As everyone knew, in the beautiful land of Middle-earth, the coldest region had to be the vast ice fields of the Northern Wastelands at the continent's far northern edge. The Elves called that land, where ordinary people could scarcely survive, the Frodo Region.
Nearly ten thousand years earlier, the Dark Lord Morgoth had ruled there, and his evil power still influenced that vast expanse of land.
Some wise folk believed its unnatural cold must have been caused by darkness. That was why the powerful servants left behind after Morgoth's defeat-the Cold-drakes-were willing to make their lairs there.
Bountiful Rhovanion escaped the far north's bitter cold because it was sheltered by mountains. This was especially true of the Éothéod Region, separated from the north by only a single mountain range. Beyond it, the weather was harsh and freezing, but on this side, lush pastures and plentiful water made the land ideal for raising livestock.
It had to be said that in a world with gods, the laws behind certain everyday natural phenomena might not conform to common sense-or rather, they conformed to this world's common sense.
The mountains sheltering Rhovanion were, of course, the Grey Mountains, whose peaks remained snow-covered all year round. They stretched for more than five hundred kilometers, their eastern limit reaching the uninhabited Smaug Wasteland in the north.
South of that wasteland lay the Kingdom under the Mountain, where the Durin Dwarves now lived. That was already beyond the bounds of the Grey Mountains.
To the west stood Mount Gundabad, the sacred mountain of the Durin Dwarves. Legend held that their forefather, Durin I, had been born there. The westernmost end of the range joined the Misty Mountains, and farther west lay an offshoot of that range, the Mountains of Angmar.
Although the peaks remained blanketed in