11-07-2009, 10:05 PM
Sidh OhnNov 6 2009, 12:47 AM If I may add to this....
From our experience, the Sidh Ohn would have to agree with your hypothesis concerning the ocean currents. As you've commented, the western nations tend to exhibit warmer climates, with the eastern nations experiencing varying degrees of cold to semi-tundra like conditions. Of particular interest to me is the difference between your own lands (cold but not frozen over) and Sidh Ohn (near-tundra conditions) given that our lands lie on your southern border. This has caused many theories among us but is easily explained by our topographies and the clockwise ocean currents the region seems to experience. ie. Sidh Ohn has a topography that largely slopes down the farther east you go, slopes gently up the farther west and south you go, while remaining fairly flat to the northern border. This likely prevents the warmest air currents from the south and west from reaching us, while admitting the colder air from the the eastern ocean and, to a lesser extent, from your own northern lands. So, we have a situation, where the lands of the bears have a relatively open air flow which allows greater temperature variations, which while still very cold, are not arctic, while Sidh Ohn is essentially a bowl of cold air with little temperature variation, resulting in a lower average annual temperature, and thus our near-tundra conditions.[/quote]
So you're taking over the lands that were formerly held by -- and are shown on some versions of the regional map as belonging to -- 'Frontenax', are you? That seem basically okay, as far as I'm concerned anyway, because he wasn't here long enough to be somebody whose return I'd consider very likely: In fact it was the area that I meant to suggest to you, anyway...
However, during the brief period when he was an active member of this region, we agreed to change the border between these two lands from the line that the regional map shows and I'd really like to keep that revised arrangement. Here's a link to my map of the 'Northlands', showing it.
BA.N 01 General Full
As you can see, the Bears have gained (or, in IC terms, "always" owned) a wedge of land extending southwards along the eastern border of 'Old Ceorana' but don't occupy the easternmost [& smallest] of the three "lobes" of land that the official map would give them... and I've added a peninsula extending northwards, and a lot of islands, which Domnonia had agreed could be added to the regional map but which he didn't actually get around to incorporating therein.
Are these changes in the border okay as far as you are concerned?
EDIT (08th November): We'd also agreed that the border was mostly mountainous: There are (an uncertain number of) passes that allow passage south out of 'F', at least in Summer, and my area labelled 'E.M.' is all mountains -- although fairly low, eroded-down ones like the USA's Appalachians rather than anything newer -- that extend into 'B.F' too although the easternmost end of the border there is a river instead. A mystical border excluded outsiders from our lands until a few years ago...
Quote: Likewise, we know for a fact that their is at the very least a northern ice shelf that was once much larger as that is how our own people arrived on the continent; ie. over an ice bridge that once connected it with this continent in the north.
This observation leads us to the topic of the highly varied flora and fauna in the region. It is our belief that the two main continents that make up the region are likely sitting on entirely different plates. As stated, our northern continent was once in contact with a northerly ice shelf (whether this was an ice covered land mass or just ice is another question that we are not entirely sure of, though we can say that we migrated from a continent on the other side of it.) Our own migration took place due to a massive geologic upheaval. We also have records indicating that a similar upheaval occurring on the region's northern continent in the wake of our arrival which prevented us from escaping to the north again. This has led us to theorise, that within cultural memory, the plates that the northern and southern continents rest on moved near each other from arctic and tropic climes respectively, until arriving in there current, apparently stabalised locations. So most of the apparent disparity in the flora and fauna of the region would be explained geologically. The remainder seems to have been introduced by immigrants (such as the Sidh Ohn Aurochs and Brother-Wolves.) Of the remaining native species some were driven to extinction (such as arctic wolves from hunting in Bears Armed and competition in Sidh Ohn) and others thriving in the new environment (such as the chromatic crows in Bears Armed and the apparently related ice crows? in Sidh Ohn.)
