The Mountains
Past the Lowlands, the mountains of Aschar rise towards the stars and cleaves the Surface world apart as an impenetrable wall. Millenia of abuse have carved the mountains into uncertain shapes, half-melted in some places and dagger-like in others. Soft, sweeping curves make some mountains seem more like the nest crafted by some titanic beast; or more a living creature in itself than just stone. Others are shot through with honeycomb from centuries of burrowing, or gnawed by impact or fang into open wounds on the mountain sides. Here and there, the corpse of a mountain stick out between their taller kin like broken teeth, their stubby ends infested with crawling polyps and moldy fungi, long since butchered by any one of Aschar's many looming disasters. Titanic ropes of fungi stretch between mountains like moldy spiderweb, sometimes across miles of mountain, guiding both beast and voracious flora to other parts of Aschar.
Some mountains become so overgrown by the hungry flora of Aschar that they resemble vast, cancerous lumps of uncertain vegetation.
Columns of smoke rise from every part of Aschar from a multitude of volcanoes and open calderas, shrouding the sky in a sun-dimming haze. Magma burn like bright blood through stones and valleys as they spill from frequent eruptions in either sluggish streams or rush like water. They leave great trails of black stone and obsidian where they cool, or cut whole new paths through Aschar, soon filled with ash and rubble. Along with smoke, plumes of gas shimmer like oil on water as it rise through the air, with some deadly enough to kill a man before he's finished breathing it in.
In some parts of Aschar, where the mountains are stained with vivid splotches of metal, of green, yellow, or angry red, or dull crystal of black and deep purple, the flow of magma changes. It glows green, blue, and bright yellow depending on the region - something experienced prospectors both to navigate and to guide them to riches to exploit.
On occasion, the volcanoes spews forth slow-moving rivers of fire, bleeding from the core of the earth in steady exsanguination rather than instantaneous ruin. These course through the cracks and gaps between mountains before disappearing down into the earth again, or to overflow some valley below.
A few continue to burn for years or even centuries, creating lakes of bubbling fire that slowly solidify into obsidian that is inevitably shook apart by quakes, meteorites or eruptions, and the cycle - played out over aeons - continue.
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At the center of Aschar, the Mother of All Mountains tower above all else, more myth than mere mountain. Now called Mattarahkka, it is believed that she has given birth to all other mountains on the Surface by shedding parts of her form like seeds and scattering them across the world. It is believed that Mattarahkka is the single largest thing in world - save, perhaps, for the ego of those convinced they can conquer her.
The Highlands
Between Aschar's mountains and etched into its slopes, the Highlands rise in grand, sweeping plateaus and crumbling vestigal branches of stone both. Tortured by centuries of Aschar's fury, most of these are tough, misshapen places - gouged by fire and mangled by tectonic shifts. Twisted patches of hardy vegetation swell on crags and swarm over craters or connect dismembered parts of ragged cliffside like decaying connective tissue. Some parts of the Highlands are stable, set in places less troubled by earthquake and able to settle. Here, life clings tenaciously to these rare roost. Spires of fungi feed on the ashes above, and are devoured in turn by grazing beasts, who in turn are home to parasites, insects, and less identifiable creatures. A few Highlands even hold water, usually in the form of small pools and springs of melted glacial ice, but occasionally there are pools, rivers, and lakes. On the Nankha plateau, the flooded highlands are large enough to house small islands in its interior.
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'The Skyway Road' is a stretch of stable, winding path across the Highlands reach through many parts Aschar, and home to numerous nests of beasts and hostile flora.
Other parts of the Highlands are little more than withered husks clinging to the side and bases of the mountains. These jagged plateaus stick out like claws over ravines filled with rubble and ash. Inevitably, one eruption will be the last, and another part of the highlands collapse to the valleys between mountains in a great avalanche of stone - taking whatever has taken to root there with it.
Most Highlands fall somewhere in between the two extremes - wounded by impact and eruption but stable enough to withstand them. Shielded from Blight by the mountains around them, these Highlands are home to all manner of beasts and tenacious flora.
So far, humanity has carved out only small pieces of land for themselves, and they are always in danger of becoming another meal in the desperate struggle for survival that marks Aschar. Where the land is stable, the competition among those who live there become ever more fierce and human are just another prey.
Some parts of the highlands are divided by only a stone's throw in places where the mountains crowd close together, or some spans of land have at some point been shattered in two. Vast gulfs and canyons divide others, crossed only by flight or rare strands of gargantuan vines. In these chasms, Aschar hides its valleys and ash-choked heaps.
