Talk:Yehimal Mountains

Which is what?
Yehimal Mountains, Wu Pi Te Shao, World Pillar Mountains and Roof of the World are treated as different names for the same massive mountain range in this article, while in others they are treated as part of the Yehimal Mountains or separate mountain ranges. This might be due to lack of source information. Can anyone clarify? Daranios (talk) 10:07, October 31, 2016 (UTC)


 * And the Web Mountains, the Shao Mountains, and countless other local names for adjoining ranges. The whole place is a mess. In my experience, the names seem to be used interchangeably, or some are local Faerûnian/Zakharan/Kara-Turan names for the same place, but there's also a lot of arms and branches to the ranges that could well have different names. I'm not sure. In the absence of different mountain articles, I've been linking everything to Yehimal Mountains, or to one of the other mountain range names that redirects here, and I suppose others have been too.
 * So I think we need to have a dedicated effort to deciphering the different ranges and names here, comparing the lore to the maps, and defining what each is. I was leaving it until late in my Utter East project, because it was too daunting. — BadCatMan (talk) 13:35, October 31, 2016 (UTC)


 * That's what I suspected. I think there is also very little I can contribute from a Zakharan point of view, but when you are at a point in your project where you want to go about this, count my very small side in. Daranios (talk) 15:06, October 31, 2016 (UTC)


 * Okay. I think I'll be tackling some of the the smaller sub-ranges and branches and building up and inward as I progress. If you can confirm exactly what the Jibal al-Akbas and/or World Pillar Mountains is, that would be great. — BadCatMan (talk) 01:41, November 1, 2016 (UTC)


 * Is this enough mountains for you? :o Those are just the ones largely a part of the main mass or immediate branches. There are others more tenuously or distantly connected, but they're not really a problem. Looking at the maps, I feel the Yehimals are the main spine of the mountain range (always the biggest label), while the others are branches or smaller parts of the range. For clarity and accuracy, I feel they'll all need separate articles, as each has distinct lore to it. — BadCatMan (talk)

Okay, I've determined the limits of the Wu Pi Te Shao Mountains (and distinguished them from the Shao Mountains) and separated them from this article. That completes the split of this article. I've cleaned up the page, but it's still a stub until I develop the core Yehimal. — BadCatMan (talk) 05:37, February 28, 2017 (UTC)

World Pillar Mountains
Yeah, that's some mountains! ;-) The Land of Fate map makes it clear that Jibal al-Akbas is just a different (Midani) name for the World Pillar Mountains. Some statements in Land of Fate imply, while the "Roof of the World" article from Dragon magazine 241 makes it clear that the World Pillars are the same as the territory controlled by the yak-men. That means the branch of the Yehimal Mountains stretching south into Zakhara. However, the map in Land of Fate seems rather to indicate that World Pillar Mountains is another name for the whole Yehimal Mountains, as it is printed not on the southern branch itself, but onto the narrow connection towards the central part of the Yehimals. Most mentions I could find in Al-Qadim material are neutral with regard to this question. So on the whole I would say the World Pillars are that southern, Zakharan branch - aside from the weighted evidence, that would be just more useful than treating it as a synonym of the Yehimals. Daranios (talk) 21:05, November 1, 2016 (UTC)


 * I concur. No Realms, Horde, or Kara-Tur maps make any mention of the World Pillar Mountains/Jibal al-Akbas, so it appears to be solely an Al-Qadim term. I think, in-universe, it's a matter of perspective: Zakharans can see only the massive and impenetrable World Pillars, so to them it's all the World Pillars, and they don't have names or knowledge of the ranges north of it. In any case, the World Pillars have a very Zakharan-oriented flavour, so it's more useful for organization purposes to have it as a separate range, rather than imply that yak-men live through the Yehimal or that Langdarma might be found among them.


