MOUNT RHEUM

Mount Rheum was made accessible in June 2018. The mountain is usually covered in a thick veil of fog, and the only way one can get to the mountain is by journeying up the stairs to nowhere scattered throughout the forest. One can only leave the mountain by finding one of these staircases against the mountain and going back down.

As of November 2020, the mountain can be accessed like a regular mountain. The mountain is a dangerous place filled with mysteries and monsters, so it's safe to always go with a friend and a backpack filled to the brim with survival equipment. More of the mountain will be revealed as the game progresses, but there are locations that characters can discover on their own time.

First Impressions
The Wilderness
The Buildings
Monsters on the Mountain

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

GETTING TO THE MOUNTAIN

As of November 2020, the literal terrain of Deerington has shifted and accessing Mount Rheum is now easier than it was before. One no longer has to find a Staircase to Nowhere, but can instead climb the mountain as one would in real life. You can approach the mountain's stony slopes and scale it with hiking gear or fly to the top.

Due to this change, some of the strangeness of the mountain has been altered as well. There is no longer such a dividing feeling of realities as you climb the mountain. It feels more like a regular mountain. The mountain is always snowy and gets snowy relatively fast the higher you go.

Beyond Mount Rheum

Despite the new normalcy of Mount Rheum, if one looks off of Mount Rheum at any point during their climb, they will still find this unusual sight:

If anyone were to turn and look back out over the edge of Rheum, they will find that they will see at the bottom of the mountain what looks to be........

Their own home. No matter who is looking, if they are familiar enough with their home town or city, they'll find it at a bird's eye view from the edge of the mountain. They won't be able to see what their companion sees unless they're from the same place. Of course, if they rush back down the stairs, they will find no such thing to be there. It'll just be Deerington as always.

No matter which side of the mountain you walk to, you will discover that the sight beyond remains the same. It will always be of a character's homeworld. They may even see the same stars from their own home from on top of Mount Rheum, see the same plants beyond, the same moons, the same sunsets and sunrises.

The Trails

There do seem to be consistent trails all throughout the mountain. Many of them appear to be hiking trails that are meant for scenic routes or challenging climbs. The more challenging trails seem to be more steadily worn in, and some are even laid in with small rocks for added traction. Many of the trails lead to the various buildings or locations throughout the mountain, including caves and other nature locations. There are no maps for the mountain, but the trails do seem to at least remain the same so markers could be made.

All around you, you can hear the wind howling through the trees and feel an unsteady discomfort that you're not quite alone. Sometimes you even swear you can hear whispering among the trees. Surely you know to stick to the trails, right? Right. Good!

Lining all trails are the small lanterns with candles lighting up inside. The candles don't seem to ever run out nor can you blow them out. You can remove a lantern from the post and carry it with you. If you make your way back, you'll discover that the lantern you took was replaced with a new one. You can even tell that it's new because it won't have as much snow on it as the other ones seem to and the material that makes up the lantern even seems fresher and less aged.

The lanterns are a bit of a weapon themselves, however. While one cannot blow them out, if one were to throw the lantern, they'll discover that it acts as a fiery explosive.

How useful.

Off the Beaten Trail

The trails themselves have a pretty consistent, normal wintery weather. Some days it's clear and bright, no snowfall whatsoever. Other times, there will be fat snowflakes falling that seem to cover your footsteps but don't seem to build on the trail itself. There might even be nights that are more frigid than others, making you want to seek shelter in one of the cabins or perhaps a tent you thought to bring with you on your exploration.

But if you go off the trail, you'll instantly encounter a roaring blizzard. As you walk through the pines, you'll find it almost impossible to orient yourself in the thick snowfall.

People with teleportation powers or sight powers will find that they can't even navigate their way out of this blizzard. If they try teleporting back to the trail, they'll just wind up in another part of the blizzard. Anyone with any sort of sight power will find that they can barely use it, that their brain scrambles when they try to.

You may, however, get lucky enough to come across a cabin all on your own. And that does happen! It isn't so impossible at all, thank God.

But most people wind up saved by the White Mountain Deer. This deer will often come out of the blizzard radiating warmth and life. Birds sing in its antlers, the greenery growing on it seems vibrant as summer itself. The deer will gladly accompany people to cabins, leading the way steadily. Being near the deer provides warmth. More than that though, it seems like the blizzard and wind doesn't touch the deer at all. Both seem to go around the deer. And if you're touching the deer, it seems like they go around you too.

The deer can be convinced to cozy up with you in a cabin if you really want it to. After all, the deer of Deerington are very friendly.

All cabins have trails leading to them, so you can find your way back to the rest of the trails by following this back out onto the mountain. Maybe next time you'll know better than to wander off the trail!