The Valleys
Like rotting wounds cut deep into the land, the valleys and dales of Aschar are pockets of disfiguring color among the stone and ash. Even the smallest dale is an oasis for life, sheltered by the massive mountains and highlands on all sides but beyond reach of their explosive temper tantrums. In them, plants crawl up the sides of the stone or cover the bottom of the vale in pulsating, bulbous heaps. In some valleys, moss in green, rot grey, red, and ivory grow so tall that a man might disappear if he stepped foot on its surface.
Occasionally, some cataclysm changes the face of Aschar, and a dale once sheltered becomes exposed. These remnant valleys are only hardened shadows of what once was, home now only to the hardiest of its inhabitants - contorted, geometric growths of briar and thorn, rugged clinging brush, and stubbly fungi.
The Heaps
Without the sheltering shadow of dormant mountains, some valleys and chasms in Aschar become choked with ash. These heaps are drowned abysses of ash and volcanic debris, sometimes piled all the way to the edge of the Highlands. Some boil from some great stream of magma underneath, becoming vast lakes of tar.
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Flora & Fauna
The inhabitants are no kinder than the land itself, and much more hungry.
Like Aschar, life in the region is vast and diverse. In the lowlands, swimming worms and long-legged stalkers make their home in the Soup, and hardy, ornery beasts like the
Armara lumber through the desolate lowlands towards Kagarai. To the far, cold south, where Aschar touches the endless cold of
Hela, creatures like the
Pahü Worms venture to the borderlands in great, short-lived migrations. Stranger things visit Aschar from the skies.
Meteorite Ticks ride the asteroids that impact with the Lowlands or crash into mountains, haunting the mountains like star-born ghouls.
But the skies of Aschar are home to more than just aliens. Among the mountain peaks and stone aeries, the region is home to a host of flying beasts who roam among the clouds of ash, from the
Watchers to the small, tenacious Ash Dart.
Some of these creatures range across the whole of Aschar, as likely to appear above the foul-smelling Soup as they are in the desolate Kagarai borderlands. An equal lot have preferred habitats among Aschars spires, using the thermal draft of the many volcanoes to launch themselves skywards. It makes the skies of Aschar a dangerous place, and many predatory fliers use the near-constant cover of smog to dive down to catch unaware prey.
On the highlands, both flora and fauna find dubious sanctuary from the treacherous peaks above and the fierce competition below. Animals make nests on the highlands or clinging to their sides, overlooking the valleys and heaps beneath burrows and nests. Where there is water, vegetation like moss, bulbous tumorous trunks, and coiling vines spread across the plateaus in rare abundance, attracting thirsty animals. Very rarely, the waters themselves are populated by hard-shelled isopods and crabs, even the occasional school of fish. Other lakes and rivers are colored an inky black from Aschar's ash and breed only small, swarming things that eat the ashes in the water.
Every now and then, things from beyond the Shrouded Lands will creep or smash into Aschar. Even the terrors of Aschar cower when the creatures from those blight-riddled lands emerge, for few things that live can compete with a Mahu'ca.
Below the highlands, sheltered from the worst of Aschars fury, life grows with desperate vitality in the valleys and dales. From afar, the different streaks of fungi, moss, lichen, and teeming buds of vegetation paint the cliffs in vivid hues of color, from angry red to prismatic purple. Barbed spikes jut out among the plenty like quills, occasionally topped by a bioluminescent bulb or broad tongue-like protrusions that lap at the air.
Skittish, hydra-headed worms with thick black hides, riddled with the pockmarks of a dozen carried parasites and fungal infections, gnaw at the roots of all that abundance. They are hunted by long-jawed beetles or quick-moving tendrils of something not quite plant and not quite animal. Everywhere, the air is alight with the buzz of insects, crawling in the damp soil and scarring the vegetation like a living, squirming wound.
Every now and then, something from Atharkam beneath Aschar will find its way to the Surface, either by accident or driven by hunger.
In the valleys claimed by Ascher's furious nature, all this life is buried and drowned beneath an endless weight of ash and rubble. Tiny, tar-skinned lampreys feast on anything unfortunate enough to fall into the Heaps, while pebble-like scarabs leisurely consume any waste left behind or the ash itself. Even the volcanoes hold life - cyst-like growths more like rock or metal that gnaw on the heated stone.
Fire and Ash
The longer the climb, the more difficult the summit, the more goading the goal, the more of us will come to have a crack at it.
Despite the dangers, many explorers and settlers make the long trek to Aschar. Among earthquakes and eruptions, dangerous skies, and unsteady ground, Aschar holds riches and opportunities - some of which can be found nowhere else in Araea. Most come from
Kagarai, with smaller expeditions from the north and Bhaata or the south and
Hela. Settlers from Kagarai and Bhaata sometimes meet and compete, while Hela is sufficiently far away that they only have to worry about each other.
