The Land Bridge

"It sounds impossible, I know, but just wait until you see them. It's almost worth the price of the journey. I've been sailing this ship for close to forty year, and I still get chills when they appear on the horizon. Amazing."

The link between the two main continents on Pande is a collection of tall, mesa-like islands forming an archipelago. There are a vast number of these mesa, which are on average tens of kilometres in diameter, and about 1000 meters high, with visible jungle-like foliage on top, but so far, no one has managed to climb one to determine the nature of the environment on top. This is mostly due to both their geographical isolation, but also that the bottom of each mesa has a narrow strip of jungle populated by tribes of isolationist and particularly aggressive peoples.

---

Geography

It has been postulated by Imperial scholars, that the two continents used to be one larger landmass, but the cataclysmic events of the Inheritance War, which saw the Primae unleash their full power against Turbal, shattered this part of the world, leaving only the flattened peaks of the highest hills, with the ocean taking the rest.
The rock that the mesa are made of appears to be consistent; a dark grey limestone, topped by an even darker band of what is proposed to be basalt or shale. The environments on the top of each one is isolated and potentially unique, housing plants and animals found no where else in the world. There are rumours that the natives know of caves and tunnels that lead to the top, and in fact represent the outer edges of a secret civilisation, but this is considered far-fetched by almost all scholars.

---

Ecosystem

The very tops of the mesa that make up the land bridge are high enough above the ocean that surrounds them that they have their own ecosystems, not only from the areas around, but also from each other. They do share a common environment, however; mostly wet and colder than that at sea level, and an acute lack of soluble minerals. This has led to unique ecosystems that are, as yet, undiscovered by any scholars.

---

History

Whatever the origins of the land bridge, it was discovered by Imperial colonists seeking to escape the ravages of the Sakamohr hegemony and the general turmoil of the Inner Sea region at the time. The northern coast up until that point had been disease-infested jungle, with very little fresh water, and the ships kept pushing further and further east along the coast.
A few settlements still exist along this route, wherever the conditions were suitable, and are used now as lay-overs on the route, with a relatively large settlement on the island of Siffur. The island could not sustain a large population, however, and so the ships kept going east, following the coast as it turned south. Here the mountains reached all the way to the ocean, with steep, bare coastlines becoming more and more common, and even vegetation becoming sparse. Initial travellers assumed the islands were either openings into fjord-like river systems, or single islands, but as they followed the chain, it became apparent the land bridge was a true geological phenomenon.
Whilst actually landing on the islands that make up the land bridge is all but impossible, they are an important tool for navigation, and do a lot to moderate the currents and weather patterns in the sea between the northern and southern continents.

---

Type

Archipelago