We would be curious if any more of these findings could be verified. [/quote]
That's nicely written, but I'm afraid that my reply will (at least for now) have to be a purely OOC one:
Two plates rather than one seems better to me, too, and the line of mountains that forms an East-West 'spine' in the southern continent does look as though that land-mass is colliding with another plate to either the North or the South, tbut I think that we'd better leave the decision about how they're actually moving relative to each other for the players whose nations are actually located around & south of the intervening seas to make... because it would affect the probabilities of earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes in their lands.
As you can see from the map to which I've linked in this post, there's also a plate boundary that runs somewhere along the floor of the ocean out to the north/north-east/east of the Bears' northern lands... unless people seriously object to this.
According to the region's main NSwiki article the region extends from about 20 degrees N to about 55 degrees N... The bits that I've added to the north of the Bears might extend this by another 05 degrees, at the most, so if that the "polar" landmass is significantly smaller than RL Antarctica -- which I think it should be -- then any "land-bridge" or ice-shelf across which your people migrated as you say would have had to have been verrry long... unless, perhaps, it actually bridged the gap between this region and a continent in some 'alternative' Reality? We've generally accepted the theory that NS has a 'Multiverse'-type structure, at least in this region, so that would work okay unless you don't like the idea.
(I really don't like the idea that, as you suggested, there was a fairly "sudden" geological upheaval just after your arrival, due to the continents colliding, because that would seem to imply a ridiculously fast rate of 'contiental drift': If you really want it to have happened, then try to convince me...)
And of course using the 'Multiverse' concept could also explain how your nation has been in its present lands for quite a while even though our regional maps show a different country there in recent history: Some sort of "Reality Quake" would simply have switched the two nations over with each other between a pair of Earths...
'Chromatic crows' aren't found only in Bears Armed, they're actually present in most of the region's lands -- including many that are currently "failed nations" -- as was agreed by most of the region's active players back when I invented them: The whole reason for their existence, at the OOC level, is to give the IDU as a whole at least one 'unique' species that doesn't exist at all in RL but that is [extremely] widely endemic here. However the basal 'Corvid' stock from which they evolved would almost certainly have had to immigrate from somewhere else, considering the RL Crow family's origins, so maybe they came through the same "weak point" between Realities that your people subsequently (if you accept my theory) utilised, or maybe your Ice Crows are actually descended from a stock of Chromatic Corws that had taken that same route in the opposite direction -- from the IDU to wherever your people previously lived -- during the moderately distant past and the modern species then arrived here at about the same time as your people?
Incidentally, roughly when did your people arrive in their present home?
Fauna of the North
This isn't by any means a complete list, and of course you don't have to accept any of the species that I mention, but anyway_
Frontenax had the Grizzly Bear as his national animal and before vanishing he agreed that an Ursine species which I'd invented probably also extended into part of his lands: The 'Mountain Bear' (or 'Varying Bear', or 'Blue Bear'...) is a relatively lightly-built species that, instead of hibernating, normally changes its fur's colour seasonally for better camouflage... and also has a version that stays 'blue' all year, just as the Arctic Fox does. It's mainly found inland (because Polar Bears, which are significantly larger, monopolise the richer food resources along the coast) and in winter it's primarily a hunter/scavenger rather than an omnivore. Whether any of the Bears on your side of the border are sapient (and possibly anthropomorphic, too) is, of course, entirely up to you...
The clan at the south-west of the Bears' 'Northlands', marked on the map to which I've linked in this post as 'F'' which stands for either 'Five Lakes' or 'Forest Lakes', includes a group that herds semi-domesticated Moose and we've also got at least one other sort of Deer thereabouts... and there are definitely Reindeer/Caribou up north, especially along the northwards-pointing peninsula ('N.C') that I've added to the map near the eastern end of the Bears' Northlands , too.
How do you feel about the Woolly Rhinoceros, which is a grazer? I'm thinking of having a surviving (but "dwarfed") stock of thsi in 'B.F' & possibly elsewhere, in which case it could plausibly have relatives on your side of the border too...
In the sea, there are Sea-Cows (possibly the species known in RL as Steller's, possibly a different -- but very similar-- one instead) and -- at least in the waters between the Bears' eastern [mainland] coasts and the islands that one clan inhabits even further out to the east of these ('I.R'] there are Sea Otters.
