The Last Continent

Anicca

"So... Captain? What is out there?"

"Out there? Don't know, don't care."

- Private Filicia Heideman and Captain Rio Bishop, 1121st platoon, City Watch

Of the three great continents that were only Anicca still exists; the seas around it either empty or rapidly disappearing and its existence delimited by the great storms that boil at the interface of the Disjunction. East and West have little meaning any more, the sun hanging motionless in the sky, and compasses ceased to function twenty years ago. The continent's cardinal points are now generally understood relative to the great settlements that lie on the rim of existence, those inhabited by the Watchers who live only steps away from oblivion.

From the freezing Taennagh mountains of the North to the vast grassy plains of the south, bisecting the continent, stretches the immense Erewhon Desert its dunes flowing endlessly into the chasm at its heart, torn open at the end of the Will-War. Past its eastern edge at the confluence of the Twin rivers sits the City, the last surviving pre-Discord civilisation, the great iron tracks that once carried horological carriages from its walls abandoned to the elements. Neighbouring the City and scattered around the sea of Bones, lie the ruins of the Twelve Free cities; Myr, Aen and their sisters; their inhabitants fled and their abandoned buildings now occupied by bandits, cults and worse. Only the monasteries and Cathedrals of the Church remaining as evidence of the cities before the time of Discord, their dim halls filled with the drone of ritual and prayer, their walls protected by the depleted forces of the Church.

To the North-west of the Erewhon Desert are the once lush lowlands and forests that made up the Iridican Empire, its kingdoms now scattered. Its capital city, Serrac, is an atrophied wreck of crumbled palaces and temples, its ornamental lakes filled with detritus and death. Around it the forests of Ulvis now moulder and rot and many of the Hundred Kingdoms are little more than scarred, poisonous wastelands brutalised by the powers unleashed during the fall of the Trinity.

For the moment the Gana plains to the south-west are one of the few places that remain barely liveable and many of the Churches monasteries call it home, but even these are now threatened by the approach of the Disjunction and the hoards of Watchers that live at its edge. Hence it is to the Hallowed Citadel which sits near the centre of the continent that the Church now withdraws its remaining forces.

Lay of the Land

Climate

Anicca was the largest of all the World's landmasses and its most populous; its central region having a mild and temperature climate perfectly suited for the sustainment of large and enduring civilisations. To the North lay the colder regions and beyond the Taennagh mountains the ice bridge to the frozen continent of Bose. To the south the warm Palatine sea gave rise to the fertile lands of the Gana plains and provided food and trade routes for the twelve free cities. Only in the very centre of Anicca, shielded from the prevailing winds, was the land inhospitable giving rise to the scorching desert of Erewhon.

Now with the Disjunction's destruction of the natural order and the continual light of eternal day much of the continents climate is changing and becoming ever more inhospitable.

Flora and Fauna

"I tell you I saw it; a great fire breathing monster fifty feet tall with eyes the size of plates. It was a Dragon I tell you!"

"No it wasn't. You were blind drunk and saw one of those giant legerim-salamanders in the swamp."

"But it breathed fire! I saw it!"

"Swamp gas"

"But..."

"There's no such thing as Dragons you loogin. Never has been. Never will be."

- Overheard tavern conversation between Mimras the wise and the village drunk

Anicca was home to a great diversity of species before the breaking and is home to many more now that the Disjunction has driven the animals of the land and fish of the sea before it. Fleeing people have brought many other creatures with them and the escape of these has crippled some of the continents ecosystems and made it ever harder for farmers to produce food.

Anicca's fauna is not entirely natural either. The Will-War devastated much of the land leaving vast swathes of forest and dale as little more then vitrified wastelands. Things survived however, things twisted and distorted by the Sorceries they were exposed to, things that are mutated shadows of what they once were and many of them are not friendly. These altered creatures and plants are called Legerim.

Culture and Language

The pervasive influence of the Church in all cultures of the World before the breaking resulted in a realm where most nations were unified by the language mandated by Church law: Tyvan. Anicca's Iridican empire and the Twelve free cities all spoke this language, however other tongues did exist and with the coming of the Disjunction many have been driven into Anicca as the tribes and kingdoms that spoke them have been displaced from their homelands by the encroaching oblivion.

worldanicca.txt · Last modified: 2010/03/17 22:51 by gm_oliver
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