[The Sunlit Man/SP4 full/Cosmere] I'm certain I know.
Canticle is a dragon or other powerful being's egg. The entire planet is an evenly rotating massive investiture sink. I can easily seeing that being a major part of the development of a dragon, both heating and sustaining the embryo. The hostility of the planet is also likely in part a defense mechanism.
I'm not sure it's even intentionally hostile, it's just what you get when you have a massive channel of Investiture and people trying to live next to it. But the theory is certainly interesting. Also, could the persistent mountains be the early signs of the egg hatching on that side, then?
I was just thinking of it like the point on an egg but that could well be, too. Since it's in space the traditional egg shape doesn't really confer many benefits.
My line of thought was: it was mentioned that the mountains were formed relatively recently. So it's unlikely it's because of the shape of the egg. And even if it was egg-shaped, it wouldn't make sense for the point to not be at the poles, so that its axis of rotation is the same as its axis of symmetry
Yeah, I think I was having a hard time understanding where exactly the mountain was. It sounded like Nomad thought it was at a pole but I probably misheard because that doesn't really fit with it being in the way of people going laterally around the planet.