Ecological Zones

The Imperial Valley

The valley of Nouveau Thuille, the city-state, and its outlying settlements and villages

This is a fertile river valley with semi-reliable flooding in the springtime and snowmelt rivers year round. The valley only receives sun in the mornings and evenings due to the Upper Continent. It is very cold but very wet. It snows and freezes in the Winter. Ysse springs are very common.

The Northern Coast

Dominated by Saegenheim, home of the Sages of the North

More of this anon.

The Eastern Passage

And the Gateway to the North Sea

The World Serpent lives here.

The Southern Coast

Known for its fishing villages and selkie colonies...

More of this anon.

Togen Oyer

This island was the home of a fierce group of raiders... until the Philosopher King came...

Togen Oyer was once a charming, marshy islet to the southeast of the mainland a few days sail away from the nearest port. Covered moss, peat, thistles, lichens, and dandelions which lived in the shade of ashes and maples, Togen Oyer was previously home to a small kingdom of a ship-based society. The Kingdom of Togen Oyer had little of its own resources, save for an abundance of rabbits, seals, and butterflies. For a while, the wildlife existed with only the occasional Demon to prey on them, and the people of Togen Oyer had to carefully cultivate their creatures to avoiding overhunting the careless beasts.​

Today, Togen Oyer no longer exists - not a single stone remains. At the end of the war, the Philosopher King magically displaced every part of the island into the exact same place - resulting in the island exploding in a burst of green lightning and thunder. Only creatures in the sea avoided dying, but many of them have suffered from strange mutations from the sheer amount of Ysse in the air and waters here. Sharks have grown to ungodly sizes, seals have rabbit ears and two heads, and tuna in the area no longer have eyes and have green Ysse crystals growing from beneath their scales like veins. Some wonder if it is the Ysse at all, but other powers at work. No one can go there safely to find out.

Northern Flora & Fauna

Black Pine

Trees with nearly-black spines and a silvery wood

• Photosynthesize using more of the light spectrum, focusing on infra-red light.

• Eaten by Rumateurs sometimes

• Primary wood source in Thuille

• Home to chickadees

Ghost Pine

Albino trees that channel Ysse in the pattern of the Serpent to heat up the environment

• Produce immunogens that protect the Black Pines from disease.

• Can't photosynthesize, grow "parasitically" from Black Pine roots.

• Eaten by Rumateurs more than black pines, sometimes eaten by flavoneite

• Softer, pliable wood used for wooden tools--like spoons or bowls

Imperial Tobacco

Also known as "Nightshade", this a plant with many small, dark waxy leaves and little purple flowers. When concentrated, it can be deadly but in small doses, it is relaxing and dulls pain. It dies and replants itself every year and never grows very big. The flowers turn pale and bone-colored as they dry--and resemble skulls.

• Photosynthesizes, tends to grow higher on the mountains to maximize light exposure

• Smoked by humans as a relaxant, concentrated for a poison (both for humans and pests), but also fed to Rumateurs

Rumateur

Goat-like creatures with ossicones (like what Giraffe "horns" are), cloven hooves, big noses to warm air before they inhale it

• Eats: Grass, dandelions, bushes--Especially ghost pine and tobacco

• Eaten by: Flavoneite, Demons, Wolves

• Produce wool, milk, and meat. Also beasts of burden. They're basically as significant as llamas to Mesoamericans

Rumauteurs are large-bodied litopternans, convergently evolved in several respects to resemble the giraffoids. They are the sole surviving descendant of Macrauchenia, today finding their closest relatives to be the Perissodactyla (horses, tapirs, and rhinos). They use complex nasal passages to warm air before breathing, as well as producing a low trumpet-like bellow, which, aided by a valley's echo, travels far throughout their mountain homes.

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While their horns are not quite horns and their stomachs are not quite ruminant (giraffes, deer, antelope, goats, and cows are the only true ruminants), these animals have ossicones and complex chambered stomachs that allow them to graze in abundance in the northern mountains. Their 3-toed hooves give their feet flexibility, allowing them to climb sheer rock faces and leap between cliff outcroppings.

