Southland: Terrain Features

THE SOUTHLAND

A Fantasy Core Setting

© Jerry Harris 2014

Published here as Open Game Content.

(This link will take you to the Fantasy Core Index.)

Southland Index

TERRAIN FEATURES

It was once a paradise.  The Ancients thoroughly re-made the continent into an ideal living environment with their powerful magic.  It was this same powerful magic that decimated the landscape during their Civil War.  The interior was rendered almost sterile.  The only lakes are saltwater, and even those only appear if it rains hard enough. 

Eventually, signs of life have gradually reappeared.  Hard-scrabble prairie has surrounded much of the desert.  The equatorial regions in the north have become dense swamps.  The eastern coast, somewhat sheltered from the worst effects of the conflict by the Great Dividing Range, has recovered into pleasant, but limited, farm and grazing land.  Colonial settlements rely on underground, fresh water Artesian wells and a few above ground rivers. 

It’s an unpleasant environment for settlers.  The good land is too little.  The marginal land is hard to work and too near the monsters.  Unlike the Dark Continent, there are no native populations to impress into forced labor.  Even most of the native animals have been rendered hostile.  Livestock has to be brought over from the homeland and carefully protected against the native wildlife and Humanoid raiders.  It’s a lot of work to just stay alive in the Southland. 

It should be noted that areas still in the “Fallout,” are not harmful to human life.  (The fallout and non-fallout areas have not been defined on the map to allow more flexibility.  Also, the fallout areas are constantly contracting.  Generally, the coasts are uncontaminated.)  Fallout areas are, however, important to Humanoid life.  They can only replicate themselves in these magic saturated places.  Areas with the magical fallout can be determined by a light blue glow that appears around the sun, the moon, and the stars.