From our experience, the Sidh Ohn would have to agree with your hypothesis concerning the ocean currents. As you've commented, the western nations tend to exhibit warmer climates, with the eastern nations experiencing varying degrees of cold to semi-tundra like conditions. Of particular interest to me is the difference between your own lands (cold but not frozen over) and Sidh Ohn (near-tundra conditions) given that our lands lie on your southern border. This has caused many theories among us but is easily explained by our topographies and the clockwise ocean currents the region seems to experience. ie. Sidh Ohn has a topography that largely slopes down the farther east you go, slopes gently up the farther west and south you go, while remaining fairly flat to the northern border. This likely prevents the warmest air currents from the south and west from reaching us, while admitting the colder air from the the eastern ocean and, to a lesser extent, from your own northern lands. So, we have a situation, where the lands of the bears have a relatively open air flow which allows greater temperature variations, which while still very cold, are not arctic, while Sidh Ohn is essentially a bowl of cold air with little temperature variation, resulting in a lower average annual temperature, and thus our near-tundra conditions.[/quote]
So you're taking over the lands that were formerly held by -- and are shown on some versions of the regional map as belonging to -- 'Frontenax', are you? That seem basically okay, as far as I'm concerned anyway, because he wasn't here long enough to be somebody whose return I'd consider very likely: In fact it was the area that I meant to suggest to you, anyway...
However, during the brief period when he was an active member of this region, we agreed to change the border between these two lands from the line that the regional map shows and I'd really like to keep that revised arrangement. Here's a link to my map of the 'Northlands', showing it.
BA.N 01 General Full
As you can see, the Bears have gained (or, in IC terms, "always" owned) a wedge of land extending southwards along the eastern border of 'Old Ceorana' but don't occupy the easternmost [& smallest] of the three "lobes" of land that the official map would give them... and I've added a peninsula extending northwards, and a lot of islands, which Domnonia had agreed could be added to the regional map but which he didn't actually get around to incorporating therein.
Are these changes in the border okay as far as you are concerned?
EDIT (08th November): We'd also agreed that the border was mostly mountainous: There are (an uncertain number of) passes that allow passage south out of 'F', at least in Summer, and my area labelled 'E.M.' is all mountains -- although fairly low, eroded-down ones like the USA's Appalachians rather than anything newer -- that extend into 'B.F' too although the easternmost end of the border there is a river instead. A mystical border excluded outsiders from our lands until a few years ago...
Quote: Likewise, we know for a fact that their is at the very least a northern ice shelf that was once much larger as that is how our own people arrived on the continent; ie. over an ice bridge that once connected it with this continent in the north.
This observation leads us to the topic of the highly varied flora and fauna in the region. It is our belief that the two main continents that make up the region are likely sitting on entirely different plates. As stated, our northern continent was once in contact with a northerly ice shelf (whether this was an ice covered land mass or just ice is another question that we are not entirely sure of, though we can say that we migrated from a continent on the other side of it.) Our own migration took place due to a massive geologic upheaval. We also have records indicating that a similar upheaval occurring on the region's northern continent in the wake of our arrival which prevented us from escaping to the north again. This has led us to theorise, that within cultural memory, the plates that the northern and southern continents rest on moved near each other from arctic and tropic climes respectively, until arriving in there current, apparently stabalised locations. So most of the apparent disparity in the flora and fauna of the region would be explained geologically. The remainder seems to have been introduced by immigrants (such as the Sidh Ohn Aurochs and Brother-Wolves.) Of the remaining native species some were driven to extinction (such as arctic wolves from hunting in Bears Armed and competition in Sidh Ohn) and others thriving in the new environment (such as the chromatic crows in Bears Armed and the apparently related ice crows? in Sidh Ohn.)
We would be curious if any more of these findings could be verified. [/quote]
That's nicely written, but I'm afraid that my reply will (at least for now) have to be a purely OOC one:
Two plates rather than one seems better to me, too, and the line of mountains that forms an East-West 'spine' in the southern continent does look as though that land-mass is colliding with another plate to either the North or the South, tbut I think that we'd better leave the decision about how they're actually moving relative to each other for the players whose nations are actually located around & south of the intervening seas to make... because it would affect the probabilities of earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes in their lands.
