Ourissa
The land of Ourissa is relatively small compared to the rest of the realm of Nimrodel, but has an ancient history in regards to the development of civilized life on its soil. It is a temperate and somewhat cold land of a moderate size, its width walkable in one turn of Nimrodels triple moons. The geographical borders of Ourissa are well defined by natural boundaries. It is seperated by the great and imposing Talil mountain range in the north, and the Great Ocean in the south, and to the East it is stopped by the wide Garga River. Ourissa's western border is often of some debate, but as one travels west from the protected lands of the Ayotyan government they come increasingly across high stepped, hilly areas governed only by maurading Centaur tribes. It is commonly believed that once an adventurer enters lands that are unquestionably in the grasp of the Pegassus Kings, Ourissa has come and gone.
The Ourissan plains
The majority of Ourissas land mass is that of rolling, temperate, somewhat grassy plains. The plains of Ourissa are very malleable, and their general outlook to a traveller changes with the season. Throughout they are mostly flatlands, though not without hills and trees here and there, and although they are grassy and brushy in no season is the foliage uniform, for Ourissa is generally too cold to carry an abundance of wildlife. In the spring the plains are covered with patches of flowers and wild grasses, the flowers giving way to oats and seasonal rains in the summer. A rainy season in the summertime brings a scorefold of days rain, but other than that the land remains mostly dry. The ground is normally the stuff of hard clay, making dust rarely settle on this part of the earth. In the august wild oats and fruits can be found, although the color of the land has turned from green to golden brown. In the winter the plains will freeze, and rain in the winter will take the form of snow, forcing wild beasts to seek grasses in the warmer lowlands.
Talil Mountains
The mountain range of Talil has often accounted for many a restless travellers imagination. High and forboding, the ice capped, treeless tops of nearly every peak in the range are mostly unknown, but at a distance visible from every inch of the Ourissan coastline on a clear day. On an overcast day the mountains will block the clouds, disappearing entirely from view in the southern areas, at the same time drenching the nearby foothills in an everpresent shade as the cloud masses are sorted out, making the Tribal idea of the Gods dwelling in the range all the more believable. There are many ancient stories and rumors about the range, although few vested explorations have turned up much in the way of ancient civilizations and the like. But still, it is well known in the city states and in the Tribes that many of the oldest of magikal artifacts still in Ourissan posession were birthed somewhere deep in the mountains.
The Great Ocean
The anger of the ocean is well known to the people of Varans and Ayotya. Impenetrably large, every effort to make a long distance journey across the sea has ended in disaster. The ocean is said to be churned by the god of the Laviathans, who are in turn worshipped themselves as divinities in some cults, giving an idea of the massive nature of this beast. Luckily for Ourissa the ocean floor several miles from the coast is relatively high, this knocking the wind out of the vast majority of ocean storms before they reach shore. Between the coast and the edge of the island Himal it is perfectly safe for sea trafficking, and both trade and piracy between Ayotya and Varans is quite normal. Normal too is the occasional visit of a trade fleet of the sea peoples, but as of the last generation they have been arriving less and less.
Himal
Ourissas only large island, Himal stands at the edge of the safe area of the Ourissan coast, the largest and only real existing satellite of the continent. Himal boasts a many faceted and largely unknown geography. In the south it is battered by near constant rainstorms, as the southern end of the island is high up and breaks the ocean storms for a majority of Ourisa's coast. The northern end is on the other hand heavily forested, and also the warmest place on the entire continent, with a climate that can be considered nearly tropical. It is well known that pirates live in Himal, as every incident of piracy between Ayotya and Varans happens in its general vicinity, but to date no successful military operations have been undergone to root out this insurgency. It even remains unknown whether these acts of piracy are the sporadic works of many distinct groups, or if some hierarchichal system is in place on Himals mainland itself.
Sarasva River
Feeding the hungry forest of Andhra Prad, the Sarasva River forms in the eastern part of the Talil range, flowing down in a somewhat uniform way south until it breaks into rivulets in the valley occupied by the people of Varans. The Sarasva river is not nearly as wide or as deep as the Garga, and compared to the Garga it is extremely safe, though compared to the Garga almost all of Ourissa is extremely safe. A skilled swimmer can swim the width of the Sarasva without too much difficulty, and although river boats have been attacked by the rare sea basilisk, it is not a frequent occurance. In fact, a regular trade between Varans and its manufacturing satellite town Tanja takes place along the river, feeding lumber and ore into the flat and treeless river valley below. The river valley itself creates ideal conditions for farming, food travelling up the river by caravan. As the river flows into the ocean it naturally breaks up the land, the older parts of the river valley now submerged, leaving a number of islands. Many of these are inhabited by the people of Varans, but some of the smaller ones have still not been properly explored.