THE WILDERNESS

Flora and Fauna and Weather

Most of the nature in Mount Rheum is about what you would expect up in the mountains. Most of the woods are composed of different species of conifers. Regular animals that may be found throughout the mountain are anything ranging from owls, hawks, cardinals to rabbits, raccoons, foxes to moose, mountain lions, regular wolves, and coyotes. The weather for the most part seems to always be snowy on the mountains unless otherwise stated for a location.

Even though the mists of the mountain bring the bugs, one will never encounter the giant bugs that come from the mist around the mountain. It does make one wonder where all those bugs really came from.

The Caves

There are numerous caves scattered throughout the mountain. Most can be found at the end of trails, whereas others someone may fall into while walking through the blizzards. The caves are complicated passageways that are about as dangerous as you would expect them to be. Thankfully one could technically find their way out of most caves, whether or not they came by them by accident. The caves seem to be just regular caves- well. Except for the couple of supernatural creatures lurking within.

Although there is a rumor that every now and then, you might hear a young girl crying somewhere in the caves. Following the voice will lead to nothing though, and chances are good you'll just get yourself more lost than you were before.

THE BUILDINGS

The Lab

When you finally arrive at the lab and the main source of all those lights on the mountain, you'll discover that as the trees give way, so does the snow. You'll step onto smooth grass and once again feel warm summer air no matter the time of year you've decided to visit. There is a distinct line between the snow and the grass, and if you put your hand back over where the snow is, you'll feel the cold air once more. Huh.

The lab itself is surrounded by a styled scenic moat with multiple bridges crossing over it. The strangest thing is you don't really see much in terms of protection. There are no guards, no wired fences. You can even see people moving about within the building through some of the windows, though it's difficult to pick out any of the fine details beyond generic men and women in lab coats. Mostly you just see them walking about, checking clipboards, or carting along with supplies. You can't find any name no matter where around the lab you look, but maybe your best bet is just to...walk inside.

If you were thinking this was too easy, you'd be right. Crossing the moat seems fine enough, but the moment you're passed over the bridge, a booming scream of a young girl's will ring out. This isn't just the sound of a kid screaming either: it sounds like the sky itself opened up and let out a long, singular screeching reign. It's so loud that it shakes the ground and makes the water in the moat tremble. You can feel it all the way through your body to the point your teeth will chatter. And the screaming won't stop either- not until you back away from the building and go back over the bridge. Think you can ignore it? No siree. This scream seems to make it incapable to orient yourself at all. You'll lose all sense of direction and frankly, you'll be lucky if you can successfully go back over the bridge.

Once you're finally out of range of the scream, you'll find that you've gone completely deaf for an hour or two, and you'll even find evidence of blood dripping from your ears. Your sense of touch will also be completely off, everything soft and senseless under your fingers.

The weird thing though? If someone is with you and they don't cross the bridge but you do? They won't hear the scream at all. Not only that but if they're bothering to pay attention to the lab itself, they might be able to report that it seems like the people inside of the lab don't notice the scream either.

If you try to shout to the lab people from across the moat, not a single one will look at you.

But.

If you happen to be looking up at any point, you might notice a head peeking over the edge at the very, very top of the building on the roof. The moment you notice it, it'll vanish away. Yet if you weren't mistaken you'd swear that ...it looked like a kid.

As of August 2019, Sodder's Heart has manifested against the side of the Lab. You can read more about Sodder's Heart and how to access it, and possibly the Lab itself, here.

The Cabins

There are cabins scattered all throughout the woods and off various paths. They're surprisingly...nice looking. They don't look like something out of some horror movie, in any case, and most of them have lanterns lighting the walkway up to the staircase. The cabins all seem moderately small and in pretty decent condition. While some of them may have lights on inside, if you knock, no one will answer. And any of the doors you try will open with complete ease. Inside the cabin, you'll find that it's a little chilly, but the electric works fine. Turn on some lights and you'll find a living room stocked with a couch, a kitchen stocked with cookware, dishware, a table, and even a small amount of fresh food. There's even some jackets hanging up and boots sitting underneath by the front door. All the cabins come with either one or two bedrooms, each supplied with a queen-sized bed complete with surprisingly high-quality bed sheets. We're talking hotel-quality here. There's only a single bathroom per house, but the water seems to run hot in the tub so that's nice at least. There are two brown towels per bathroom and they're nice and fluffy.

There's no TV, but there are bookshelves filled with some classic books that aren't at all corrupt. You can find stories like Call of the Wild and Little Women and The Hobbit all throughout the shelves. Some are even present in different languages. In place of a TV is a brick fireplace, and sitting in an alcove just next to the fireplace is a bunch of wood. If one were to explore outside the cabin, they would discover a bunch more wood under the house and next to it.

Some wool blankets can be found in a trunk behind the couch. You also find a large number of children's toys scattered throughout the cabin as if someone had just been playing there. Nothing at all even looks dusty.

