Vale of Waters
In the central band of the country is a lowland defined by the retreat of ancient glaciers. Scattered from East to West are kettle lakes, ice-scarred promontory peaks, and low ridgelines of deposited sediment.
In the east by the Ice Wall, the freshest remnants of glacial activity can be identified; gravel beds, moraines and the like. This land is a tundra of warmly-colored shrubs and sedge grasses, grazed by herds of caribou that alternately can be found migrating to the evergreen forest Northwards in the Evergreen Reach. In summer, multicolored wildflowers blossom from the earth, areas of which are warm enough to tolerate agriculture. The morning sun lights the crags of the Ice Wall like a bonfire, and sends a glut of meltwater to swell the banks of a river heading west. Beneath the permafrost are vast beds of anthracite coal and petroleum.
To the west in the shadow of the Cholades and ‘Amit, the land is a savannah of tall wildgrasses and scattered acacia copses. The climate is warm here, but not prone to drought due to a high water table fed by geothermal heat. When one spots a little hillock on this savanna, it is a geyser as often as it is a termite mound. The biodiversity in this region is staggering: giraffes and dwarf elephants in the patches of thin forest, great wildcats and wildebeest patrolling the grasslands. The place is fit to make a zoologist (or a hunter) twitch with excitement. A river cuts this land too, fed by the water table and rare torrential downpours: west to east, this one. The geological activity here has left behind kimberlite pipes, the source of elusive diamonds and other precious gemstones, as well as a fair few rare earth metals.
In the center of the Vale of Waters is a merger of all the rivers on the continent fit to name: North from Monsoon Point, West from the savannah, East from the tundra, all emptying their burdens to the South and the distant sea beyond the Painted Land. A great lake sits here, relatively shallow but broad. Its waters are flush with freshwater fish and waterfowl. The terrain beyond the lakeshore of brown sand and clay beds is some of the most supremely fertile earth in all the world, a temperate country of low hills and beautifully green grass. The summers are warm but mild to crops, the winters thinly blanket the land in snow for a month or so before melting. Little of the wildlife is dangerous; foxes, burrowing rodents from shrews to beavers, hares and the like.
I tried to blend a bunch of things I liked from a bunch of different people.
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Topic: Let's Make a Map: Day 8a - Smile Harder (Read 3834 times)