The Lowland Fiefs
The sprawling grasslands that once housed a mighty empire, now a land of broken people and fractured cities
Geography
As was always the great strength of The Empire of Draconia before its collapse, the Geography of The Lowland Fiefs makes it a naturally defensible area from almost all sides - an area comprised largely of beautiful rolling hills, expansive grasslands, and lush forests broken up by the occasional forest or small mountain clusters, the Lowland Fiefs is rich with flowing fresh water as well as a resource-rich inland sea and a temperate climate that makes for easy and comfortable habitation.
Overall, it is a place of great natural beauty - and more importantly to those who have settled it in ages past, it is a natural fortress; Blockaded by the Aslagan Mountains to the west, the expansive Elvenwood to the south and the mighty Barrier Peaks mountain range to the south-west, the Lowland Fiefs are only truly exposed to easy invasion avenues from the north and northwest in the direction of the Striaban Plains; a fact which has always made assaulting them difficult.
Adding to the area's own natural beauty is the extreme frequence of ruins which mar its surface - the ancient ruins of The Aurelian Hegemony of Man that jut out of the ground at irregular points and angles, having stuck where they landed after they fell out of the sky so many thousands of years ago. All these factors and more, when put together, give the Lowland Fiefs its distinctive geography and rather notoriously beautiful skyline - rolling grasslands broken up by ancient ruins and sprawling settlements that now stand scarred and isolated due to the Chaos of the Age of Troubles, which saw the collapse of The Empire of Draconia which once ruled the entire region. This destruction, which saw the complete collapse of all centralized authority, returned the entire land to a warring mass of city-states and even more sprawling ruins as entire cities and sections of the area's geography were leveled instantly in battles waged between gods across its expanse.
Even now, the relics of that time scar the Lowland Fiefs heavily - violent remnants of the Age of Troubles some few years prior to the modern day still throb in the land; sprawling sections of land where the mightiest Major Gods battled each other for dominance and left indelible scars upon the land. Most notable of these scars is the Draconian Sea itself - which now stands as a beautiful inland sea unmarred by land thanks solely to a cavalcade of divine battles which took place there. However, these scars can take on a variety of shapes - from massive spears embedded in the earth as tall as mountains to lifeless wastes devoid of color and magic to even more outlandish wounds which the very planet has yet to heal.
Ecosystem
All in all, the ecosystem of the Lowland Fiefs has ever been a rather plain one - in times past the area's wild beasts and the dynamics that governed them fell under no special circumstances or phenomena and instead lived rather peaceful and predictable lives with the coming and going of the seasons, enjoying the careful hand of The Empire of Draconia to prune the ecosystem and keep it functional yet not rampant; yet no longer, as the scars left upon the land by the Age of Troubles and the battles between the gods that scarred it have sent entire sections of the Lowland Fief's ecosystems into total ecological collapse - and in largely unique ways across the land, as some areas are suffering from a near-cataclysmic population boom of monsters and wild beasts while others are suffering from wild magic storms and others still are suffering from other, more unbelievable issues.
All that and more to say that the current state of the Lowland Fief's ecosystem is one of utter chaos - thrown out of sorts all over the land by the violent battles which scarred the land and destroyed its people some decades prior, and the situation of the ecosystem might change completely from one area to the next.
Ecosystem Cycles
The Lowland Fiefs, in their heyday during the time of The Empire of Draconia, were by little exaggeration the standard by which all other areas were held to - it enjoyed a comfortable four seasons in much of its landmass and experienced no notable phenomena which disrupted them, and was overall an idyllic land of rolling plains and varied wildlife; a perfect breadbasket for any civilization to call their homeland. It was here, in the Lowland Fiefs, that the biologists and ecologists of The Empire of Draconia studied the migration patterns and seasons shifts of the local area and its wildlife and published the first standardized research papers on the nature of ecological cycles and the changing of the seasons which all other nations would use for centuries to judge their own ecosystems by.
