Southland: Contested Migration Areas

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

Humanoid Lands Index

Contested Migration Areas

The various Humanoids of the Outback are voracious consumers.  A few of the clans, tribes, and gangs have settled into certain permanent residences, where they can comfortably feed themselves.  [These places, along with the Humanoid’s stats, will be detailed in following posts.]  Most Humanoids though are near roaming armies, tracking around the continent in migratory arcs, searching for new feeding grounds.  This can include preserves of wildlife, human settlements, and even meeting opposing Humanoid forces. 

The Nullarbor Plain along the southern coast is a tree-less prairie that is something of a transit corridor for large groups of Humanoids.  This seems to be the one of the common stops for these migrating groups engaged in the Humanoid version of the “Walkabout.”  For this reason, though the plain would be quite suitable for ranching, the humans have left this area alone.

The Plain was a site of massive battles during the Ancient Civil War.  It has since ecologically recovered, somewhat.  There are many limestone caverns, tunnels, and sinkholes underneath the Plain.  There is also abundant water held in some of those caverns.  The Ancients used these as military and survival bunkers.  Unfortunately during the Catastrophe, they weren’t deep or enchanted enough to save anyone. 

It’s a very dangerous spot for exploring, but in some of those bunkers should be magic weapons, artifacts, and knowledge.  There has been a tale of one explorer stumbling upon a cache of several “sleeping” dragons.  Were this story told anywhere else in world, it would be dismissed.

[Yep, drop in your favorite cavern-style dungeon here.]

Above ground water is a problem in the Southland.  Most fresh water has to come from Artesian wells underground.  There are just a few fresh water rivers, such as the Murray and the Darling in the southeast, that are constantly flowing.  Lake Eyre, along with a series of other salt lakes (Torrens, Frome, Gairdner), form when there’s enough monsoon rains to fill them.  Eyre is the only one with standing water, but even then, most of the time, it’s a crust of salt over a depression in the desert.    

Humanoids can process saltwater, though they don’t like it, but it’s easier than digging a well.  These saltwater lakes, when filled, are watering holes for the tribes when on the move.  It is another common stop on their “Walkabouts.”  Humans do harvest the salt, but normally avoid the area during the wet season, when the Humanoids typically visit.  The various tribes do normally have an informal, standing truce around the lakes, but it doesn’t take much of an incident to get them to break it.