of the map we can visit. This would be the peninsula still represented on the maps without any detail. However, the island with Feortoth (Startoph) is no longer present, which is where the Shaaljin (Modern: Zhaolmin) monks primarily resided.

Behind the Scenes

In the later Shadow World lore for the Xa-ar peninsula there is mention that some parts of the Kaldsfang mountains reach down into the demonic Ash Lairs. In the Quellbourne book from 1989 the gnoll lair of Stonehold (Modern: Cavernhold) is near Hetoth, not Lyftoth. The foothills of Upper Trollfang shows Zeltoph to the south, but then by Cavernhold says "you have made your way far to the east and are now directly south of Zeltoph Mountain." This may be internally inconsistent, and is inconsistent with the source material. It might be Lyftoth and Hetoth both being turned into Zeltoph. Neither are on lists.