The Mysteries of the Southern Continent

The Mysteries of the Southern Continent

By Sandifurr, Hinder, and Lark

Sandifurr:

The first thing one should know about the Southern Continent is that it is impossible to completely map or explore. Many magical barriers prevent access to certain isolated kingdoms while other events would change the map before you could finish it.

Lark:

So Hinder and I decided upon a travelogue to set down in written form what we have learned about the Southern Continent to present to the High Lord Mayor of New Elenna should we ever succeed in returning home.

We have explored 5 territories so far and have heard of many more. We’ve traveled from the cursed Gateway Downs to the Dwarven Kingdoms in the south. In doing this, we’ve learned several things. First do not travel here if you like to know where you are going next and if you like to live in the familiar. The peoples here are strange to us. Not better or worse--just exceedingly different.

Hinder:

One of the first things that I expect religious types will want to know is how the Gods of Wold are worshipped here. There are differences. The people in general are more religious than those of the Continent of Yrth. However most do not patron a single god, but instead show patronage to the Gods of Wold as a whole along with a local group of religious entities known as The Powers.

The faith of many rests upon need and appeasement. If one needs a certain thing, the appropriate god or power is approached in worship. If one has been stricken with something negative, they appease the god or power believed to have been either directly or indirectly responsible.

Lark:

One way that the peoples were strange to us is concerning the concept of “protection.” On Yrth, the concept of “protection” is perceived as a racket pulled off by thugs, thieves, and organized crime. A thief from the guild approaches a business and offers to spare it from fire and misfortune in exchange for a “reasonable” fee which usually increases in price through time until the owner cannot afford to pay the fee any longer. Then the thief takes over the ownership of the shop and keeps the former owner on as a manager. If it makes a profit, the arrangement continues. If it doesn’t then the store is sold to recoup the losses whereupon the thief offers to protect the new owner and the process begins again. Those refusing protection are robbed by the thief and assaulted as well physically harming the owner until he accepts..

In the Southern Continent, “protection” is an honorable service. A group of families and or businesses in a neighborhood hire a group of “protectors” to work for them protecting their neighborhood, people, and businesses against those who would harm them, which many times is another protection group hired by an enemy. Protections groups are hired for both the short and the long term. They are hired for specific circumstances as well as general protection.

The rules for protection are buried deep in tradition and law. The methods differ from culture to culture; however, most cultures do include honorable “protection” traditions.

The reason for detailing the protection tradition is that these groups are the closest thing that the Southern Continent has to adventuring groups; although, this in some places is beginning to change as we and others who are traveling adventurers continue to make our presence felt.

Sandifurr:

Our purpose as stated above has been to explore the Southern Continent and report back to the High Lord Mayor. As this purpose became known to the inhabitants of the Southern Continent, many of them advised us that the most important thing to report to our Mayor concerned something known popularly as The Great Land Migration. It is also known as The Shift, The Re-Creation, and The Grand Shuffle. At first we misconstrued this to mean that there a prophesied time would come, and had come before, when all the peoples of the Southern Continent would feel a strange compulsion to leave their homeland and travel to an unknown yet specific land of destiny. We thought that basically all would switch kingdoms with each other which was a totally bizarre concept to us. By doing this, all participating kingdoms would be blessed by the gods. Those not participating would be cursed.

Once we discovered the truth of things, which is cloaked in tradition and mystical stories, we were even more astounded. But first, some reasoning behind this strange shuffling is in order. Yrth as well as countless other civilizations on countless worlds have been observed to follow a certain “pattern of civilization.” The cultures arise in a state of purity. Sophistication then breeds corruption and that leads to selfishness and the blaming of outside forces for their own troubles. Eventually, although the “turns of the road” may vary from world to world, the civilization destroys itself. The Gods of Wold have prevented this destruction four times thus far on Yrth by initiating Cataclysms. Maybe more. However, the truth remains: The Noble Races left to themselves will eventually destroy themselves. Therefore, The Powers of the Southern Continent, endeavored to prevent this from happening without bringing situations to the point of long deadly conflicts which lead to Cataclysm.

Their solution was The Great Land Migrations. WE have not personally experienced one of these yet, but supposedly every few hundred years, before things can escalate to the point Cataclysm, The Powers initiate a Great Shift. When this happens, the kingdoms and territories of the Southern Continent are “shuffled” moved from place to place as if putting a jigsaw puzzle together with the pieces in different places from when the puzzle was first assembled. It happens in one night. The people of a kingdom wake up the next day, usually after a severe storm, to find that their kingdom is not in the same place anymore. The neighbors to the north, east, south, and west, are all different. New treaties have to be signed. New trade routes established. Protections groups are sent out to discover where old enemies and allies are located on The Continent. Weaker nations escape from their oppressors. Evil nations have to find new nations to dominate if they can.

Eventually all nations and territories adapt to their new situations and life goes on…until a few centuries later when it all happens again.

Lark:

It is therefore impossible to “map” the continent, although one may make maps of the individual territories as they tend to remain somewhat static from Shuffle to Shuffle. One may make a map of the “current alignment” and such maps are popular among travelers, although they are very expensive to buy. Also, by the very nature of the Southern Continent, they are always incomplete as each Great Migration bring new lands into being and “shuffles out” old lands as well into extinction if they prove unworthy of continued existence.

Hinder:

It is our hope to travel the civilized lands of Yrth with our information and spread this information about the Southern Continent. Then we will return there and continue our explorations. May the Gods of Wold and The Powers both bless us in our endeavors.

Selah.