It's ....cozy. Really cozy. You can't really place your finger on why it feels so safe until you look up.

There are antlers everywhere. Someone had gone through the task of hanging hundreds and hundreds of antlers from the ceilings.

It seems safe enough. While you can still hear the winds roaring outside and the occasional screech of the wendigos, you'll be fine enough. The only way a wendigo could find its way to one of the cabins was if you lead it there yourself. Otherwise? This is a safe house.

...A safe house with a bit of a siren pull. You'll find that it's extremely hard to want to leave the house. The food seems to restock itself readily, and the longer you spend there, the more likely you are to forget what you really have any reason to leave. It's safe. There's food. What more could you really want?

The Mines

Around the west side of the mountain, as one follows one of the longest trails, they may come upon a worn looking wooden building. They'll realize that they can step off the path and over to this building and that's when the path opens up to a clearing. Several wooden, barren buildings with no windows leave a ghost yard of what once was a mine. It looks beyond its age, most of the buildings collapsed in on themselves. They're so old that even investigating the buildings doesn't come up with too much except maybe a few dusty helmets and rusted through pitch axes. There's even a locker room one can find where all the lockers have rusted to shit, and everything inside them either rotten or turned to dust. It seems like the mining had once been for coal. The air itself smells like burning, though no one can detect any such smoke.

If one were to continue their investigation, they will come upon where the miners had gone down into the mountain. There's a simple track set up with a couple of cars that might have once carried miners and tools alike down into the mines. A gaping black hole is in the side of the mountain, partially blocked by these cars. Trying to walk into this hole will result in a wall of fire roaring up from the dark. If you don't back away quickly enough, you will be incinerated instantly.

For characters with durability/immunity to fire: You will not get burned, but even if you were to walk ahead, the fire will be endless. The only way to leave it is to go back the way you came.

The Summoning Sinkhole

Where Sodder's Heart once was, one can now discover the Summoning Sinkhole. This is relatively low on the mountain and easily accessed by most characters.

MONSTERS ON THE MOUNTAIN

Monster Specifics

This information can also be found on the bestiary page. But these monsters are only on the mountain and are not capable of leaving the mountain unless someone brings their body down.

More monsters may be revealed in future events.

Here are the scales for monster difficulty:

Difficulty to Defeat
★☆☆☆☆ - As easily as a human.

★★☆☆☆ - Extremely difficult but can still be put down by enough firepower from ordinary weapons.

★★★☆☆ - Must rely on monster's weaknesses in order to kill- otherwise this beast is impervious/sturdy.

★★★★☆ - Usually requires a specific item or ritual to kill.

★★★★★ - Impossible to kill. Can only banish/put to sleep/send away.

Monster Hostility Level
✦✧✧✧✧ - This creature is actively gentle. May even help characters.

✦✦✧✧✧ - A passive creature but it can be frightened into violence.

✦✦✦✧✧ - Will hunt characters but only for food or to defend itself/territory/its young. Otherwise, not particularly aggressive.

✦✦✦✦✧ - If certain conditions are met, this monster is extremely hostile. Otherwise it is dormant/harmless.

✦✦✦✦✦ - Will actively attack characters the moment it can. Doesn't necessarily need them to live, but even if it does, it normally drags out death in order to relish in it.

Mountain Wendigo

★★★☆☆
✦✦✦✦✧
Respawn period: When a wendigo is killed, it is killed permanently. There is no respawn period.

The Mountain Wendigo is an incredibly lethal monster. It's extremely fast and inhumanly strong. It will tear a victim apart. It will usually consume the flesh, but sometimes may just dispose the body. They do have poor eye sight and rely on finding their prey through motion. Remaining completely still is a good way to avoid being killed by these wendigos. They will move on after snooping around a still person. The only way to kill wendigos is through fire. Shooting them with shotguns or big-blasted weapons will throw them back and knock them out for a little bit, giving you a good chance of running away. You can take shelter in houses or behind walls successfully.

A wendigo's bite will not make someone a wendigo. However, when they are killed, their spirit is released into the air and will possess a new person. Possessed people will feel disoriented and sick, feeling antsy. They will fall into hysterics easily and feel the urge to eat people. This urge will only get worse and worse, and their bodies will begin to decay and crumble, their limbs elongating, hair falling out, and their sight going. Eventually they will call to the urge to go to the mountain and live their days out there.

If a wendigo is not killed with fire, they remain biologically immortal.

Cave Dwellers

★★☆☆☆
✦✦✦✧✧
Respawn period: When a dweller is killed, it is killed permanently. There is no respawn period.

