Golanicja

 

Golanicja is the largest continent in the world. It rests on the arbitrary line of 0 degrees longitude, which happens to pass through a village close to the city of Zetisa on the west coast, about 1300km south of the equator, on the Marcostic Sea. This line was chosen because it is the exact opposite to the position of Vehira, which is directly above the 180 degree longitude mark on the opposite side of Tear. The 180 degree longitude mark is in the middle of the Sea of Tears, and has no land mass under it, so a general preference to have 0 degrees longitude fall on land, and also the desire to represent Vehira as marking the celestial zenith, not its nadir, contributed to this choice of positioning. Vehira is never visible from any point on the continent, and the vast majority of the population have never seen Vehira. Many doubt its existance.

Golanicja is also the world's longest land mass running north to south. The expansive Plains of Odovic are to the south, where the city of Doviku at 27E x 55S marks the southernmost extent of the continent. Almost nine thousand kilometers north, where the inland Red Brine Sea empties into the Sea of Obersch near the city of Kovavici at 10W x 42N lies the continent's northern extent. Running down the center of the length of the northern half of the continent are the Iron Ridge Mountains, the largest and most treacherous range on Tear.

Golanicja has not one, but three of tear's principle cities; Kovstepovi at 30E x 8N, Smoljeno at 26W x 23N, and Miga, which lies at the entrance of the Passage of Miga on the Hidden Sea at 15E x 25S. The geographic triangle roughly defined by these cities represents the most densely populated section of Tear, even despite the presence of the Iron Ridge Mountains and the Shining Mountains to the south of them.

The climate of Golanicja ranges from temperate and mild in the far south and north, to hot and humid along the eastern coast to subtropical in the central regions. The Hidden Sea Region and the Hook feature a pleasant mediterranean climate, and the Plains of Odovic are a warm, windy rolling grassland.

Every significant industry is represented somewhere in Golanicja, though the sheer value of minerals, gems, precious metals, salt, coal and oil that come from the Iron Ridge Mountains make it the most important mining region on Tear.

Bay of Bones

The Bay of Bones gets its sinister name not from any necromancy, but from the numermous husks of shipwrecks that look like the decayed bones of giant sea creatures littering the treacherous expanse. The Bay of Bones is significantly shallower than either the Gulf of Bovacij to the west, Kovstepovi Bay to the east or the King's Sea to the north, Consequently with each shift in the tide, waters flood into the basin from different directions creating sudden currents that are unpredictable, powerful and dangerous. For centuries, the Bay of Bones was considered unnavigable, but during the Orcish invasion, when orcish armies forced dwarven slaves to sail it anyway, efforts began to develop proper navigaitonal charts, improve tide prediction, and define the safer navigable channels.

By the time the Golanicjan Kingdom was established the Bay of Bones had been properly charted, and was considered safe to navigate in clear conditions. Of course weather at sea can be unpredictable, and the tides on Tear are not easily predictable either, so the Bay of Bones remains a difficult crossing even for experienced sailors.

The regions around the Bay of Bones, Kovstepovi Bay, the Sea of Azane and the Stone Isles along with the region surrounding the Bay of Briunida in Tulosz, are believed to be the oldest populated regions of Tear.

Gulf of Bovacij

The Gulf of Bovacij is the long deep water gulf that connects the important mining hub of Coal Harbour to the Bay of Bones. Because of the peculiar way water flows in and out of the Bay of Bones due to its comparative shallowness, transition between the Bay and the Gulf needs to be timed carefully with the tides. The undersea dropoff that separates the two bodies of water is on a line running almost directly north from Bovacij, and here, when the tides change, huge swells and surges rush into the Gulf from the Bay or vice versa. Ships must wait for these changes into order to make the transition, and when they go, they are almost effectively surfing. This transition is extremely difficult and dangerous and is only ever performed by experienced crews and captains.

Hidden Sea

The Hidden Sea region of Golanicja is the region that surrounds the Hidden Sea itself, on the west side of south central Golanicja. It is an extremely affluent region, long settled by powerful Golanicjan families, and is a highly desriable place to live due to the pleasant, temperate climate and to the way it is both isolated from Golanicja by the Shimmering Mountains, but also connected to the world by the Passage of Miga and the Step of Dovicik.

The region is considered to extend from the port of Odralici, and the exclusive Odralici Islands in the southwest at the entrance to the sea, and to wrap all the way around its shores to the city of Rasjesa in the south. The city of Starnje is considered the cultural capital here, even though it is smaller than Miga. In fact, the city of Miga, and even some of the towns on its bay, is considered by locals to be not part of a part of the region.

