Category:The Southeast

The Southeastern Threshold is a vast region of Creation, sitting where the verdant jungles and life-giving rivers born of the Elemental Pole of Wood transition into the scorching heat and open deserts of the South (though protected from the scalding sands of that region by the peaks of the Summer Mountains). Though like all parts of Creation the terrain is varied, including vast lakes, cool plateaus, woodlands, rocky hills, and desert valleys, the Southeast is known for the most prevalent and massive terrain feature: the Great Grass Sea, savannahs and grasslands interlocking all the way from Harborhead to the edge of Creation. Harbourhead itself is named for its place on the Sea, though this origin has been long forgotten in present times, sitting at the head where the Inner Sea meets the Great Grass Sea.

Moving with the wind, fields of green, blue-green, and yellow grass seem to move like the waves of the ocean, mesas and plateaus rising above them appearing islands in this floral sea. Errors in translation and difficulties with the infrastructure of travel in the Age of Sorrows have seen a few cartographers of the far North and West chart the region as if it were a true sea of water... for a brief period from RY699 to RY702 it was fashionable amongst Dynasts to collect such maps for display and amused discussion, and the Imperial City was home to boat-shaped palanquins, flying mon-marked sails and born on the heads of many slaves, termed ‘Vessels of the Southern Sea’.

The Great Grass Sea is home to a variety of plants and animals, including numerous grasses such as Love Grass and Weeping Grass, and rarer herbs such as Purple Amaranth. Lions, Simhata, Dazzling Horses, Gazelles, Gnu, Guar, Yeddim, Frogpurses, and Rhinos are amongst the creatures dwelling in the region, along with large, aggressive Elephants that have been hunted over the centuries to clear grasslands for Cattle grazing or to obtain valuable Ivory. The grasses provide shelter to numerous insects, including the Gravy Fly, Eyeworms and the deadly Fly of Torpid Slumber.

Weather in the Great Grass Sea goes through a number of shifts over the year. Generally the driest season is that of Fire, when lakes, rivers, and watering holes vanish completely, and massive herds of animals thunder across the plains in search of water and good grazing. In the season of Air, springs begin to bubble forth once more, and the blazing light of Sol Invictus can be obscured by occasional cloudy day or cool drizzle. When the season of Water begins, water bubbles freely from the ground and falls heavy from the sky, muddy watering holes become broad shallow lakes, and trickling creeks flood into wide, raging rivers where attempted crossings can be deadly. This water soaks into the landscape, causing plants to blossom and grow, and native creatures to birth their young amidst the abundance. The watering holes and rivers continue to be full through the Earth season after the rains have petered out, drying up through the Wood season until only the deepest provide puddles of muddy water as the season of Fire returns.

The human residents of the Great Grass Sea are numerous, as the land is fertile. Ten thousand tribal and cultural groups can be found, with a wide range of colours and traditions, including those humans called by some (mostly Guild slavers) the ‘Dazzling Peoples’ for their stark black-and-white skin patterns, including the Dphon, Dmarei, and Djala. Politically, the Realm has some presence through satrapies and allied states, but it is difficult to project power from the Blessed Isle out to the far reaches of the Grass Sea. The Guild also has a widespread presence, its caravans plying trade routes carrying all manner of goods between the various states, buying slaves from all sides in local conflicts and even trading with pockets of Wyld encroachment found here and there amidst the flowing grass, and gathering herds of Yeddim for use in caravans across Creation.

The Southeast and its peoples are religiously varied, with many worshipping the Southern God of War and Cattle Ahlat, fighting as raiders to take slaves and usually raising vast herds of cattle (though not all Ahlat worshippers tow the line the Bull God has so successfully promulgated across Harbourhead. Bright Spearpoint, God of the Southern Hunt, is also favoured, and Ahlat is contested as war god by a number of states and tribes who embrace the ordered rule-bound war of Sunipal the God of Eastern War, and by the diminishing elephant-riding tribes who call on the Elephant Avatar Mighty-In-Battle to bless their assaults. Some such tribes, and others who have lost ground to the success of Ahlat’s cattle-herding raiders, have turned to a source few in Yu-shan expected would benefit from the Bull God’s maneuvers in the Southeast: Siakal, Western God of War and Slaughter, sees her influence growing daily as tribes seek more brutal-desperate methods to end the cows and slave-raiding tribes encroaching on their territories.