Creative Exercise--Aleasana

[Rhialto]

We have magical mutations and a lost continent. A land bridge is hardly that big an upset...

 

[JimAde]

Let me know if this stretches reality a bit too much for you guys...

The Blade of Yadasai, a rocky peninsula, juts out from the western shore of the Sun's Anvil Desert. This thin, hard piece of land extends beyond mortal sight, but on a clear enough day one can faintly see the rock known simply as The Hilt. The Blade of Yadasai is actually a land bridge connecting the western shore of the Sun's Anvil Desert to another land mass. This is the homeland of the Urukh.

But, as noted elsewhere, the Urukh are notoriously intolerant of change. And that includes foreigners wandering into their realm. The Hilt is a massive fortress built into a naturally occuring promontory at the far end of the blade of Yadasai. None may enter the Urukh lands on foot without traveling through the Hilt Fortress. And none are allowed to pass within unless they have a very good reason.

 

[Rhialto]

For centuries, the Black Fist Brotherhood had its members walk through the Sword, and the Sun Anvil desert until they reached what is now Aleasana. However, as the demand for their services grew, this was seen as inefficient, and so now most members arrive by boat, after a grueling training period. To this day, "walking the desert" is a saying among the Brotherhood and Urukhs in general that means to undertake a difficult task in order to prove one's worth.

 

[Conaill]

The major water source of the Dai river is the Dajani lake in the Jar highlands. The lake is surrounded by mountains and glaciers who feed the massive lake. There is a constant Bodai settlement that guards the lake, in case the Shay or anyone else want to claim the lake for themselves.

That seems to contradict somewhat with these earlier contributions:

The Dai River, from which the Bodai (children of Dai) take their name, flows from the mountains of Aleasana and winds south into the Sun's Anvil Desert before turning east into the Olden Sea.

Val-Alen sits beneath Elitha's Spire, the tallest peak in Aleasana.

Within the mountain lies the sacred spring Sellessenril.

The sacred Spring of Sellessenril is one of the Dai River's sources

If you want, we can have the Dai river flow from the Spring of Sellessenril somewhere in central Aleasana (i.e. most likely quite far from any Bodai), pool into a large lake in the Jar highlands (much closer to the Bodai grasslands), then flow out again towards the desert and on to the Olden Sea.

 

[Lalato]

If you want, we can have the Dai river flow from the Spring of Sellessenril somewhere in central Aleasana (i.e. most likely quite far from any Bodai), pool into a large lake in the Jar highlands (much closer to the Bodai grasslands), then flow out again towards the desert and on to the Olden Sea.

That's exactly what I was thinking.

 

[Conaill]

The nomadic and cannibalistic tribes of the Juni are beginning to move out of the Sun's Anvil Desert and into the southern grasslands. Rumor has it that some unknown threat from the deep desert is pushing them out of their normal range.

[...] a horde of Juni tear into a Bodai settlement on their warponies [...]

As fierce as the Bodai warriors are, lately they seeme to be ill-matched against the Juni's use of sand magic - turning once lush grazing lands into treacherous sand traps for the Bodai's ponies. The Juni warponies (which only vaguely look like ponies but are more closely related to the abundant sand lizards) seem to have no problem with such terrain.

 

[Tonguez]

NB see comment on the Lake Djani Sellaseril in Meta-thread.

The 'Anvil' from which the Suns Anvil Desert takes its name is a monadnock (a vast Rock) standing 1200 feet high and and 6 miles wide. The Anvil is pitch black in colour and yet glows with a bright red aura as the sun sets behind it. The peneplain around the Rock is harsh and windswept and notable for its surface of fused glass that extends out for about 12 miles around the Anvil and for the broken rings of tall rocky spires the dot the area.

Beyond the glass ring the desert proper reaaserts itself flowing north to the grasslands of the Bodai and south and west towards the land of the Urukh...

 

[Arkhandus]

Note that Sellessenril is only ONE of the Dai River's sources, as is Dajani Lake. The original post about the Dai simply said that it flowed out of the mountains of Aleasana, doesn't mean that it only came from one mountain spring.

Sidenote, the general location of cities ought to be noted at some point in order for them to be placed somewhere on a map.

 

[Arkhandus]

The major water source of the Dai river is the Dajani lake in the Jar highlands. The lake is surrounded by mountains and glaciers who feed the massive lake. There is a constant Bodai settlement that guards the lake, in case the Shay or anyone else want to claim the lake for themselves.

The settlement has a fortress in the middle, the Jan´Dahan. An order of Bodai paladins guards the fortress and the surrounding lands.

Besides Dajani Lake and Sellessenril Spring, another, lesser source for the mighty Dai River is the small group of hot springs called Okajda Tarym Cal by the Bodai. These hot springs are scattered across a wide ridge on the southern face of Mount Tarym, slightly northwest of Dajani Lake. The small stretch of the Bolshe Rapids flows from Okajda Tarym Cal into the Dai River, southwest of Dajani.

 

[Tonguez]

High on Elithas Spire amongst the eyries of the Dragons is a small green lake called the Pool of Mothers. Its water is icy cold and the Dragons sip from it when they gather.
Most unusually the lake has no known outlets and yet remains constant, the Dragons sumise that the water soaks the very rock of Elitha's spire feeding Inarellion Calshaen-Ahb and passing purified water to the streams and springs below