Ice Run

The Ice Run was a network of tunnels and sunken trails in the Great Glacier along northern Vaasa in the 14 century DR.

By the late 15 century DR, this section of the Great Glacier had melted away, revealing the Lugsaas Chain mountains and two passes through them called The Ice Run and the Valley of the White Worm.

Description
The Ice Run was a network of ice-walled pathways cutting through the Great Glacier. These twisted and winded, making a quite tortuous maze. All in all, they extended several hundred miles in length.

Many of these paths were open to the sky, but the sun above reflected off the walls of ice, filling the passages with dazzling light. This could be quite bewildering to explorers, and so the open tops offered no better chance of escape.

Geography
In the mid–14 century DR, the many miles of tunnels that made up the Ice Run stretched all along the southern face of the Great Glacier in Vaasa. This section of the Glacier reached as far south as Delhalls in western Vaasa and Talagbar in eastern Vaasa, although the areas occupied by Castle Perilous and Palischuk were free of the Glacier by that time. As the Great Glacier continued its centuries-long melt and retreat northward, the Ice Run would gradually disappear, revealing ancient settlements and landscapes from beneath it.

Inhabitants
The folk of the White Worm tribe saw the Ice Run as their holy ground, and also used it as a defensive retreat. Only they knew how to traverse this hazardous maze, and they most often wandered there. This most unwelcoming of tribes was especially hostile to trespassers.

Also roaming the Ice Run were remorhazes, the white worms held as totems by the barbarians, as well as northern bears.

The Ice Run was naturally very dangerous for explorers.