A Popular History of Melgorehn's Reach

Title: A Popular History of Melgorehn's Reach
Author: (Unknown)

During the Second Era, a rather powerful wizard named Loul The Enchanter dwelt in the domain of Elanith. Loul was most notable as a researcher of magic and a collector of rare magical artifacts. Loul's greatest difficulty in practicing his research was the limited number of times a particular magic item could be used before it ran out of charges, and sometimes was destroyed in the process.

The latter half of this wizard's life was spent in the pursuit of a solution to this problem. Like others of his stature, Loul knew the common spells for recharging wands and staves but these were useless for recharging such items as amulets and other artifacts. So after many years, Loul was able to develop a method of recharging these items; but the process required some very unusual situations.

Loul determined that there were a few places where the flows of essence were strong enough to bleed into a magical item under the proper conditions. He also found, quite inadvertently, that the powers of spirit were also at their prime in these conditions. The wizard managed to locate an ideal essence flow, but was disappointed to find it was located several thousand feet in the air. This problem was solved by the formation of a mountain which reached high enough to provide a place to stand. A rare artifact of magic was lost forever warping the earth so.

Loul visited the dwarven city of Rhakhaan where he commissioned the clan of dwarves known as the Granto'k to build a way up the mountain to his exacting specifications. At the top they also built a chamber at the precise location Loul had instructed. The way up the mountain was designed to both ward off the uninvited, and prevent machines of siege to being moved up the trail even with the best engineers. Further Loul had the trail built to be a one way trip and let it be known to those who would attempt to climb that they would not find getting back so easy. How Loul himself managed to get down is not clear.

The conditions for recharging to be optimal required a conjunction of the great moon Liabo and its satellite Tilaok as viewed from the exact location of the major essence flow. Unfortunately for Loul, this situation occured only once every four thousand years and lasted but a few brief moments. To overcome this inconvenience, the wizard warped the time continuum at the peak of the mountain such that the proper conditions would cycle many times a (normal) day. This warping caused the peak to be shrouded in a perpetual cloud. Another artifact was lost in the creation of this time dilation.

For many years Loul continued his studies, aided by his new tool. But as fate would have it, Loul made a fatal miscalculation: Dragons, although quite majestic, are very predictable creatures. It was not long before a great red variety happened along the only mountain for leagues. It was inevitable that the creature would find this a suitable home and in doing so ripped a mighty gash into the mountain and hollowed out a suitable cavern in which to rest.

Loul was outraged by this intrusion and set out to slay the dragon before any more damage was done. The wizard was promptly eaten.

When Loul was never heard from again, the Granto'k claimed the mountain and renamed it Melgorehn's Reach, after the wizard. At its base they constructed a draw bridge for which they charged passage to anyone who wished to explore the peak. This practice went on for many years, with some reported successes on the part of explorers. The dwarves, however, suffered a great many casualties from forays by the dragon, which also called the mountain home, and eventually abandoned the enterprise for safer projects.

Despite Loul's blunder, he was not a stupid man. Before leaving to seal his fate in the battle with the Dragon, the wizard had cast one last ward which when tripped would shift the entire mountain out of existence. In his haste, however, this ward did not trip for many years. But, eventually, the ward was triggered and the mountain ceased to exist. It is thought that eventually this spell will wear off and Melgorehn's Reach will return.

Contributor's note:

Taken from the House Chesylcha library, c.1999. This version has been slightly edited. The mountain was originally named after Iorak (Eonak), and Melgorehn was not the same wizard as Loul. "elemental energies" and "energy flux" have been changed back to "flows of essence" and "essence flow" as in the original. The story is a mild allusion to the mountain of Erebor from The Hobbit, and may have been partially inspired by the Shadow World module "Star Crown Empire" from 1989. In it the Wyrmian mountains (which can be considered a dragon reference) explode and collapse under the dimensional experimentation of a Lord of Essaence known only as the Ebon Mage, killing many Dwarves and subsequently making their continent vulnerable to hordes of demonic creatures from other planes of existence. Loul was implicitly using Lord of Essaence artifacts, which reshaped the world in the First Era. He warped space and time throughout the mountain, causing future problems.