Garga River
The Garga is a deadly and sure eastern border for Ourissa, and crossing it something that not even the bravest of captains will dream of doing. It is not known particularly why it is so infested, but the common fairy tale is that an ancient people living at its mouth in the Himal Range once angered the gods of the ether, who summoned a host of demons so large that after destroying these ancients a milennia ago, they still remain pouring down the river from the mountains. Whether any truth is to be had from such a tale, the fact of the matter remains that the Garga, wide, deep and dark, is completely impassable by all but the best of Varanses Thanes and Mages. Some scholars have started to wonder, based on the small number of beasts in the Sarasva and huge number in the Garga, if they have anywhere close to the same water source, even though both rivers flow from the same part of the Himal range.
Andhra Prad
Andhra Prad is simply the name "Great Forest" in the religious tongue of the Tribes, that spoken by the elders at Harakka. Although the cold plains of Ourissa are only blessed with scant groups of trees in areas where the ground is more acceptable, the forest of the Sarasva river is blessed in its size and in its thickness. The soil wettened and loosened by the contours of the river and its occasional flooding, Andhra Prad is in some parts extremely thick and dark, in others very manageable to a traveller. The trees are mostly of a temperate variety, large pines, thick oaks and cedars, with a variety of bushery and wildlife below. Andhra Prad, especially on the western side of the Sarasva is still largely a mystery to even the people of Tanja, and is the only place in Ourissa where the Dry'cha are still seen with any sort of regularity, though a Dry'cha sighting is still at best a rare occurance, and few people see multiple tree-herders in their lifetime without the intent of the herders themselves.
Andhra Rajas
The peculiar geography of the northwestern part of Ourissa has lent itself to a cold, rocky and sandy desert just as large as the Andhra Prad, aptly named by the wisdom of the Harakkan Elders the Andhra Rajas, or great desert. While there are pockets and thickets of trees in most of the parts of the Ourissan plains to give a scale by which to see Andhra prad as large, the Andhra Rajas is the only true desert in Ourissa. Flanked by the Himal Range in the north, Mount Keral in the south, and the steppes of the Centauri Highlands in the west, the generally eastward blowing rain winds often miss the Rajas, creating this desert land. It is placed firmly next to the Garga s the most dangerous part of Ourissas countryside, and travellers in this region, more and moreso as you venture deeper into the desert, are bound to be prone to eventually constant attack from the wildlife. The other peculiar thing about the Rajas is even more than the leyline bountiful area of Harakka, the Andhra Rajas is well known by Ourissas shamans as the area most heavily laden with Ether in all of Ourissa. Why the area with the least life retains the most magikal energy is still a mystery.
Mt. Keral
The lone mount Keral sits for unknown reasons at the southern end of the Andhra Rajas desert. As tall as a majority of the mountains in Himal but containing little to nothing in the way of foothills, the mountain is home to most of Ayotya and thereby Ourissa's precious metal industry, as well as the Valkyrie tribe of the Kerali's. The Kerali's are the most stationary of the Tribes, and their relationship with Ayotya waxes and wanes. The mountain however is quite large, and the Kerali's quite small, enabling a vast amount of mining to be undergone even in times of conflict. There have been rare and normally heavily exaggerated sightings of dragons in the Keral range, and much like the Rajas and indeed any part of Ourissa, it is not without a good amount of peril.
The Ghat
"The Ghat" is a commonly accepted name by the people of Ayotya for a peculiar crag that runs from one edge of Mount Keral for a two days march southeast. Starting in the mountain itself, the Ghat is a large canyon cut into the earth, with small but extremely difficult and dangerous paths down its slope. The height of the canyon grows and grows as it moves away from the mountain, until it spills into a large valley hill at its end which slopes it back into the plains of Ourissa. The cause of this natural fissure in the land is as unexplained as the location of Mt. Keral itself, but it creates an impressive natural barrier for Ayotyans and Tribesmen wishing to travel. An expedition twenty years ago to put a border fort at its edge by the government of Ayotya met with disaster, although the particulars of the journey were never brought public.
The Centauri Highlands
It has already been noted that as one travels west from Ayotya, the land becomes higher and higher, and progressively more hilly. Less vegetation grows in this area, and the ocean floor deepens, creating a coastline filled with dangerous storms. This is the land of the nomadic centaur tribes, and although many centaur tribes live within the plains of Ourissa itself, this land is specially attributed to them. Worshipping their fire god Ari, the centaur tribes act independantly of each other in small groups, but sometimes with a great and hidden intelligence, and many fullscale attacks on Ayotya have occured. The last was ten years ago, resulting in the destruction of Ayotyas still ruined western border fort, although the Centauri army was stopped before reaching the city proper. The highlands have been the medium for many an Ayotyan adventurers activities, although few travellers have made it very far into this land.
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