Koom Valley

Koom Valley is located north of Ankh-Morpork in the near Ramtops. It is the site of the oft-told Battle of Koom Valley and several more battles over the centuries, always between dwarfs and trolls.

The Battle of Koom Valley was the only battle in history where both sides supposedly ambushed the other, ending in a stalemate, with both sides endlessly accusing the other of treachery during peace talks. This occurred when the ancient dwarven king B'hrian Bloodaxe came to meet the ancient Diamond king of the trolls, to sign a peace-treaty, ending centuries of warfare between the two races. During the course of the peace talks, hot-heads on both sides instigated fighting that expanded beyond the leaders' grasp. In the midst of the battle, the most relentless rain Koom Valley ever endured stormed the valley for weeks and flooded the valley, quelling the fighting. Due to the flooding, B'hrian Bloodaxe and some of his followers became trapped under the valley with Diamond and some of his trolls. Several of them passed the time playing the game Thud, until eventually all were dead. The bodies can still be found below Koom Valley, encased in stone.

The valley is basically a big drain, thirty-miles in circumference, surrounded by the foothills of the Ramtops. It is riddled with pits and holes; the landscape is changing constantly as waters flow above ground and below, making boulders shift and bits fall into other bits. Tourists often get lost, sustain injuries, and even die when hiking the valley. After the events of Thud! the Valley has become a tourist attraction; however, it is still a dangerously unstable place to walk.

A map of the valley was sketched by hiker Eric Wheelbrace in his book Walking in the Koom Valley.

After visiting Koom Valley, the maddened artist Methodia Rascal created "The Rascal" a 50-foot panascopic depiction of The Battle of Koom Valley, with annotations in the margins. The Ramkins eventually donated the painting to the Royal Art Museum. In Thud! the painting was stolen from the Royal Art Museum. However, all was not lost, for when Sybil Ramkin was a schoolgirl she created a scaled-down replica of the painting.

Lady Sybil's school friend Bunty Waynesbury lives in Ham-on-Koom on the outskirts of Koom Valley with her husband, the local magistrate.

Annotations

Koom Valley seems to be another redundancy joke, combe or coombe (Welsh: cwm) being an old word for a valley of that shape. See also the Forest of Skund.

It may also convey connotations of Doom Valley.

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