The Zamrudi Isthmus (Zamroodi Izmus)
At the heart of the Rantai Zamrud, south of the nation of the Orangzamrud and before the land is ruled by Lizard folk sits the Zamrudi Isthmus. This small, unassuming spit of land has remained untouched for centuries, even as the civilisations around it began to spread.
Geography
The land itself is a softly undulating area of ground with dense woodlands running through the more inland areas. The ground does rise to a reasonable height above sea level in some places but nothing that could be called a hill. The coasts of the isthmus are lined with narrow white sand beaches which slope gently into the clear waters around the continent. At it's widest point the land is roughly 150 miles across, and 70 miles at its narrowest.
Ecosystem
To the external viewer, perhaps sailing past on a boat, the isthmus appears vibrant with life, the sounds of birds can be heard echoing from the treetops and flying in the sky, evidence of animals foraging on the beaches can also been seen by those with a keen eye. On closer examination though, an individual might realise that the birds in the sky don't move, their wings don't flap and they appear to make no progress through the sky. While animals have also been seen on the beaches they too seem to be immobile, as if pinned in fear or petrified.
Localized Phenomena
The real reason that the Zamrudi isthmus has remained untouched for so many years is that, while a ship can sail from the Rantai Zamrud to Kujira in a matter of days, travel by land over the isthmus proved significantly more difficult and practically impossible. When a person begins to walk into the forest of the isthmus they begin to experience time and distance in very strange ways. For example a group may strike camp one morning with a clear view of where they will make camp that evening and find that the sun sets after only a handful of hours or that on reaching the end of the day, they have made only a few miles of progress on otherwise easy ground. This has led to every known expedition across the isthmus to encounter the same problem, scarcity of supplies. Many have tried to find the animals that they hear around them but none have ever reported seeing the birds or land animals whilst on the isthmus. Groups, on realising they had to call off an expedition would spend a week or more retracing their steps out of the forest and find they could see the point of furthest progress from their start point. Even those groups who thoroughly prepared for weeks of self sufficient living, aided by magic items have found that the further they moved into the forest the harder they had to work to gain any progress at all and in the end found they were walking for 8 to 9 hours a day and making only 100ft of progress despite hours or walking in a straight line. Withdrawing from these expeditions also took a similar length of time and level of effort. For this reason a land invasion by either nation onto the other has been impossible and for many centuries prevented any contact between the two reptilian species and led to divergent development of their cultures.
Type
Isthmus
Location under
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