Grand Canyon
One of the marvels of this area of the world, the Grand Canyon is immense. It stretches for close to 1000 km, forming the southern border of Taebur. Its walls can reach 300 to 400 m in places. Although it does twist and bend in places, overall it is remarkably straight, which is just one of a few things that have led scholars to believe that the canyon is somehow not natural.
The canyon's rather straight length provides a convenient passage from one side of Taebur to the other, and many people use it for just that. There are numerous settlements along its length, including most notably Zal at its west end and Rabbit at its east end, near the White River.
Yet that same straightness is also seen as unnatural, leading many people to avoid it, thinking it haunted. Indeed, most people who live there or who have travelled along it have a story or two to tell about an encounter with the supernatural. Most residents of the communities there have their homes protected with numerous charms, fetishes, and, in some rare cases, even force fields. Of course, there are also many who scoff at the idea of ghosts and hauntings. Some have suggested that the apparitions may actually be nothing more than holograms created by some as-yet undiscovered Old World device.
Ecosystem
The canyon has much the same variety of life that the rest of southern Taebur has. The only notable difference is that there is a sizeable population of mountain goats not found in the rest of Taebur. Plant life is much the same and water remains scarce.
The canyon is far enough south of the desert that sandstorms rarely reach it, and even if they do, the canyon's walls provide ample protection. Nanite Storm, on the other hand, rarely come this far south, but when they do, the canyon's walls are no impediment to them. They just fly over the edge and straight down.
History
Similar to the Yellow River Canyon, no surviving Pre-War records mention a canyon in this part of the world. However, unlike the Yellow River Canyon, which is considerably smaller, the Grand Canyon's size makes it less likely that it wouldn't even be mentioned in passing in one of the surviving records. Archaeologists examining the canyon have also found considerable evidence of scorching along the its rock faces, suggesting that the canyon was literally blasted out of the earth. Its relatively straight shape also lends some credence to this, as a canyon carved out by a river, glacier, or other natural process would like meander considerably more.
There is also the fact that many of the ruined roads and highways that once criss-crossed the region end abruptly at the edge of the canyon, some continuing on the other side. There is no indication of bridges once being there, suggesting when the roads were made, there was no canyon in the way.
That said, none of the surviving records mention any attempts to carve out a canyon either. Any weapon or other device capable of doing such a thing has never been found, though most scholars agree that the people of the Old World were probably capable of making such a device.
