The+Central+Mountains

__The Iron Peaks__
The mountains in the center of the continent, The Iron Peaks, were home to the dwarves and halflings. The dwarves found their home city, Erk, in a valley on the eastern side of the mountains, while the halfling city was found between the three lakes in the hilly area to the southwest. That was all long ago.

During the Eastern invasion, miles-long tentacles rose up from deep within the dwarven caverns and destroyed the city and anyone who tried to fight them. Few dwarves remained, and those mostly sailed back to their islands to the west. The city and ruins became a stronghold for a powerful group of bandits with drow leaders leftover from the chaos following CometFall. It is now called Dong Valley. The party managed to kill one of their drow leaders, the clerical one, before being slaughtered themselves. A couple surrendered, Endo was raised from the dead, and the party went on, greatly reduced in power.

The northwestern part of the Iron Peaks are now controlled by a lich named Charnak and his undead armies, no doubt also formerly part of the Eastern invasion. Little is known about him or his plans.

The southern halfling area was also destroyed by another tentacle. It is now under the control of Tepes, a minor diety. Tepes is a slug who lived near the powerful magical energy of the drow master power-portal and began to absorb the energy and change with it. Tepes grew in power and intelligence over the eons and has spawned a race of sluglike creatures with powerful psionic abilities. He lives a paranoid life deep within the cave complex housing the power portals and center of energy that gave him birth. Whatever halflings still in existence on this continent are controlled by him completely, but the land above is mostly occupied by ogres, and the lakes are filled with huge aquatic monsters. Recently the party snuck into the central cave, and with a magic item supplied by the gods, closed the portal, hopefully permanently. This earned us the hatred of Tepes, but his power is fading and he is now (hopefully) obsessed with reopening it and not with revenge. .