Surviving solely on tough mountain grasses in the wild, humans quickly learned that with an improved diet of rich, young grass and soft hay, these animals breed at around twice their natural speed and raise three times the healthy young than their wild forms do. By taking the edge off the mountains harshness, these animals thrive, allowing the domesticated forms to be bred for a variety of purposes. Whether you need a warbuck, a rock-hopper, or a draft rumauteur, the mountaineers have you covered.

Flavoneite (Void Beast)

Lynx-sized cats made of jelly, except instead of limbs, it has tentacles and instead of eyes, it has tentacles and instead of a mouth it has tentacles. If it bites you, you forget about it and fail to perceive any Flavoneites or creatures with its Ysse signature.

• Eats: Blood (Parasitic), Small animals, and Ysse

• Eaten by: The World Serpent, Catju

• Used: Can be processed to make anesthetics and other drugs, sometimes their jelly is burned for magic fuel

Caddisfly

Insects born in water only to become terrestrial later, these are the primary decomposers. Crepescule and summer-active. They harden their sticky cocoon by gathering up rocks and dirt at the bottom of the water.

• Eats: Rotting things

• Eaten by: Chickedees

• Humans will raise them in gold and silver dust filings or other tiny, pretty things to make jewelry and charms that naturally channel Ysse in a heating pattern. This practice kills the flu though so "Caddisfly Artist" is considered an insult meaning something like "Puppeteer" or "Con Artist"

Butterflies of the Heart

Bees which have butterfly wings by convergent evolution to dodge birds -- they live in a hive and are extremely empathetic to emotions. Their wings change color with their emotions and temperature due to blood flooding through them. Black is despair, gold is happiness, blue is peace, red is anger.

• Eats: Bee things

• Eaten by: Chickadees

• Used by humans to make honey--northerner's primary sweetener. The dye made from their wings can be used to monitor temperatures.

Chickadees

Little black and white fluffy birds named for their call

• Eats: Flowers, seeds, caddisflies, butterflies of the heart

• Eaten by: Flavoneite, Wolves, feral cats

• Humans think they're cute, they're a symbol of timelessness because their call never changes

Mountain chickadees are probably the most ecologically important bird around - significant both to the North and Chrysig above. They are one of the most common high-altitude songbirds and were likely responsible for bringing almost all tree and grass species to Chrysig after the dandelion prairies initially attracted them with their abundance of seeds. It should be noted that when grass colonizes Chrysig it is mostly limited to the edges of forests, daisygrass having already perfected the high-altitude niche. Similarly, when clouds of daisygrass seeds descend to the mainland they find themselves out-competed by native grass, but make abundant food for hungry low-altitude songbirds.

Narrative Use: These little guys are probably more important to the worldbuilding than they are to the narrative, but you could always mention their distinctive, “chicka-dee-dee-dee” song, or their pretty, “fee dee” whistle if you wanted. Mountain chickadees tend to prefer conifer seeds, but aren’t specialized enough to eat them in exclusion to grass or deciduous trees, so they justify the presence of pretty much any plant whose seeds are small enough for them to eat in Chrysig.

Catju (Euniques Catheuinne)

A weightless, round black cat the size of small mountain with dark fur and yellow eyes. She supposedly is a gift from Aselei and Damear to Asarlai.

• Eats: Ysse and Infra-Red light

• Eaten by: N/A

Small-Eared Rabbits

There are no rats, only rabbits with small ears

• Eats: Grass, bushes, tobacco

• Eaten by Flavoneite, humans, wolves

Wolves​

Wolves around Nouveau Thuille tend to be black and run in small packs of six to nine.

• Eat: Rumateurs, rabbits, and flavoneite

• Apex predators

• Humans hunt them for their pelts and often drive them away from their rumateurs BUT in the distant past they would hunt symbiotically. Humans will often try to tame lone wolves and teach them to guard their rumateurs and homes--which they will do.

Feral Cats

Humans have lived adjacent to cats since the dawn of time.

• Eat: Rabbits

• Eaten by: Flavoneite and humans in times of trouble

The World Serpent

The largest serpent in the world. There has only ever been one. They say the World Serpent was created by Asarlai, the God of Winter, Magic, and Secrets. When it clones itself, it must re-desposit its third eye into the Abyss. Today, it is missing its tooth.

• Eats: Ships

• Eaten by: Nothing

• Dispenses wisdom