Now, while The Lowland Fiefs have retained the core of that idyllic nature, the scars left upon the land by the Age of Troubles and the horrific divine battles which transpired there have left the cycles of the area wild and unpredictable - as if weather itself has gone out of whack. Now, animals wake up in seasons where they would normally hibernate, the seasons come and go with unusual intensity or are often delayed or come quicker than expected, and migrations turn into violent exoduses that lead to mass animal and monster attacks on population centers.
Localized Phenomena
In the times of The Empire of Draconia before the Age of Troubles and the current Age of Godsfall, the Lowland Fiefs enjoyed almost no unique localized phenomena beyond the uniqueness of its own varied seasons - as one of the few places on corexus to enjoy such a thing, it was a bastion of ecological stability that was almost wondrous in its normality aside from the occasional earthquake and the semi-frequent tornado in parts of the country.
Now, the amount of localized phenomena has almost grown too large to count - its seasons growing unnaturally intense, the increasing frequency of earthquakes and increasing lethality of tornadoes, and most importantly the two fearsome phenomena known as Mana Geysers and Manaquakes.
- Mana Geysers, also known in certain emerging circles as Atlen Springs, are one of two new phenomena that has thus far proved local to The Lowland Fiefs and parts of the Striaban Plains - these terrifying pillars of raw, unfiltered mana of such exceptional purity and power that normally dwells exclusively within the leylines that crisscross beneath the ground beneath the planet, while initially a thing that sounds beneficial, are often dangerous and even lethal more often than not. Appearing without warning from nearly any ground-based location across the area(Though they seem to not burst up and through houses and other artificial structures), these geysers are powerful enough to give those caught within them low-grade Mana Poisoning in mere seconds - a disease often likened to "The Mage's Common Cold" that often causes brain fog, confusion, retrograde amnesia, internal tumors, and skin lesions - while the stronger geyers are powerful enough to inflict those caught within them the worst kind of Mana Poisoning; a disease known more commonly as Mana Subsumation which almost invariably proves fatal by completely destroying the mind and soul of the creature caught within them, turning them into a living body entirely devoid of thought as if they were trapped within a perpetual coma. Their recent appearance and unpredictable nature has meant that few, if any, have managed to harness their power - though certain powerful mages have begun to study the signs of a geyser's appearance in hopes of allowing for easier travel across the land.
- Manaquakes, by what little research has been done on them since their recent appearances, seem to be simply wide-area Mana Geysers - these powerful shockwaves function similar to earthquakes save that a tangible "wall" of raw Atlen can be seen racing along the blast wave; a wall of green-blue energy that often causes Mana Poisoning(Though rarely anything above low-grade poisoning) in sentient creatures it passes over while, even more dangerously, birthing new animal, plant, monster, and other life in its wake and infusing existing animal and monstous life with such unnatural energy that they almost universally evolve on the spot into stronger and mightier forms. While the reason and signs of their appearance has yet to be studied, recent innovations pioneered by the scholars of the city-state of Jugantum in the Lowland Fiefs have supposedly invented a means by which cities might protect themselves from these mighty quakes.
Climate
Though the climate of the Lowland Fiefs was once predictable and seasonal, enjoying a comfortable temperate climate of four seasons with both high and low temperatures that rarely reached the extremes on either spectrum, the calamities of recent decades have changed this somewhat - while most of the area still enjoys its temperate climates its once-predictable seasons have become irregular and unnatural intense; leading to environmental disasters never seen before in the Fiefs such as wide-scale freezing, hail, and catastrophic amounts of rain alongside record-breaking heat waves on the opposite end.
Additionally, rain has ever been a staple of the Lowlands for as long as any can remember - cursed by the frequent moisture-rich winds that blow in from the Jungle to the south and the Aslagan Mountains which serve as a natural reflector for moisture and trap any such rains in the low-sitting 'bowl' the Fiefs rest in, the country has long dealt with frequent drab and overcast weather with constant rain.
