Serpent's Spine

The mountain range of the Serpent's Spine is located in central Britannia and runs from west to east.

Description
The mountains of the Serpent's Spine, named after the way their profile looks from the windows of Lord British's castle, separate the Deep Forest in the north from Britain and Castle Britannia in the south. They are next to impassable, so one either has to go around them, or use the Serpent's Pass. These mountains also hold the entrance to the dungeon Despise in their middle part.

Age of Enlightenment
In Ultima IV the Stranger learned from the ghost Isaac in Skara Brae, that the stolen White Stone was hidden in these mountains, and that a balloon was needed in order to actually reach it. With the balloon from the entrance of Hythloth, the Stranger did manage to reach the small valley in the Serpent's Spine, marked by an aknh shrine, and recover the stolen stone.

Several years later in Ultima V, the Avatar learned from the glassblower Sven in Buccaneer's Den that a shipment of glass swords got lost in the Serpent's Spine by an incompetent airship captain. Using the grapple, the Avatar reached exactly the same valley where the white stone had been, and found there numerous glass swords.

Age of Armageddon
By the time of Ultima VII, several radical elements under the leadership of the mage Selwyn had erected their own fortress in these mountains and planned to murder the king of Britannia. They however got surprised and killed by the Avatar, before these plans could come to fruition. The mage's tower could be found at the foot of the mountains.

Unlike other parts of the land, the Great Cataclysm caused the Serpent's Spin to grow, fully separating the two parts of the now smaller Britannain mainland, making travel between parts next to impossible in Ultima IX, with the Avatar being forced to resort to a tunnel to pass the mountains.

Places of Interest

 * Cave of the White Stone (NES Port of Ultima IV)
 * Dungeon Despise
 * Selwyn's Tower (just west of it)

Trivia

 * According to the epilogue of the FM-Towns port of Ultima III, the Serpent's Spine mountains were created during the cataclysm which accompanied the death of Exodus and the sinking of the Isle of Fire.
 * The supply of glass swords in Ultima V is inexhaustable.
 * In Ultima IV and Ultima V, the mountains actually form a snake, with the valley being its eye. This can be best seen on the computer-generated maps, here and here.