 * So I propose a split: a separate article for the World Pillar Mountains/Jibal al-Akbas, detailing the Zakharan lore. That might be the same as the Land of the Yak-Men, or else it just holds the yak-men land, whatever you and Artemaz feel is best. The Yehimal page can link to the World Pillars as a sub-range or southern branch. I've tagged the page for a split; I imagine there'll be others.


 * How much is "Roof of the World" used? The Kara-Tur book says "Tabot" means "Roof of the World", while the yak-men Dragon article uses that for the World Pillars. I think it better to take these as separate and unrelated terms. — BadCatMan (talk) 00:58, November 2, 2016 (UTC)


 * I completely agree about the Zakharan perspective. In the end I would like to have separate, geography-oriented World Pillar Mountains article, which links to the Land of the Yak-Men/Yikarian Empire for politics/society aspects, as these just slightly expand into the lowlands, too.
 * I have seen the term "Roof of the World" only in the Dragon article, and that only once uses it in the text - so I think this was mainly to have a nice-sounding title. So we can basically stick to using this term in connection with Tabot. Daranios (talk) 20:30, November 2, 2016 (UTC)


 * Sounds good.
 * Okay. I thought about making "Roof of the World" redirects or disambiguations, but it seems neither term is used often enough to be much of a concern, so I left it.
 * The Horde gives a good overview of the Yehimal and discusses how it comprises a number of smaller ranges, and it also discusses them separately. So I think this will be a good basis for developing it. — BadCatMan (talk) 00:24, November 3, 2016 (UTC)

I have now created a separate World Pillar Mountains article as one step of the split. Daranios (talk) 17:14, November 28, 2016 (UTC)


 * Excellent work! I'll see about developing the core Yehimal at some stage. — BadCatMan (talk) 13:12, November 29, 2016 (UTC)

Development and questions
And as promised, I've begun developing the core Yehimal. The first thing I realised was that "Yehimal Mountains" is a bit of a redundancy, hence I renamed the page. Second thing, despite the massive size of the place, there isn't all that much lore of the Yehimal themselves, once you divide off the various subranges and branches. That helped immensely.

The Horde gives descriptions, climate data, and encounter tables for three categories of mountains/environments in the Hordelands: high peaks, rugged and dry ranges, and wooded mountains. The Yehimal come under the first category, and many other of these ranges under one of the three. But I always have to wonder which information is too general to include in a given range and which information is still relevant to the page. For example, should I include the high peaks climate chart on all the ranges classified as high peaks? Should I list all the possible creatures from the encounter tables, or only those confirmed as existing or not existing in the range? — BadCatMan (talk) 12:48, March 17, 2017 (UTC)


 * Tricky questions. Maybe the climate data should be used for those mountain ranges, that are really mostly high mountains? For the creatures I now wonder the same thing for the Monstrous Compendium Al-Qadim Appendix, which has only one generic table for "Mountains" (presumably no matter their height, but then goes on confusingly to say that "Mountains" are meant to be "high peaks"), but cannot make up my mind one way or the other now, sorry. Daranios (talk) 17:33, March 17, 2017 (UTC)


 * Specifically, in The Horde it refers to the slopes and tops of the "high peaks" mountains, not the valleys and meadows in between (though The Horde lacks a climate chart for these). I'm of a mind to include the climate data, as, though it might not be specific, it is applicable. And it does pretty up some otherwise plain articles with some neat charts.


 * But for the encounter tables, I think it might be better to treat them as crunch, if they're not specific to a certain area. They're based on 1e/2e monster frequency ratings and climate/terrain types and intended for DMs to generate random encounters. So cloud giants and galeb duhr might exist in the Yehimal, if the DM wishes to use them, but there's nothing to confirm it in the lore, and they might be more likely in another "high peaks" range in the Hordelands. On the other hand, the chart confirms asperii are only found in the Yehimal and no other Hordelands range, so that would go on the page. — BadCatMan (talk) 02:02, March 18, 2017 (UTC)


 * And now I think I'm done with this, but I'll have to make some revisions to the other mountain ranges. — BadCatMan (talk) 11:00, March 19, 2017 (UTC)