Prior to the construction of the Passage of Miga and the Steps of Dovicik, the Hidden Sea region was indeed much more 'hidden' and considered to be a remote, isolated area of Golanicja. Important families purchased large tracts of land and constructed massive estates here where they could escape 'life in the capital' at Miga, and live a life of privilege and luxury. With the opening of the critical sea passages, some of the cache was lost, but the wealth that flowed into the region as a result more than compensated.

By the end of the Imperial Era, the wealthy families here had become the wealthiest in the world, and could afford to maintain massive buffers of private land around their isolated and heavily guarded estates. The concentration of wealth here became extreme to the extent that it grew difficult for even the middle classes to carve out an existence here. By the mid 13th century wealthy families and the de facto rulers of the cities in the region were forced to negotiate with various organizations representing trade, farming and industrial guilds in order to subsidize the work of necessary labourers.

The Hook

The Hook is the name of the large curved peninsula on the central western coast of the continent. The distance across the Channel of Winds from the Hook to southeastern Marcosta is a mere 300km, and is one of the earliest sea trade routes on Tear. With the construction of the locks at the Steps of Dovicik, and the Passage of Miga, the region around the Hidden Sea and the Hook became extremely wealthy and influential in Golanicja and eventually around the world.

Iron Ridge Mountains

The Iron Ridge Mountains are the largest and highest mountain range on all of Tear, stretching over 4000 km from Stonehall in central Golanicja to the rivers running out of the Red Brine Sea at Micenceva in the north. Some suggest that the Shining Mountains are a part of this range, extending it another 1500 kilometers, but geological the ranges are distinct.

The Iron Ridge Mountains are treacherous and unpassable in most places, dividing Golanicja in two between east and west. The only reliable crossings along the majority of the range are at Stonehall, Midgate and Jagged Pass, and even these are not easy in winter. Starting at Saltspire, and in the Red Brine Sea region, many crossing exist connecting the Shaded Coast to the Westerlands in the north.

The mountains are named, obviously, for their enormous reserves of easily accessible iron, but virtuaally all know valuable metals and minerals are mined here, and with few exceptions, at volumes unmatched anywhere in the world. Iron, silver, copper, gold, platinum, tin, lead, antimony, sulfur, zinc, arsenic and bismuth are all mined here. Additonally coal, shale and oil and mined here in enormous quantities, and diamands, rubies, emeralds, sapphires and other gems are extracted (though not to the extent that they are in other places, such as Jumira and Sekhu).

There are thousands of mines in the Iron Ridge mountains, and millions of mine shafts and passages. Many of them have existed for millenia, and have been mined and abandoned only to be remined following the discovery of new valuable metals that had been previously overlooked. Mines connect to other mines, sometimes in their deepest chambers, and many claim there are hidden routes that enable the range to be traversed entirely underground.

At the beginnning of the Orc Conquests, many of the mines were taken over by orcs and goblins, who could not rooted out of them. Later, once the orcs made the mistake taking their fight entirely to the surface and of subjugating their captives to work the mines to support their expansion the tabls turned. The rebellion led by Torbjorn Kostevic benefitted from the same security that had allowed the orcs and goblins to expand, and were able to fight outward from their unnassailable safe havens in the mines to begin retaking Golanicja.

It was during this time that the mines were expanded to feed, house and support entire armies and their familes, and entire towns were built beneath the mountains - most of them abandoned by the beginning of the Imperial Era, but some rumoured to still be living communities, largely inhabited by orcs, goblins, dwarves and others who have rejected surface society.

By the 13th century, it was generally assumed that the mountains held at least a half dozen underground towns whose populations exceeded 5000 people, and that these people maintained connections most with merchant companies, industrial companies and criminal organizations, providing rare materials and access to smuggling routes in exchange for needed supplies.

By the mid 15th century, none of these town, or the routes to, from or between them, had been officially mapped.

Kovstepovi Bay

Kovstepovi Bay is not truly a bay, and is more properly a sea overlooked by the Stone Isles to the north and east, and through the sea gate at the city of Kozetje's Gate to the west, where it connects to the Bay of Bones. The city of Kovstepovi itself it built on the delta that separates the Sea of Azane from Kovstepovi Bay.

Because of the difference in depth between the between the shallow Bay of Bones and the deeper Kovstepovi Bay, the transition through the sea gate needs to be timed carefully with the tides. When the tides change, powerful currents push ships one way or the other, and ships must wait their turn into order to cross. The transition at the sea gate is not as dangerous as the transition at the mouth of the Gulf of Bovacij, and the sea gate is closed when the transition is considered too dangerous. Regardless, crossing between the two bays should only be performed by experiened captains and crews.

The regions around Kovstepovi Bay, the Bay of Bones, the Stone Isles and the Sea of Azane, along with the region surrounding the Bay of Briunida in Tulosz, are believed to be the oldest populated regions of Tear.

