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 Posted: Mon Feb 29, 2016 12:51 pm
This is a huge island In the Kawani gulf surrounded by massive mountains. Any islander who gets past the mountains would be immediately faced with a seemingly unending ocean. Escape is possible, just unlikely.
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Posted: Mon Feb 29, 2016 1:02 pm
The island sits alone, over 312 Miles (well over 500 KM) away from the nearest point in land, and sits south of the Ulasigi Ama Trench by about 50 miles.
The water's around the island are warm and bursting with life under the waves in the coral reefs that line the edges of the seacliffs surrounding what was once a volcanic island. However, the island's shore is unwelcoming: Steep and typically barren cliffs (outside of seabird nesting season) line much of the island, waves crashing onto solid rock.
The only place really welcoming for terrestrial life is a small beach near the mouth of one of the inner rivers, and even then it is not a friendly place. The beach is dark black and rocky, hot in the southern sun, the water there only slightly less salty than that of the ocean but still to saline to drink. Gnarled shrubs edge against the near cliffs, and high tide floods the beach completely. However, here, hidden in the shrubbery, starts a path up the cliff heading up and west from the south eastern shore up into Crater Ridge mountains.
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Posted: Mon Feb 29, 2016 1:04 pm
The mountains surrounding the main part of the island round to softer edges covered in scrub, grasses and short, gnarled trees near the edge of the ridge, while the lower elevation tends to be slopes too steep for most but the goats and cliff sides with pocketing of caves and the occasional ledge.
On the southwestern side, however, near the end of the natural path snaking and weaving itself westward from the beach, the slopes, while still far too steep to travel up for all but the goat, are shallow enough to allow less coordinated and designed for the mountain terrestrial animals slide down to the next ledge without risk of injury, traveling down to the main land where much of the inhabitants survive.
Much of the land is made with a combination of limestone and other sedimentary rocks, while in their core volcanic rocks tell of the origin of the island and how it got pushed above the ocean waves. Caves are fairly common in the mountains, formed by various factors, from ancient lava tubes to the erosion created by water or wind.
The river that goes through the plains (What the Ra'Kari called The "Ayeyee Rak" (Eastern River) and the Yahn Weya call "Na Nyadeeyan" (The Freshwater) pools into the Southern Lake (Ra'ak Tak: Saoyee Lyk (Southern Lake). Beeyahn: Na Vaa Nyadeyan (The Big Freshwater). The Southern Lake rests against a shallow shore against the cliffs of the southeastern part of the mountains, and narrows down where the eastern and western cliffs meet. To go deeper in where the two cliffs meet is to risk getting swept further south and into the rapids -- while the first mile in is safer and there is a chance of a strong swimmer escaping to shore, but near the edge of the mile the river becomes too swift, and any narrow shore there had been has been swept clear of the water. At this point, you have no choice but to be pulled by the river into the the swifter and wilder water as the cliffsides narrow and form the Southern Rapids (Ra'ak tak: Pagh Chek Yii Taki (Throat of no return). Beeyahn: Karyee jiya Eyan (Wolf tooth Water))
For those who cannot travel the mountain edges like the goats of the Yahn Weya or fly through the skies, the Southern Rapids are the only way out of the island, but often results in death, bashed against rocks or the Cliff Edges or the rocks in the river or pulled under by the current. During the dry season, the river goes through a cave with close roof for about a mile before reopening toward the end of the river, slowing down after that as it empties into the ocean. During wet season, this cave kills almost anyone who had survived up until this point unless, by luck, intelligence, or genetics, they were able to figure out a way to breath during it.*
To the East of the lake is the Yahn Weya Territory -- primarily in the cliffs and mountains of the island, though spreading into the south eastern grasslands where they forage and farm for additional grazing. Their shelters tend to be in the mouths of caves high up in the cliffs, though a few caves have naturally glowing stones in their surfaces, allowing the goats to venture deeper in safely.
*Survival: One such instance of surviving the rapid cave during wet season happened about 50 years prior to the arrival of soquili to the island when Kayrroow, a Ra'kari wolf that had murdered another male and the shewolf they were fighting over in a fit of rage and passion was sent out on a bowl boat into the Pagh Check Yii Taki for their crime, given food and water in clay jars saw the cave coming and emptied the food jar into a bag made out of a capybara and put the jar over their head and held onto the boat and their supplies. As it was near the end of the dry season, the cave wasn't entirely flooded and the jar held enough air for them to get through it.. Kayrroow drifted in the ocean for weeks afterwards before a mer found their battered boat and took them mainland, helping them catch fish in their net on the way.
