Ghyll:Ungerry-Tubers

dibs --Nikos of Ant 17:28, 8 October 2005 (EDT)

You will find no advertisements for it in Folktown. It is not the ultimate challenge to any mountain climbers. No Wakanpantricist guards have ever been stationed there. It is not well-known nor is it often sidestepped in conversation due its eerieness. No disappearances have occurred there, alleged or otherwise. And it isn't where they, them, those, or that! come from. It is simply a spot, geologic, and isolated - very isolated. It is Ungerry-Tubers.

It is so isolated that only a smidgen of the scholarmatic pool have even looked into it. Those interested in biotoxicology or in taxidermatology seem to find enough work in their own backyards, the geomantics who should take interest are too busy... elsewhere. But those few who have taken on the long trek, the hefty hike, the incongruous terrain, and the hot-cold showers that fall without warning, have found a realm of wyrd effects.

Cartographic Placement

Located within the vastness of the Sarfelogian Mountains the Ungerry-Tubers is quite easily misplaced. The whole undulating scape of slopes, valleys, and rivers is filled with both friendly and unfriendly locales, most of them unvisited. One must not forget that the term Sarfelogia is a name that applies to parts of the region that have long been characterized by marginal economy, isolation of its people from the Ghyll mainstream, and distinctive folkways. For this reason, it is necessary to get a guide in some parts of the journey, odd guides from within the odder townships that one finds in those most odd parts of the mountains. Yet to speak of the Ungerry-Tubers is to speak nonsense to these people, rather they speak of the High Smellie and the Obbnoxious Foots, others give the name Mztlplik or Zingry Karzt. There is an unspoken defference to the Ungerry, or to something therein, by the folk who live close enough to it; whether they see it as being magicked, hexed, or pyxied is hard to tell. Once, however, the traveller finds his way into Prollztqx it is quite easy to feel the formation of the Tubers. You see, the attitude changes.

"The Ungerry ist one o the lytl-troddn places of ooure world; I find that my senses are enhanced, perhaps, or ist this my owne imaginings?" --Ser Daffid Lud (journal entry -36 EC)

Formational Denotation

The Ungerry has been explained briefly by Orogenezis, a student of Rancticirchiretic within the discipline of theoarcheology:

"The Ungerry-Tubers is but one more proof of the postmortem rearrangement hypothesis, for whereas the whole of the Sarfelogian is obviously the parietal bone of the divine #47, this bastion of protruding unction is securely a segment of the lachryma."

Rancticirchiretic, himself, never mentions the Tubers in his writings nor does Oblibestircus, and when this place is mentioned in the heated debates and rebuttals between scholars, students, and members of the Cranee Historical Society, it is usually a name bantered about as if it were a donut held in the hands of a constable from Bute.

No one has ever taken the time to excavate the Tubers, indeed, with so few involved in the subject and fewer still interested in this particular location, the question of cranial dismemberment and the exact metabiological make-up of #47 has been poorly developed. Questions such as did #47 suffer suspension?, was he/she/it/they murdered by an assailant, deific or otherwise?, or did #47 die from a pre-historic gardening accident? have been left for anyone with enough interest to study on their own. Discounting the few exaggerated entries in Aliens Everywhere, the most prolific writer on the Ungerry-Tubers has been Dash Humbugg of Umbo Moor. As this article is for the scholarly community I have chosen to use only various examples of said layman's writings within this body articulate.

Denotative Poverty in re Associative Phenomena

"Dessication is but a fool's quible; #47 could have or might not have died or dispersed or simply slithered away. The proof is in the puke-puddle, look at what we've got, not what we want to see." -- Dash Humbugg (-5 EC)

Oblibestircus and his following states the current and well-defended explanation that the old gods simply lie where they died (for whatever reason), and that their incorporation into the landscape is the result of natural processes. Blivingdel's school, however, holds quite evocatively that we ourselves have taken the immortal remains of the gods of previous generations and have cut, split, buried, vaulted, hemmed & hawed them over the course of our small time on Ghyll. Though both theories give explanations as to how the divine remains may or may not have gotten to where they are now, they do not give any explanation as to the various phenomena associated with selected body parts of those same dead gods.

A third theory re the formation of the Sarfelogian Mountains is that they are a result of the dirt, rocks, boulders, sand and mud of this northern area of the mainland heaving, undulating, and being folded over itself and then some. Though this is a favorite idea of the geomanticists and the masonrics, it is still but a theory. The Sarfelogian does indeed appear like unto a marbled crumbe-cake with its swirls of light and dark, and the geodizers state confidently that the folded bands are the remains of silt and sediment pushed up over time. Even if this is true, however, the majority of this group concedes that it was probably #47 who did the heaving, pushing, and folding... a secondary group believes that this was the work of a second god, the one who perhaps murdered #47 and then used the silt, sand, rocks, and earth to cover up his/her/its diabolical deed.

When did the death of #47 occur? No one knows, but what is known is that the Sarfelogian is the oldest mountain chain on our world.

Attitudinal Observations

It has been noted by many that the Jorvyll Mountains are differentiated from the Sarfelogian Mountains primarily by their attitude. The Sarfelogians are a much calmer, more peaceful and helpful range of mountains, while the Jorvyll are rough, nasty and brutish. Yet while the distinction between the northern edge of the world and the mountains which abutt them is useful for some inquieries, it doesn't help a dawdle when looking only at the Sarfelogian! Within the Sarfelogian one finds numerous elevations and attitudes, as well as varied ecologies that encompass much more than quaint Pziqq trees and mountain meadows.

Actuated Phenomena

It is well-known to those in the know, which is actually quite a small number of folk (mostly men in white smocks who like to go on safari away from their wives), that howzingery which elsewhere occurs quite rarely is quite common in the Ungerry-Tubers. For most, howzingery is equated with Hat, Old Hat, Prollztqx - the names of the small town where it most closely occurs.

Consequential Vectors

With all that has so far been noted, observed, and stated, can it be argued that, even as the Elminster Mire was long ago, the Tubers is a dangerous force to be reckoned with?

One such effect of the wyrd is the commonalty of .

These foundational questions trouble most workers in the field, who are in fact fieldworkers, but little.

The Cranee Historical Society has taken the lead here, maintaining their general standards of careful and scientific exploration and discovery despite the attempts of pranksters, fanatics, farmers, and funicular projectors to interfere. Their own deep historical records allow them to readily identify the particular anatomical structures they dig up with the various half-forgotten gods listed in the Unquisition's archives.

For the full details thus far published, consult the Odlucian Library.

...The only other thing worth mentioning is that the inhabitants of those vague, isolated spots where Howzingery is common often mention that there is some connection between it and the heh-blammo balance. If there is any truth behind this statement, it has yet to be revealed."

[edit]Geological facts Mount Yurch is thought to have grown up rather rapidly, over the period of perhaps as little as 2000 years, during the time of the Avazian civilization. This is largely conjecture, but is based at least somewhat on fossil evidence and myths of a cataclysmic earthquake vaguely set in that period. What is more certain is that the mountain is the result of a fearsome tectonic event, as the sheer eastern face of the mountain appears to have once been a horizontal rock layer.

The scenic ranges also abound in trails, paths, passes and crude roads built by the Keglacians over the centuries. Many of these routes feature breathtaking vistas and are popular spots for camping and recreational travel. Roads leading to Nesting caves are constantly well-maintained and were it not for the relative safety of travel on the well-constructed highways, the practice of "Natural Nesting" might well have gone the way of autocannibalism as a viable practice.