How Fantasy Mountains make Worlds Interesting and Fun

This is a series of fantasy mountains. There's two sets of brown mountains running left to right. Beneath them is a grassy plain with blades of grass scattered throughout. Above the mountain biome is a orange sky with white clouds and flying birds.
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Sunfire

CONTENTS

Overview

Braving the extreme heat of the desert, the man finally crossed it. The only trouble was, crossing it led to a place he knew he would have difficulties making it to the other side. In front of him towered mountains. Closing his eyes momentarily, he thought about the best route to go through the mountains. Taking a step forward, the traveler began his journey over the fantasy mountains.

One of the top fantasy environments, the mountain biome is popular due to the scenic views it offers. There’s nothing like seeing the majesty of the mountains in the morning or when the sun is setting behind them.

Mountains are so popular that they appear in every work in the fantasy genre, from Middle-Earth to Skyrim. Despite being featured everywhere, you never hear anyone complaining about how often they appear. Instead, they comment on how beautiful they are. As such, fantasy mountains have become iconic

Fantasy mountains are quite versatile, appearing in virtually every other biome. This makes them easy to place as there’s really no location where they’re not needed. Due to their differing heights, mountains are a great place to add cliffs and plateaus.

Due to how high they go up, the mountain biome offers many dangers, notwithstanding their height. Other dangers include the potential of avalanches and mudslides.

In terms of the story, fantasy mountains have several roles. One, they act as a scenic backdrop. Second, they’re meant to act as a physical barrier, complicating things for the hero and his party. They must find a way to cross safely, for taking the wrong route might prove fatal.

This is the ninth in a series delving into fantasy environments. If you’d like to take a look at the eight others, you can find them on our blog page.

So grab some hiking boots, for we have quite a journey in front of us. We’re about to step into the majestic world of the mountain biome!

Their Adaptability

Fantasy mountains are one of the most adept environments. They come in many different versions:

  • Regular (they appear on plains and have no special characteristic).
  • Forest (appearing in forests or other heavily-treed areas where they’re filled with nothing but trees. The lush vegetation makes them look green. Forest mountains can also appear on plains).
  • Snow (you see them in tundra and other snow-filled lands where they’re always white. They’re also found on plains during the winter months).
  • Desert (the dry air and high temperatures of the desert makes it difficult for vegetation to grow. Their brown color is due to the rocks they’re made out of being exposed to the weather).
  • Swampland (found only in such places, their greenish-brownish appearance is a mixture of swampland vegetation growing wildly in the rock).
  • Underwater (though they’re made of rock, the mountains look blue or dark blue due to the color of the water).
  • Tropical (appearing in the tropics or small islands; they have dense vegetation due to the jungles which gives them a different greenish-brownish appearance than their swampland counterparts).
  •  
A landscape with forests, mountains, and a road.

The environment they’re placed in dictates what lives there. When deciding what animals and plants to live in a specific kind of mountainous area, put ones that make sense. For instance, bears are found in plain-, forest-, and snow-themed mountains, not in tropical mountains. Ditto for pine and oak trees.

Every fantasy mountain is different. This is especially true in mountain ranges where there’s a variety of heights. It makes it easy to include cliffs and plateaus, for they help to highlight the height difference, as well as add some terrain diversity in such areas.

It doesn’t matter where you put them, for they work in just about everywhere! This is one of their greatest strengths and you should take advantage of it!

The Dangers of Their Great Height

While the mountain biome reaches into the heavens, it’s rife with dangers. The first of which is that a single misstep could cause someone to lose their footing and fall to their doom. This danger is at its worst during the winter months where the mountains are filled with snow and ice.

Avalanches are a significant danger, for they come suddenly with little to no warning. While they’re common in snow mountains due to them being covered in snow all year long, they can happen after a heavy snowstorm that dropped a ton of snow on a forest or regular mountain. They can cause widespread devastation in mere moments.