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Posted: Mon Feb 29, 2016 1:23 pm
Northern waterfall ( splits into two rivers, the easternmost being the only water that goes fully away from the island and into the ocean by direct means, and thee western most traveling to what the Ra'kari call Arok Tikia Lyk or "Deep Water Lake" (It is known as Na Syees Nyadeyan or "the Trees Freshwater", most goats having only ever seen it from a distance on the mountain tops, partially hidden by the jungle), the largest body of fresh water in the island. The waterfall itself is in the heart of Ra'kari territory, their dwellings built around the streams and gentle pools at the base of the fog and rain fed waterfall and down a ways on the river, and they call the falls Kaytaya Tatik Mik or "Mountain's Blood Falls" Deep Water lake is the opening to a deep dark aquifer, the underwater cave system mostly unexplored. Its banks are rich with water reeds and grasses, but soon empty out into the massive lake, which is approximately 28 miles est to west and 18 miles north to south. It is an abundant source of freshwater fish and semi-aquatic animals such as Coypu and Capybara. Occasional Reed islands float across the massive lake, and are occasionally used as fishing camps by members of the Native Ra'kari Wolves who venture out in their Long reed and round Coracle style boats. The smaller Northern lake (Rakari: Tekmak Lyk (northern lake). Beeyahn: Unknown (never really explored or noticed.)) is primarily a grassy wetland with shallow water, never getting any deeper than four feet at its deepest.
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Posted: Mon Feb 29, 2016 1:24 pm
The southeastern Grasslands are, for the most part, arid with sparse shrubbery and the rare, occasional dead tree. Tortoises, lizards, and ground dwelling birds frequent the land, and Caracara and other raptors visit these areas. Here, the Blooded live in marked colonies spotted in different locations. The largest animal of these plains are the Giant Tortoises.
The western part on the eastern shore of southern lake is Yahn Weya Farm and foraging territory, the farms hugging tight to a small stream leading from a small (unmarked) mist fed waterfall in the goats territory.
It is created by the Rainshadow of the southeastern mountains.
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Posted: Mon Feb 29, 2016 1:28 pm
The Utloyi rainforest is the heart and soul of the island, a land of abundance and plenty. Even during the dryer seasons cooling rains cool the land nearly every day at approximately. North of The large lake jungle is tightly packed, but within a few miles the trees begin to shade the ground, leaving easier travel as paths open up in the rainforest. During the rainy season, the rivers widen, creating shallow, slow moving floods through what is dry land in other seasons, helping spread seeds of many of the great trees and plants-- Some of which, such as Monkey-;adder (Entada Gigas, or sea hearts), if lucky and buoyant enough to flow into the easternmost river, even getting swept out to sea and taken by currents to the western jungles of mainland or other islands in the Kawani gulf.
Wildlife is abundant here, the trees full of birdsong, both of feral creatures and Familiars. Sometimes the ghostly howling known as "Haroo Ra'aks ka Makoa" or "Song Words of Travelers "(or just Haro'ak (Wordsong)" by Ra'Kari and the sound of horns can be heard distantly by those of the jungle as the tribe who lives there communicate from distant location to distant location when hunting camps make a kill or have something vital to relay back home.
On the South western part of the island near the largest of lakes, near the slightly shallower slopes that allow the newly arrived soquili to venture safely from the tops of the mountains into the heart, fruit trees increase in abundance and the forest is thin and patchy, and occasional stone structures, ruins from an ancient and abandoned civilization create shelter. The grass is taller here, making for good grazing, and the abundance of fruit and sweet flowers. This is the starting place of the Moon Herd, where they flourish with little to want. There are plenty of rolling hills in this location, getting up to a relatively decent elevation before hitting the slopes too steep to climb, giving the area slightly more temperate location, a slightly more sub-tropical location than the much warmer jungles, cooled by the deep lake and the winds that blow across it from the grasslands. While still rather brutally hot in the day for about Eight of the months during the day, the nights drop into the mid seventies, nurturing the more nocturnal habits developed by the soquili that have recently discovered this land.
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