Passage of Miga

The passage of Miga is an enormous system of canals and locks that traverses a 1500 km span of natural rivers and lakes that cross the center of Golanicja between the cities of Povidovija on the east coast and Miga on the west, with the city of Obrum's Landing in the middle.

The system of locks and canals that make up the connections between the the many natural waterways were constructed principally by the Guild of Obrum, starting in around the year 100. The process of constructing over 30 dams, 40 locks and 11 major canals took over 250 years, but each individual step of the process made the passage faster and cheaper, so there was not reason to ever stop the work. Eventually, in the year 352, it was possible for the first time to sail entirely from teh King's Sea the Hidden Sea with needing to unload and portage cargo or entire vessels.

The Passage of Miga is arguably the single most strategically valuable structure in the world, and protecting it with fleets at Povidovija and Miga, and a large ground force at Obrum's landing has been critical for a thousand years.

Plains of Odovic

The Plains of Odovic are an enormous savanna of rolling hills, and prairie land that sretch over 2000 km from east to west beneath the Southwall Ridge in southern Golanicja. This region has historically been autonomous from the rest of Golanicja, and has its own cultural centers in the major cities of Golanici, Odovic and Lisaea, among others. Major ports and Brinjit connect the Plains of Odovic to Senecia and southwestern Tulosz, while the port and Golanici connects the regio

The enormous bounty of food production here - largely in gains, fruits and vegetables, and the livestock raised on them, has kept the somewhat isolated region in a state of relative peace and stable growth for centuries. Even during the orcish conquests, the protection afforded by the Southwall Ridge meant that conflict in the Plains of Odovic was surprisingly minimized. Aside from food production, the region also has rish reserves of copper, sulphur, tin and other metals, and provides a range of unusual hardwoods and good manufactured from them.

Red Brine Sea

The Red Brine Sea lies in a mountainous basin at the northermost extent of the Iron Ridge Mountains. Likely this huge, inland salty sea was formed from the collapse of the dome of a primordial supervolcano that may have been the source of the entire Iron Ridge range. Due to the large amount of iron and salt in the exposed rock here, the sea is both highly saline and has a noticeable red color. In many places there are hotsprings, and much of the culture in cities like Saltspire and Klovi revolves around long, thoughtful, measured debate that takes place in saunas or warm salty pools.

The Red Brine Sea itself is filled with all sorts of exotic aquatic life, not found anywhere else on Tear, and many exotic fish, shell-fish, sea-birds, and seaweeds soruced here are prized as delicacies far and wide. The cities and viliages along the shores of the Red Brine Sea are also host to the worlds largest terrestrial populations of merfolk. While merfolk are still a small minority even in places such as Saltspire (less than 2%) the fact that they have their own land-based communities in several places here is exceptional.

Red Plains

The Red Plains are a long, sweeping region to the west of the Iron Ridge Mountins in central Golanicja. The region includes fertile grasslands closer to Brinjevi and the coast, dry savannah running from Red Road to Meljevlo, and significant areas of arid badlands and desert where there is little water. All of these mixed biomes and ecosystems are defined by networks of small rivers running off the Iron Ridge mountains that can be rushing and overflowing with meltwater and spring rains in the spring, but dry as dust in the fall.

Here also is some of the only evidence of a prehistoric civilization of giants. Red stone, quarried out of the mountains and out of the rocky badlands was used to make paved roads long before any known cities existed, and many standing stone structures of uncertain purpose still remain scattered across the Red Plains. Similar structures exist - always in ruin - on every continent, but here there seems to be a sense and an order to them - but no one has figure out what that is.

Sea of Azane

The Sea of Azane is the largest inland sea on all of Tear. The sea was formed by the collapse of the dome of a primordial supervolcano almost a thousand kilometers in diameter. The eruption of this ancient volcano may have formed the entire lowland region of eastern central Golanicja, and its subsequent collapse pulled in water from Kovstepovi Bay to form a brackish sea, fed from the meltwaters of the Iron Ridge Mountains and the Shining Mountians, and emptying down a number of rivers through the Kovstepovi delta.

The regions around the Sea of Azane, Kovstepovi Bay, the Bay of Bones, and the Stone Isles, along with the region surrounding the Bay of Briunida in Tulosz, are believed to be the oldest populated regions of Tear.

Shaded Coast

The Shaded Coast region of northeastern Golanicja is the most difficult and inhospitable region on the continent aside from the treacherous and totally uninhabitable peaks of the jagged spine of the Iron Ridge Mountains. The shaded coast is a messy tangle of different interconnected biomes. Lush pine forests at the higher altitudes to the west in the hills of the mountains themselves give way to dense deciduous forests around the many rivers running out of Vljev, Donisici and Copper Falls that feed the dense wet rainforests between Bovcevin and Gojod, and the marshy lowlands and swamps that flood the eastern coast between Gojod, Blackforge and Potovic.

