Halfcut Hills

The local legend of these hills is that they were created by a god cleaving the original rock mass in two with a huge axe, leaving half behind and taking half to make his own castle home on his own plane. The hills have very sheer sides rising 200 to 350 feet, and the surfaces are covered with fossil remains, mostly of simple shellfish and ammonites. The appearance makes them look, indeed, as if they were cut open to reveal the fossils within. The hills are barren and lifeless, though some eagles nest atop the central rock massif and sometimes carry off lambs.
Nestling into the hills is Parlfray's Keep, a solid four-square structure which has been horne to the Parlfray Family for over a century. Currently, the scion of the family is Count Sandior Parlfray, a vague, pleasant, stubborn, wooly-headed squire of 71. His sole heir, Lyntern, is but 18 years of age. Lyntern's mother, Sandior's fifth attempt to sire a son and the first to surprise her husband with success at the task, died in childbirth, and the boy is lonely and miserable with his distant father.