photo c8de48b2-f655-4e63-9559-e4db6e3781d5_zpsd6043488.jpg
Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Welcome!

Chat

Credit
Welcome to Land Of Equestria. We hope you enjoy your visit.


You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Noveria and Its Surroundings: The False North; Birthplace of Ponykind
Topic Started: May 9 2013, 08:01 AM (185 Views)
Nightfury
Member Avatar
Advanced Member
[ *  *  * ]
Noveria and It’s Surroundings: The False North

Nestled between the Griffin Kingdoms and Prance, north of Equestria and south of the Red Waste and the Gorgon Peaks, the False North is the original birthplace of Ponykind. The cold and ice are a by-product of the near-gone Windigoes, and the ecosystem adapted long ago, the people becoming as hard as the land itself. The lands are free - difficult to reach by either gryphon or pony lands, they remain unclaimed, and in recent centuries it has become well believed that their freedom is more valuable to them than life itself.


Noveria

The crown jewel of the snowy environment is the only existing settlement, known by its residents by the name of Noveria. What could be called a city never really evolved beyond that of a large village, with cold, disease and freedom keeping the population down below ten thousand. The closest settlements to the town are either Flankfurt, in the south, or Hoofswell in the west, however the former is only reachable through a long trek in heavily-forested mountainous terrain, and the latter through an area infested with dangerous wildlife, including an unusually high amount of sightings of particularly territorial and violent dragons, regardless of the frosty environment.

Because of this, Noveria is highly a highly isolated community, without even possessing reliable lines of communication. Civilisation there is drastically different compared to the other lands around it, not identifying with any of the nearby cultures - partially because of the culture clash and partially in spite of it. The sprawling settlement is a mess of ponies, gryphons and few dogs, with other races taking poorly to the cold, with a population of only a few hundred.

The structure of the city is fairly simple: Build outwards. From the center, where the family of their Lord, going be the name of the ‘Magnate’ of Noveria, with the lord as the Magnar. Outside of that is what is known as ‘Inner’ Noveria, with low stone walls and solid buildings within, somewhat similar to Ponyville in its level of advancement and construction. Built on hilly terrain, Noveria’s streets are usually very steep, narrow, and generally a mess of housing in a high population density.

From there outwards, people built wherever there was space, constructing buildings of hide and branches with very little permanence. This is known as ‘Outer’ Noveria, and it shifts just as the snowy landscape does, with camps being made and broken down all the time. Over time, the solidity of Outer Noveria has been increasing, with hovels and solid structures starting to be built along the outside walls.

Politics of Noveria

The Magnar of Noveria is an ever changing position among the most powerful families in Noverian land. At present there are three: The Raider family, the Storms, and the Pines are the largest factors of Noveria’s simple wealth - the former controlling the rather excessive business of metalwork, the latter controlling the lumber industry that keeps the town active and the Storms, the only large family of pegasi in all Noveria, keeping the weather at bay as best they can. While they cannot control the storms as Equestrians do, they can at least make sure that Noveria does not get wiped off of the map.

The Noverians style themselves as the ‘free folk’ of the North. From the lack of a government has sprung a specific distaste of governments as a whole. Over the years, there have been a few poor attempts to introduce Noveria into the Equestrian fold, all repelled with violent intensity. Generally, the Noverians are somewhat suspicious of anyone from the governed areas of the world, those who, as they put it, sign away their freedom in favor of the ‘easy’ life.

The ideal of the free folk is simple - you are beholden to nothing and no one. The free folk do what they want to, when they want to, with the only thing that holds them back being the consequences of their actions. Due to this they’re notorious for bad blood and fighting, as much as they are for fun and wildness, with changing leaders and changing allies all the time. However, in the end, they do end up doing business with the neighboring countries, trading meat to the Griffin Kingdoms for ore from the mountain ranges, and trading lumber to Equestria, with the winter pines being far more solid and far more large, as the trees in Equestria have not been able to compare to since the removal of the Wild Heart.

Noveria and the War

Both sides know the vehement refusal to allow others to command them from the Noverians, and so they manage to stay free of the turmoils of war. While the gryphons marched through their territory, they did not remain - the soil of Noveria was not what they sought, buried under feet of compacted snow. With the free folk consisting of a good portion of gryphons, they were, in the end, left alone - the easy passing more favorable than the early fight, especially an early fight against some of their own kind. The timber trade remained for a short while - until Hoofswell, the port of call at the time, was taken. For now the Noverians are relying on stocked supplies, which they have enough of for at least another year or two if bolstered by fertile soil near the Graveyard of the Forgotten.