As you can see from the map to which I've linked in this post, there's also a plate boundary that runs somewhere along the floor of the ocean out to the north/north-east/east of the Bears' northern lands... unless people seriously object to this.
According to the region's main NSwiki article the region extends from about 20 degrees N to about 55 degrees N... The bits that I've added to the north of the Bears might extend this by another 05 degrees, at the most, so if that the "polar" landmass is significantly smaller than RL Antarctica -- which I think it should be -- then any "land-bridge" or ice-shelf across which your people migrated as you say would have had to have been verrry long... unless, perhaps, it actually bridged the gap between this region and a continent in some 'alternative' Reality? We've generally accepted the theory that NS has a 'Multiverse'-type structure, at least in this region, so that would work okay unless you don't like the idea.
(I really don't like the idea that, as you suggested, there was a fairly "sudden" geological upheaval just after your arrival, due to the continents colliding, because that would seem to imply a ridiculously fast rate of 'contiental drift': If you really want it to have happened, then try to convince me...)
And of course using the 'Multiverse' concept could also explain how your nation has been in its present lands for quite a while even though our regional maps show a different country there in recent history: Some sort of "Reality Quake" would simply have switched the two nations over with each other between a pair of Earths...
'Chromatic crows' aren't found only in Bears Armed, they're actually present in most of the region's lands -- including many that are currently "failed nations" -- as was agreed by most of the region's active players back when I invented them: The whole reason for their existence, at the OOC level, is to give the IDU as a whole at least one 'unique' species that doesn't exist at all in RL but that is [extremely] widely endemic here. However the basal 'Corvid' stock from which they evolved would almost certainly have had to immigrate from somewhere else, considering the RL Crow family's origins, so maybe they came through the same "weak point" between Realities that your people subsequently (if you accept my theory) utilised, or maybe your Ice Crows are actually descended from a stock of Chromatic Corws that had taken that same route in the opposite direction -- from the IDU to wherever your people previously lived -- during the moderately distant past and the modern species then arrived here at about the same time as your people?
Incidentally, roughly when did your people arrive in their present home?
Fauna of the North
This isn't by any means a complete list, and of course you don't have to accept any of the species that I mention, but anyway_
Frontenax had the Grizzly Bear as his national animal and before vanishing he agreed that an Ursine species which I'd invented probably also extended into part of his lands: The 'Mountain Bear' (or 'Varying Bear', or 'Blue Bear'...) is a relatively lightly-built species that, instead of hibernating, normally changes its fur's colour seasonally for better camouflage... and also has a version that stays 'blue' all year, just as the Arctic Fox does. It's mainly found inland (because Polar Bears, which are significantly larger, monopolise the richer food resources along the coast) and in winter it's primarily a hunter/scavenger rather than an omnivore. Whether any of the Bears on your side of the border are sapient (and possibly anthropomorphic, too) is, of course, entirely up to you...
The clan at the south-west of the Bears' 'Northlands', marked on the map to which I've linked in this post as 'F'' which stands for either 'Five Lakes' or 'Forest Lakes', includes a group that herds semi-domesticated Moose and we've also got at least one other sort of Deer thereabouts... and there are definitely Reindeer/Caribou up north, especially along the northwards-pointing peninsula ('N.C') that I've added to the map near the eastern end of the Bears' Northlands , too.
How do you feel about the Woolly Rhinoceros, which is a grazer? I'm thinking of having a surviving (but "dwarfed") stock of thsi in 'B.F' & possibly elsewhere, in which case it could plausibly have relatives on your side of the border too...
In the sea, there are Sea-Cows (possibly the species known in RL as Steller's, possibly a different -- but very similar-- one instead) and -- at least in the waters between the Bears' eastern [mainland] coasts and the islands that one clan inhabits even further out to the east of these ('I.R'] there are Sea Otters.