In 709, the Shaded Coast region, which was then a part of the Dwarven Kingdom of Golanicja, was invaded by ursan forces from the Queendom of Obersch and captured in 710. As of 1423, the entire region remains a province of the Queendom of Obersch.

Shining Mountains

The Shining Mountains are subrange of the Iron Ridge Mountains forming a semi-circular ridge that runs from Stonewall in central Golanicja, wrapping around the city of Shimmer, and turning south toward the city of Old Quarry and the Passage of Miga.

This small mountain range captures rainfall from dominant weather patterns coming off the Southern Ocean and sends the water back down several large river systems to the eastern shores of the Hidden Sea. The geography and weather patterns create a unique and pleasant temperate region around the Hidden Sea.

Southwall Ridge

The lowlands where the Passage of Miga crosses through the sysem of lakes and rivers between Povidovija and Miga start where the Shining Mountains end near Old Quarry, and continue south to the the Southwall Ridge. The Southwall ridge is marked by a large plateau, cut by the Pozicjese River to the west and the Odovic River to the southeast. Both of these rivers are fed from large lakes near the fortress city of Bastion, which sits atop the cliff-like walls of the Ridge, and their southern banks represent a mostly impassable geographic barrier, in some places almost a kilometer high. There are several dozen places where crossings are possible, but these are all easily (and therefore heavily) defended.

South of the Southwall Ridge and the two rivers that run along it, the huge plateau gently slopes down toward Windblossom, Golanici and the western Odovician coast to the west, and past Odovovic into the rolling Plains of Odovic to the south.

The Steps of Dovicik

Two hundreds years or so in the construction of the many dams, canals and locks that comprise the Passage of Miga, the value of the passage was clear. Consequently, in 311, the Guild of Obrum was commissioned to expand their engineering efforts and begin a similar project along a system of rivers between Dovicika and Kran that would connect the Hidden Sea directly to the Marcostc Sea. This project was actually more complicated than the Passage of Miga, and required many more locks, and much larger changes in altitude in order to permit ships to pass through low foothills and ranges in the 'elbow' of the Hook.

While this construction of the Steps of Dovicik was less valuable, more difficult, and took much longer to complete and become profitable (it was not finished until 696) it still added to the wealth, prestige and influence of the Guild of Obrum, and completed a connection from the King's Sea all the way to the Marcostic Sea that ran about 3000km instead of having to navigate around the entire boot of Odovic, adding some 12000km to the total distance and perhaps 60 or more days to the time needed.

The Stone Isles

The Stone Isles are two large islands to the north and northeast of Kovstepovi that separate Kovstepovi Bay from the King's Sea. Both islands are dominated by rough and innaccessible mountain terrain and aside from the major city of Citadel and the smaller cities of Zacan and Trovacano, are largely uninhabited.

The West Stone Island is formed with a long, jagged rocky peninsula to the south, whose tip comes to within less and 2 kilometers of the mainland coast at the city of Kozetje's Gate. An enormous sea gate was constructed between the island and the mainland over 150 years between 552 and 702. The gate serves to secure the straight between Kovstepovi Bay and the Bay of Bones, to control the movement of ships between the two Bays during dangerous tidal shifts, and to conduct customs inspections and levy fees on ships passing through it.

The regions around the Stone Isles, Kovstepovi Bay, the Bay of Bones, and the Sea of Azane, along with the region surrounding the Bay of Briunida in Tulosz, are believed to be the oldest populated regions of Tear.

The Westerlands

The Westerlands is a region in northwestern Golanicja bordered by the Red Brine Sea region to the east and by the Red Plains region to the southeast. It is a temperate region of low rolling hills and decidous forests, producing high quality hardwoods, along with coal, peat and oil.

The Westerlands are known for an exceptional hunting experience, and many of the cities maintain and oversee enormous reserves dedicated to this purpose. Boar, elk, moose, and even giant predators like vargr and saber cats roam the wilderness, and nobles from across Golanicja and even from oversees will come here to hunt in hopes of bringing down an epic prize.

The port of Smoljeno, which is the largest city state in northern Golanicja, is on the southern coast of the Westerlands connecting the region by sea to Marcosta, The smaller port of Westmoor on the extreme northwestern tip of the region connects it to Kashdush over the Middle Sea to the west.

Distant from Kovstepovi and Miga, the Westerlands are politically and culturally distinct from central and southern Golanicja, and even during the Imperial Era, the lairds of the Westerlands were given a great deal of autonomy under the Golanicjan crown out of a need to keep them from simply declaring independance.