Dwellers reside within the caves of Mount Rheum. These creatures seem to live in pack-like structures and seem capable of reproduction as there are baby dwellers seen within the various packs. They often hunt in groups and seem intelligent to some extent, being able to plan and plot how they kill. They are completely blind, but unlike the mountain wendigos, they seem to be able to rely on all their other senses in order to hunt. Staying completely still isn't going to help you here. These creatures might be blind, but they have an extremely heightened sense of smell, hearing, touch, and taste. You can sometimes see dwellers feeling the ground for mud that wasn't there before, sniffing the air for unusual smells, tasting specks of blood and using that to find out where injured prey might be hiding. They build nests into the walls of the caves in clusters surrounding pools of blood they seem to gather from their prey. These pools of blood are used to nurse the young, as many can often be seen drinking from it, not quite able to eat meat yet with their teeth but still needing to rely on the blood for sustenance.

Dwellers aren't as fast as the mountain wendigo, but they are fast and very graceful in the caves. They are capable of scaling the walls within the caves effortlessly, so don't forget to look up while in a mountain. You'll never know what might be making its way through the stalactites. They seem extremely strong, but no stronger than a man who has been dedicated to working out the entirety of his life. Getting caught in a pack of them is the most dangerous, since they won't hesitate to grab and rip apart. Their skin is thicker than a man's, however, but it just takes sturdier bullets or sturdier blades. Their teeth are their main weapon and the fangs from these creatures seem unbreakable. Wouldn't be a bad idea to use some of them for crude weaponry.

Mating season for dwellers seems to be during the spring, and it's extremely dangerous to be in the caves during this time. Male dwellers get exceptionally hostile and will kill. Mother dwellers will grow hostile over their young and kill for them as well. It takes only two months for dwellers to have their young, which are born exceptionally small. Baby dwellers are very vulnerable, not yet having grown in the thick skin of their parents or the hard teeth. They have floppy ears and are almost cute. Kind of. If you squint and tip your head all the way over. Dwellers are also territorial, and it isn't uncommon to see dwellers fighting each other if different packs meet over territory borders. Dwellers eat both animals and people.

Cave Bats

★★☆☆☆
✦✦✧✧✧
Respawn period: When a bat is killed, it is killed permanently. There is no respawn period.

The cave bats are huge. They are two times the size of a regular human and they know it. These bats live like regular bats, and they will often take to the skies around the mountain to hunt. They mostly eat birds, insects, and the few larger prey they are capable of finding such as raccoons. These bats actually seem completely uninterested in people. They might fall down from the ceiling of a cave to sniff curiously at a human, but will mostly leave them alone. Mostly. The funny thing though is that the bats, for some reason, seem to think people are babies. They sometimes will try and wrap their wings around them and squeak in anger at other bats if they imprint on a human-adopted-baby. And no, it doesn't matter if you're a fully fleshed adult. You are now a bat baby if a bat has decided on it.

This is fine and all, but it does make it pretty hard to leave a bat parent. They feel extremely protective. The one good thing? These bats are really good at killing cave dwellers. While they are endeared by humans, they hate dwellers, and for good reason. The dwellers seem to eat bats as a primary source of food and the bats are smart enough to know this. Their teeth are even harder than the dwellers and they make a habit of eating dweller young. These bats are pretty hard to kill, but it's still possible to bring them down with enough gun power, but there's usually no real reason to kill them to begin with.

These bats depend on sonar in order to make their way around caves and the mountain. They have ear-piercing shrieks that often cause ringing in the ears and a bit of disorientation. Thankfully all you need to do is cover your ears and you won't get impacted by the shrieks. They do sometimes use their screams to disorient prey.

Dire Wolves

★☆☆☆☆
✦✦✦✧✧
Respawn period: When a wolf is killed, it is killed permanently. There is no respawn period.

There is not a particularly large amount of dire wolves in the mountain. There seem to be three large packs that run their territories throughout the pines of the mountain. These wolves are massive enough that a man could comfortably ride it about like a horse. Not that you really ever could. These wolves are feral creatures that hunt and defend their territories. Beyond their size, there doesn't seem to be anything particularly magical about them. They do seem to be much more intelligent than the average wolf though. They seem capable of assessing situations as well as people. You very well could talk your way out of an encounter with a dire wolf. It seems to understand human speech to some extent, and you might even be able to get a wolf who will shake its head or nod to what a human is saying- but that's if you're lucky.

The wolves are easy enough to kill, but mostly they stick to themselves. They don't seem very interested in hunting people and can anyone really blame them? There's moose after all and people might as well be snack packs in comparison. These wolves closely protect their puppies, but at times will leave them alone in order to hunt. It is possible to take a puppy back down the mountain to raise as a pet. Well. A pet that knows you're not really the boss. These animals will always be feral to some extent and want to be on their own, but they have been known to be protective of any humans that have raised them. But if you do take a puppy, you'll want to run like hell because it won't take long for a pack to realize it's missing one of its own and God help the person who is trying to leave with a puppy.