The Dominarie Mountain Range lies between the Aractrashan Jungle and the Shacklack Desert. Rain clouds coming off the Caspian Sea are stopped by the height of the Dominarie Mountains. The clouds feed the rivers of Aractrash and leave the Shacklack drier than would otherwise be expected for its latitude. The Dominarie Mountains were once a bastion of dwarven civilization under Queen Shortrastor. That past was ruined by the genocidal invasion of Kruk-Ma-Kali. Now the rocky crags stand empty, filled with nothing but ghosts, monsters, and hidden treasures occasionally sought by desperate adventurers.
The Dominarie Mountains were home to goblins prior to Queen Shortrastor’s settlement. She led a band of dwarves who disliked the restrictive theocratic environment of most dwarven communities in Zeus’s Canvas. Shortrastor displaced the goblins and guided her kingdom with a strong hand during the Age of Monsters. She enjoyed her independence and never joined Cogard‘s united Dwarven Kingdom.
Shortrastor’s disdain for foreigners would be her doom in the end. During the Dragon War, she betrayed her mortal blood by serving the blue wyrm, Bavastatner. This move ended any hope of alliance with the rest of Cimmeria after the war’s conclusion. Shortrastor did her best to repair these friendships, but she was left with no one who would come to her aid when Kruk-Ma-Kali invaded. Due to past slights, Kruk-Ma-Kali committed his army to exterminating the Dominarie Dwarf race. They burned the capital and systematically killed every single Dominarie Dwarf. All dwarves within the rocky tunnels were slain.
This brutal genocide was not without consequences. The terrible wrong done against them allowed many of the Dominarie Dwarves to endure, but now as shades and ghosts. Constant harassment by these undead made the Dominarie Mountains uninhabitable. The goblins attempted to retake their homeland and failed. The Aractrashan Kingdom attempted to claim a foothold but could get no further than their mines at the base of the mountains. The only things that survive within the Dominarie Range now are undead and other horrid monsters that are unperturbed by the evil miasma within the silent dwarven tunnels.
