Steamfont Mountains

Named for its steam

The Steamfont Mountains take their name from the natural geysers and springs in their rocky peaks, and they surround the gnome city of Ak’Anon. Allakhazam’s description adds that dragons once lived here: the fossilised remains of a very young dragon lie in a small valley, and the drakes that still roam hint that the region once mattered to the children of Veeshan, a history lost long before the elves arrived or the gnomes surfaced. The Project 1999 map marks those dragon bones, guarded by skeletons.

Allakhazam rates the zone at levels 1 to 15. The classic guides list creatures from 1 to 18, with a band from 30 to 35, and warn that Steamfont is probably the most dangerous place on Faydwer a young character might wander alone: a large zone with several distinct areas and only one true newbie area.

Sources: Allakhazam: Steamfont Mountains (zone) · Project 1999 Wiki: Steamfont Mountains · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Steamfont Mountains

Where it lies

Steamfont lies in the southeast of Faydwer, east of the Lesser Faydark. The classic guides say the only way in from outside is through the Lesser Faydark, reached from the Greater Faydark: turn about 45 degrees left on leaving the Greater Faydark pass, heading south, and the Steamfont zone line is not far, beside a small gnome outpost. The Ak’Anon guide confirms the direction from the other side: from the mountains, the narrow chasm that opens into the Lesser Faydark lies to the west. Inside, the druid rings stand in the southwest corner, Ak’Anon’s entrance is a short way east of them, and the way back to the Lesser Faydark runs north along the wall.

Steamfont and Ak’Anon lie in the southeast of the island, beside the Lesser Faydark.

Sources: Allakhazam: Steamfont Mountains (zone) · Project 1999 Wiki: Steamfont Mountains · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Steamfont Mountains · Project 1999 Wiki: Ak’Anon

Windmills, Observers and minotaurs

The gnomes have not tamed these mountains, but they have built in them. Several large windmills generate power for a project nobody outside has explained, and merchants around them sell ore, dyes, clay, sharpening stones and tinkering supplies. The Observers keep their observatories in the far reaches, and a druid stone ring has a spell merchant.

Follow the line of windmills away from Ak’Anon and you reach a rough dead-end valley between two old furnaces, home of the minotaurs. At its end the ruins of a giant clockwork machine have sunk into the ground. Minotaurs patrol in threes, the Minotaur Hero sometimes runs toward the city leaving death behind him, and the Kobold Missionary walks past the guards, who do not consider him a threat. The prize was the minotaur axe, which sold for about 4 platinum in Kelethin and 10 or more on the mainland.

Sources: EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Steamfont Mountains · Project 1999 Wiki: Steamfont Mountains

Meldrath’s clockworks

Steamfont’s other hazard is mechanical. Rogue clockworks, rogue cleaners and clockwork spiders roam the hills, and Meldrath the Malignant appears among the zone’s notable figures. The gnome engineer’s fall and the machines he left behind are told in Ak’Anon and Meldrath the Malignant. Kobold camps, plague rats with a stubborn disease, pumas and harpies fill out a zone where most areas are deadly below sixth level.

Sources: Project 1999 Wiki: Steamfont Mountains · EQ Atlas (eqatlas.ca): Steamfont Mountains

Steamfont remade

The Steamfont of today is not the classic zone. Allakhazam records that the remake was released on November 13, 2007, with Secrets of Faydwer, and the old version is kept as a separate record. The remade mountains link onward to the Loping Plains and the Dragonscale Hills, opening the way to the lands that expansion added beyond Faydwer’s old edges.

Sources: Allakhazam: Steamfont Mountains (zone)