Such competition, either in the north or south, is deadly enough to rival the beasts of Aschar in the number of corpses.
No matter where they are from, their reasons for coming are similar - either to exploit the sources available in Aschar and cart them back to their home or settle in Aschar's verdant valleys and highlands. Small farms cluster at the far ends of fertile dale, hoping to stay far enough away to avoid its voracious inhabitants while tilling the soil.
Hunters venture into the highlands and highlands to challenge the beasts there to claim a rich harvest of flesh, bone, carapace, and other, more exotic material for
Cadaverurgy. Others forage, creeping further into Aschar's unknown land to collect what they can before retreating and doing it all over again once out of coin or food. Water, always in short supply, is a precious commodity to be captured from the lakes and rivers of Aschar's highlands.
Aschar has much to offer, though every inch of land is hard-fought to claim and to keep, both from monster and man.
Some never venture into Aschar to farm or forage but squat on gates and vital junctions to demand tribute from any who wish to pass. The notorious
Gatekeepers occupies several mountain passes into Aschar, extracting wealth from the hard work of others and outright banditry when even that is insufficient. Although Aschar is vast, safe and stable ways into its interior world are still few. With every new path found, tensions blossom into another bloody skirmish for control.
Beyond food, Aschar is rich in metal and gemstones. The same eruptions that make Aschar a dangerous place have made obsidian plentiful and a popular export back out of Aschar for use in tools, weapons, jewelry, and decor. The mountains are rich with gold, copper, lead, and diamond, though mining them is a risky affair.
Most such ventures in Aschar are small, exploiting open seams on the mountains or exposed by quakes. Miners work in a hurry to extract what they can under grueling conditions, where every delay increases the danger of being buried by some eruption or avalanche, or found by Aschar's hungry inhabitants.
Others focus on the meteorites that fall on Aschar and its surrounding lowlands, all hoping beyond hope to see the glint of Starsteel but most finding more conventional metals instead.
On the muddy shores of the Soup, the town
Hyx serves as a hub for miners and their mercenary guards coming from the north. Though there is no love lost between rivals and competitors, Hyx is a place of order and comradery enforced by its ruling merchant class in what most consider a doomed attempt to stem the lawless savagery often seen in Aschar. Murder and treachery had once reached such an epidemic point that Hyx was threatened by desolation and its investors by financial ruin, so had to cease. That its decree is even remotely possible comes down to the fact that
the Ferrymen, experienced navigators of the Mud Ocean, threw their lot in with the merchants. Together, they control the only way in - and out - of Hyx and charge handsomely for the privilege.
Its laws are simple - claims are respected, and that death comes first to vultures.
Through trial and error, explorers found that the volcanic ash of Aschar works as an exceptionally effective fertilizer. It has become one of the most valuable exports out of Aschar, most of it going to Kagarai, Bhaata, and the
Outer Shell settlements just below them, where it commands a high price.
The city of
Cha'im survives by harvesting ash, tar, and pitch from the heaps through its legions of slaves and serfs. Its rulers grow fat while their workers drown in smoke and ash, making it one of the most miserable places in Aschar, made so by human hands. Bands of roving slavers from Cha'im are a growing threat to explorers and settlers, willing to kidnap anyone to reach their quota. In many places, they're no better than bandits and are treated no better. Any slaver who finds themselves trouble or even just outnumbered can expect no quarter or mercy.
Last of all, Aschar is the only path to Atharkam, an unexplored region of the depths. There, in the dark and away from the hungry sun and malignant stars, humanity hopes to find a permanent foothold in the region.
I usually love reading your stuff, but something about this article made it feel unusually heavy. I can't put my finger on it however. The quotes are great, and the character feels just slightly salty about the whole thing. Very nice. As always, you make me want to read more about other things everywhere. All these strange beasts and plants. Good stuff.
I haven't had time to revisit this yet, but it's on my to-do list now that WE is over. Have you had any additional insights about what it is that makes it heavy?
Creator of Araea, Megacorpolis, and many others.
Not really. Nothing more than it reads more like a geology encyclopedia than prose. It feels dry and heavy, somehow. I know it's a region description, but it doesn't really feel that interesting to describe rocks. I think the length is the greatest enemy. A regional description is usually something you can get through just fine, but this one keeps going on and on, and I think that is what causes the sense of "is it over yet?"
Which is ironic, since caves are mostly rocks. :D I'll have to give it a serious look, then. Nothing is worse than being boring. Thanks!
Creator of Araea, Megacorpolis, and many others.
I don't mean it as any disrespect. I'm only relaying what I felt reading it. It's quite unusual, as your stuff usually is very engaging.