The Patchwork Hills

The Patchwork hills are so called because their appearance in the fall is mottled and patchy, not unlike an irregular patchwork quilt. Heather and bracken coat the hillsides, and the grazing is poor (bracken is virtually inedible). If the weather is good and the prevailing wind from the north in mid-fall hillsmen burn away the vegetation here to protect the terraces from encroachment by the choking bracken.
To the southeast, the Patchwork hills merge into lightly wooded hills, eventually blending into the Thornwood. The terrain here is very rocky and wild (movement is reduced by 50%) and the plant growth is scrubby, stunted, and uneven. There are occasional sightings of big cats, notably mountain lions, within the wooded hills: The Pitcher and the Pitchfork in Harlaton proudly displays the skin of an especially large male mountain lion over its hearth (rather mangy and moth-eaten with age).