On Loria Broadly:
The Land
Loria is a continent of shifting terrains and living geographies. Its regions are vast, often contradictory, and each carries its own temperament. Mountains tear the sky to the north, salt flats stretch desolate to the east, the southern coasts breathe with three moons’ pull, and at the center lies the Valemire — the sodden heart where rivers, forests, and forgotten roads converge.
The Valemire — Heart of Loria
The Valemire is a great basin where rivers knot together and fog lingers year-round. It is both the most studied and least understood of Loria’s regions.
Geography and Soil
The basin is fed by dozens of rivers that braid and unbraid across miles of swamp and forest. The ground is black with silt and layered rot, fertile beyond measure yet treacherous to work. Whole fields collapse into bog after a single flood, and patches of earth are known to swallow livestock and men alike.
Vegetation grows in tiers. At the highest rise the spirecaps — colossal fungal stalks whose canopies catch whole pools of rain. Around their bases twist hardwoods, clinging and climbing as though competing for breath. Beneath them, moss, reeds, and vines leave no surface bare. Light filters through in shafts only, heavy with drifting spores.
The Low Century
The Valemire was not always sodden. Records describe open woodlands and grasslands before the rains of the Low Century — seventy years of near-constant downpour that transformed the basin. Towns drowned, fields vanished, and rivers carved new paths through the floodplain. Survivors adapted to stilts and boats, reshaping their lives to a land that no longer held still.
Remnants of those drowned settlements remain. Chimneys break the surface in dry months, and there are places where steeples and rooftops lie visible beneath shallow water.
Ecology and Atmosphere
The Valemire never rests. Roots shift audibly beneath the soil, moss climbs walls overnight, rivers vanish and reappear miles away. The air is heavy with insects, spores, and the constant hum of hidden life.
It is a land of abundance and peril. Medicinal fungi thrive beside species that choke breath from the lungs. Herbs that cure fever grow next to vines that drag down cattle. Villages survive by memorizing which plants to trust and which to fear.
Cultural Views
The Valemire is described in many ways:
- Farmers call it a tide — giving, taking, never resisted.
- Scholars call it a system — a body with veins, flows, and hidden logic.
- Priests call it a beast — patient, consuming, neither cruel nor kind.
- Wanderers whisper that it watches, choosing who will pass.
Despite their differences, all agree the Valemire has a will of its own.
Strategic Importance
Roads and rivers converge in the basin. Tolmir, the capital city at its center, thrives on this convergence, drawing power from every trade route. Whoever commands the Valemire commands fertile land, river crossings, and buried legacies older than the Houses themselves.
Philosophy of Place
The Valemire is not backdrop. It acts. It adapts, consumes, and remembers. To live here is to accept its terms — patience, vigilance, humility. Those who forget do not last.
The Ternock Heights — North
Mountains pale as bone rise in the north, jagged enough to tear storms apart. The Ternock Heights resist settlement; frost, thin air, and steep stone permit only hunters, herders, and stubborn miners.
Legends call them the bones of the world. Few linger there long; fewer return unchanged.
The Western Steppes
To the west stretch plains vast as the horizon. Winds scour the grasslands, and storms roll without warning. Roads vanish into dust or into roots reclaiming the flatland.
The people of the steppes live by movement. They travel with horses and wagons, never settling long. Independence is their strength; suspicion their shield.
The Eastern Flats and Lost Lands
The east offers silence. Salt flats and drowned forests stretch into desolation. Birds refuse to cross, and guides turn back.
Scattered ruins stand half-sunken in brine. Some claim they are the oldest cities of Loria, predating the Valemire itself. Expeditions vanish into the Flats; those who return speak little.
The Southern Wilds and Coasts
Southward, rivers empty into a brackish sea. The coastline splinters into inlets, reedbeds, and shifting islands. Villages string lanterns over the tide until the water looks like a second sky.
The three moons pull the sea into strange rhythms. Floods rise without warning, and tides retreat to reveal black sand flats miles long. The waters teem with both sustenance and threat — silverbone eels, colossal carrowback tortoises, and deeper shapes that surface rarely, but never forgotten.
The Land Itself
Loria is not passive terrain. Rivers change their beds overnight. Forests reclaim roads in a season. Bogs swallow chimneys and later return coins.
It is older than the Houses, older than the gods, older even than the Labyrinth. The land does not belong to its people. Its people belong to the land.