Category:The Southwest

Geography

The Southwestern Threshold is the mainland stretch of land between the Fire Mountains of the South and the coast of the Great Western Ocean. It is a place of high humidity, home to swamps and jungles snaked by hundreds of rivers small and large.

Definition

As with many subdivisions of the Threshold, the Southwest’s boundaries and orientation are a matter of debate amongst geomancers. Some consider its heat and connection to the mainland to assure its place as part of the South… this view is the more traditional, and excludes the islands in the southern seas of the Great Western Ocean.

Others argue that the South ends at the Fire Mountains, and the lands beyond, both mainland and islands, exist as part of the Western direction.

The nature of the land, equally inundated by the heat of the Fire element and the wet of the Water element, has meant no definitive answer has been reached, and while the Celestial Bureaucracy’s current structure follows the traditional pattern this has not always been the case: once, the Fire Mountains and lands to the west of them had their own censor, whose position was taken over by the Southern censor Swan Dragon during the First Age. The office of the Western censor, and several other Heavenly departments, continue to argue for its reassignment to the Western direction.

Flora and Fauna

The lands of the Southwest are home to a number of plants and creatures.

Plants include Eyefruit (used to produce Agwa Liqueur), Jackfruit, the Ananate Berry, the Coca Bush, Fly Agaric Mushrooms, White Jelly Fungus, Maiden Tea, Bangi Vine, and Snakeroot.

The dominant grain crop in the region is Fragrant Rice.

Passion Vines, Soaring Hemp, and Opium poppies are counted amongst plants originating elsewhere which have flourished both wild and cultivated in the region.

Creatures include Elephants, tigers, monkeys, Snake Eagles, Swallows, Vultures, Southern Wigeon ducks, Mandarin Ducks, Western Geese, Ring-necked Pheasants (with Daimyo Pheasants found occasionally on the Western slopes of the Fire Mountains), Bangi Crawlers & flies, Gara Fish, Mospid, salt- & freshwater Crocodiles, uncounted varieties of snakes, and Tree Striders. Sharks can be found off the coast, though Siaka prefer deeper, cooler waters.

Though they are undead spirits and not animals, the Kaleyi who form the entourage of the Pale Mistress are sometimes also found wild, moving in packs through the jungles of An-Teng to feast on newborns and pregnant women.