The Junn Steppe
The Junn Steppe is a massive region to the west of Cobal, Imesse and Colo. Ill-defined at best, it is a vast empty landscape broken only by ranges of mountains and thousands of square miles of rolling, broken grasslands. Stretching from the Caldar River in the south to the colder, ice-choked Silverwine River to the north and extending west from Cobal and Imesse as far as 600 miles, the Junn Steppe can easily cover an area of 600,000 square miles of territory and is larger than the Province of Quebec.
The vast steppe is sparsely populated, but there are semi-nomadic Humans that call themselves Junn Harr. The Junn Harr herd horses, cattle and camels through seasonal territories, mainly living off of horseback and in leather tents called araks. They do not build stone dwellings, and there simply isn't enough forest to justify building wooden buildings. Araks are round, walled, flat-topped tents of stitched tanned leather. Araks can vary in size from simple 10' diameter tents to vast multi-roomed homes, some reaching diameters of 60' or more when they are erected as adjoining dwellings.
There are also tribes of Orcs that frequently wander across the steppe, moving east from the rugged mountains towards the more populated regions along the Caldar River.
Geography
The great Steppe is mostly undefined, understood as anything west of the frontiers of Cobal, northern Imesse and Colo. It is a vast, nearly empty wasteland covered in course, deep-rooted plains grass, scrub oaks and pines, rocky watersheds and three large chains of steep, jagged mountains. Scholars agree that the term steppe is a poor one, since only about half of the accepted territory known as the Junn Steppe is, in fact, steppe. The rest is semi-arid high desert, rugged mountains or oak and pine savannas along river courses. Most of the Junn Steppe receives its annual rainfall in heavy seasonal events, with the rest of the year quite dry. Winters throughout the region are very cold and very windy.
Fauna & Flora
Most mapped areas of the steppe are either near endless grasslands, river-edge thickets or mountain heights. Herds of Auroch, Mastodon, mammoth, Megaloceros, camel and bison are hunted by Smilodon, Cave Lion, Giant Cave Bear, Wyvern and even the occasional Dragon.
Flora includes an almost endless number of wild grasses and hearty shrubs that send down deep roots that make cultivation by plow a nightmare. Where trees are found they are typically short and stunted by strong winds, frequent fires and large herds of grazers that routinely move through the region eating vegetation down to the ground as they migrate. Nearer to the mountains of the regions one can find vast, empty bogs and swamps that extend from horizon to horizon, especially in areas where mountain run off has nowhere to run to.
Type
Steppe
Included Locations
Included Organizations
Related Ethnicities
Characters in Location
Inhabiting Species
