Land of Five Lakes
the Borg Basin
Land of Five Lakes is a major location of the creation myths for the Benet civilization of the prehistoric periods. The land was described as a great fertile river basin surrounded by five large lakes. If a real place, most believe it located between the Elf lands in the forest Karasaanu and the Human lands of the Craddle Valley. Surviving clay tables found in the ruins of Ancient Siduum sites, place the land west of their nation. The elves confirm that humans existed at the eastern edge of Karasaanu long before the rise of Benet. These gives credence to the Land of Five Lakes having once been a real location. Today, scholars best guess, given the clues, is that if the land existed, it would now sits at the bottom of great salt lake of Yaren Juhl in central Anbar.
While Benet myth claim the Land of Five Lakes to be the 'Garden' of legend, the Siduumites stories speak of the Beneten people travelling from their homes in Craddle Valley to find a new land. When they passed over the mountains, they saw an Elder Tree similar to their own, Urzan. In this new land dwelt Borg. The tree and the great falcon Ha Raw protected the basin for the dangers of the outside world. The tree provided a paradise for the people, safe from the harsh weather of the era of ice that covered much of the world.
As the Beneten people grows, their society alters the land. Cities appeared in the region, the largest of these was Benetos in the north. Agriculture became a staple of life in the valley. Several centuries after arriving in the land their building homes, and altering the water flows to provide for the towns as crops has transformed the land. The five lakes vanished, replaced by a single large body of water. In Benet and Ancient Siduum these early tales would be viewed as mankind's mastery over nature. The nearby elves saw these tales as a cautionary story of going too far and altering what has stood for millennia. Lost beauty that will never return.
The arrival of Gilgurth and the fiery destruction that followed devastated the Land of Five Lakes. Though Borg's Mantle protected the land from the blast waves and initial destruction, the heat melted the icecaps and glaciers, flooding the low region within weeks of the impact. The Land of Five Lakes was lost forever under the waters of a new inland sea.
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