Fauna & Flora
The flora and fauna of the Lowland Fiefs has long been almost legendarily diverse - enough to rival the biodiversity of the junges and rainforests to the area's north and south. This richness of flora and fauna has only intensified in recent decades with the appearance of the Mana Geysers and Manaquakes - both of which have seeded the air and land in the Plains with so much energy that even more species, some completely new to the planet of Ea, have begun to form across the area.
Natural Resources
The Lowland Fiefs has ever been blessed with an abundance of natural resources, and has long been lauded as one of the best possible places for a civilization to begin - vast plains perfectly fit for animal husbandry, incredibly mineral-rich hills notoriously rich with gold, silver, and other metals, and vast quarries of marble that have sustained building projects in the area for centuries. Their forests, as well, are not only renowned for their wood and animals but their fearsome dragons and drakes - both of which long served as the backbone of The Empire of Draconia's legendary Dragonrider Corps.
History
In recent years, the Lowland Fiefs have weathered significant upheaval during the Age of Troubles and the current Age of Godsfall that followed it - what now stands as the beautiful inland Draconian Sea, for example, was not always such; it was once home to a sprawling landmass and countless smaller islands that once housed the mightiest and most populous ruins of The Aurelian Hegemony of Man and the cities of The Empire of Draconia. However, all landmass in the Draconian Sea was destroyed some decades ago during the Age of Troubles as the land within the sea's center which once housed Sul-Dracon, capital of The Empire of Draconia, was severely fractured during the opening battles of the Age of Troubles which saw The Travelers face off against the Minor Goddess Nicodema after the latter flagrantly ignored the divine laws set down by Bahamut, the Platinum Dragon and snuck past The Divine Gate to aid The Empire of Draconia against the invasion of Van Hawk and his infinite horde.
The area's troubles did not end there, however - for after this opening battle more gods continued to rain down upon the lands of Draconia and engaged in combat atop the lands in the Draconian Sea; most notably Brom and Brokkr, who both followed Nicodema in sneaking past The Divine Gate to fight both each other and Nicodema herself to defend the mortal nations or ethnicities that they favored.
This chaotic rush of gods battling gods battling mortals came to a head when The Divine Gate fully deactivated on the orders of the Major Gods and The Travelers and the Major God Ruthger fought Brom and Brokkr and Nicodema to stop them from meddling more than they already had in the affairs of mortals. However, this bid to end the divine fighting failed, as even as The Travelers and their Divine Ally won their battle Tamamo-No-Mae, the newest of the Major Gods, took advantage of the newly deactivated The Divine Gate to descend to the area and fight Ruthger, The Sergeant of Sorrows in a battle that no mortals, not even the superhuman Travelers, could hope to aid in.
This, unfortunately, kicked off a slew of divine fights atop the lands of the Draconian Sea largely driven by Van Hawk - who would go on to fight both Nicodema, Lady Victory and Bahamut, the Platinum Dragon; the latter battle of which was the final straw which fractured and destroyed the lands of the Draconian Sea forever, destroying the capital of The Empire of Draconia and destroying the nation as a whole.
Ever since, while the Gods themselves have had their powers largely sealed with the reawakening of the overdeity Atlas, The Ineffable, they remain mighty demigods capable of defeating all the mightiest mortal warriors - and with this newfound status many of the Draconian Pantheon such as Nicodema, Lady Victory, Khazum Khalum, The Divine Patriarch, and Lumirana, The Sunmother have taken up positions in various cities across The Lowland Fiefs for one reason or another.
Now, the entire area has returned to a warring collection of city states that once were linked by the might of The Empire of Draconia - each squabbling to claim land from one another amidst failing bloodlines and collapsing populations and cities in a land where gods walk the land as demigods in their own right.
Alternative Name(s)
The Fiefs, The Lowlands, The Draconian Lowlands
Type
Grassland
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