Besides avalanches, fantasy mountains also have mudslides. This occurs after a storm dumped far more rain than usual, which softened up the ground. In turn, a great number of dirt was dredged up and became susceptible to sliding. Like avalanches, they come quickly without much warning and their sheer power leaves a string of destruction in their wake.

The most powerful form of ice magic, snowstorms wreak havoc on the battlefield. Here, against the backdrop of a dark gray sky several gray clouds are dumping snow upon a series of mountains, each already covered in snow. Several clouds are visible in front of the mountains. The darker gray spots on the mountains reveal the shadows.

Another danger of the mountain biome is the wildlife. Depending on where the mountains are, animals such as bears and cougars can attack and kill people. This particular danger is why it’s prudent to be aware of your surroundings when traveling through the mountains.

Due to their height, fantasy mountains get colder the higher one goes. This especially applies during the cold months when the average temperature gets to around or below the freezing point, depending on the month. The coldness is why it’s recommended to wait until spring and warmer weather to cross the mountains.

During the winter months, snowstorms constantly pelt mountains. The white landscape makes traveling through them quite dangerous for they make it difficult to see a clear path forward. The snow could cover a ravine or a pit that’ll make it hard to climb out of.

The higher one goes in elevation, the thinner the air gets. A thin atmosphere makes it harder to breathe, which could be troublesome for some folks. The thinning oxygen could cause someone to lose consciousness and fall to the ground, or worse fall down a slope. This is a danger not many people think about.

Their Role(s) in the Story

Fantasy mountains have several different avenues that can be used in the story. Their versatility affords them great leeway in how they’re used. This gives creators great flexibility in determining how to incorporate them in the story.

One popular avenue is to use them as scenic backdrops. This occurs when a scene is unfolding, maybe two characters are discussing their next move or someone’s frustrated about something and looking at the mountains helps soothe them. Regardless of what’s going on in the foreground, the audience can’t help but see the beauty of the mountains in the background.

Using them as scenic backdrops serves two different purposes. Firstly, it’s a great way to include them in the plot if you have no plans for your characters to explore them. Secondly, it helps set up future plotlines where the characters must journey through them.

Another avenue fantasy mountains can be used is to have them act as a physical barrier. Remember, traveling in many worlds is done by either horseback or on foot. Mountains pose a formidable obstacle for travelers as they must either go around, which will take a long time or find a safe route through despite all the dangers.

An example of an origin story, there's a mountain range with four volcanoes billowing smoke. The smoke is floating upwards in an orange sky with three white clouds. Above the mountains are several birds flying. In front of the mountain range is a vast grassland with two hills on the lower left, a large forest in the lower center, and a large lake on the lower right.

Having them act as a physical barrier is advantageous to the story because the hero and his allies must deliberate on how best to proceed. Figuring out their next step brings conflict, for the different members of the party will push to go in one direction. Somehow the hero must brook a compromise that everyone else will accept. Exercising his judgment here makes him more confident in his leadership abilities, which he’ll need down the road.

Another use for fantasy mountains is to have the hero and his party travel through them. This adds some drama and intensity to the story, for the characters don’t know what they’ll run into as they move through the mountains. The hero is out of his comfort zone and going through them will help him learn how to survive in an unfamiliar environment which will pay dividends throughout the rest of the story.

Tying it all Together

In summary, the mountain biome is an environment that can be easily integrated with the others. The possibilities are endless! How they integrate is up to you and feel free to harness your creativity to make fun, interesting mountains!

Even though mountains are great to look at, don’t forget that they too come with dangers. The wildlife and weather can make traveling treacherous where one little mistake could very well cost someone everything.

Fantasy mountains are a great asset to the story and help move it forward, depending on how they’re used. Only you decide how to use them in the story and there’s really no wrong way to use them.

Having mountains in your world only enriches it and gives you a lot more opportunities to make a fun, dynamic world that the audience loves. The only requirement is that you use your imagination to make it happen.

Before you know it, you’ll have designed mountains that bring awe to your audience! 

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Thanks for reading this and until the next time,

Sunfire

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