The Lands of the False North

Outside Noveria, the landscape is harsh and cold yet diverse and beautiful. The space between countries, usually considered uninhabitable, is a mass of untouched, utopian land. From lakes to mountains, most of the North is untouched - with little to no mining, farming or excavation apart from the lumber industry based to the west.

Shatterglass Lake

To the north of Noveria is a lake known by the locals as Shatterglass, due to the fractured surface of the always-frozen water. The dragons nearby use the lake as a bathing area, due to the large amount of water. Using their fire they heat the surface to steam and break through the ice, giving the shattered appearance from repeated impacts at differing locations.

For many of the youths, Shatterglass is a hazing ritual. It has been going on for generations, in one form or another - jump in and stay for a certain amount of time, sprint out without cracking the surface, or even taunt the dragons that reside there. Regardless it is a process that has been the target of multiple attempts to prevent its continuation...every one of which has been a complete failure.

Winterfang Range

East of Noveria is a mountain range that has been the main issue with the projection of Equestria’s border, creating a pocket of inhospitable terrain. They used to be gem-studded and rich, however the presence of the Unicorns pre-equestria damaged the mountainscape with gemstone mining until the mountains themselves were structurally unsound. Held together by ice and snow, avalanches periodically break away from the peaks, causing Noveria’s slow stray to the west as the mountains slowly level out and threaten the settlement’s location.

Somewhere in the range is believed to be the ancient structure known as the Spire of the Heavens. This is the point from which the unicorns guided the sun and the moon. Before Celestia and Luna kept the two in sync, it was up to them - they believed that they controlled the two objects, however, unlike the goddesses they could only subtly direct their orbits, keeping them directly opposite of each other.

The mountains are also the suspected home of the remaining Windigoes after their annihilation at the hands of the first leaders of Equestria. Ever since the Windigoes drained the Ardor energy from Noveria, and dropped the temperature below liveable, it has remained as such. When the Hearts of Equestria were yet to be created, the magic of Equestria fed out and repaired some of the damage, the temperature returned to mildly liveable conditions - until Celestia and Luna locked away the Ardor that was repairing the False North within the Crystal Heart. With ponies slowly moving back into the False North, the Windigoes were able to lick their wounds and recover - their cold magic only just able to counteract the natural heat that would otherwise return the environment to normal. However, in recent years, it has been apparent that they may be growing more powerful, with the average temperature dropping a whole degree in the past two years.

Graveyard of the Forgotten

On the border of the snowier areas of the False North, on a large hill, is the Graveyard of the Forgotten. Visible for miles around, the Graveyard is centered around a large, pegasine statue in obsidian stone and gems, and commemorates a group of ponies that split away from the three races during their exodus to Equestria, unable to let go of their bitterness. Numbering in the hundreds, or, if some texts are to be believed, many more, the Lost Pegasi were believed to have all perished over the waters of Eternity’s Crossing.

The Graveyard of the Forgotten was built by a collection of historical scholars that found the event particularly tragic and petitioned the government to assist in the construction of an official memorial. In the end, the petition passed, and the Graveyard was built - a grave for each of the recorded pegasi, their names etched on the pillar that held up the statue, the stone pillar and bronze plating stretching ten by four feet on each face.

Over the thousands of years it has existed, the Graveyard Keeper, as the statue is known, has worn very little. Due to spells and protections kept in place to prevent looters and natural decay, the obsidian is mostly intact - with very slight pockmarking and wear to be seen. The graves themselves are far more damaged, with some not remaining at all. Every year, a significant number of ponies from both Equestria and Noveria make a journey to the statue - both memorialising the unnecessary deaths of a forgotten people.

Northwood

Stretching from Noveria to the border of the Gryphon Kingdoms, Northwood is a lightly pine forested area that is home to all manner of creatures. The most common of these are wolves and foxes, who provide a constant threat to lone travellers, so unused to civilisation as to have never grown wary of ponies. The trees of Northwood are usually on par with Equestria and as such they don’t end up on the wrong end of a saw, allowing the forest to propagate each year.

Northwood is the main hunting ground for Noverian hunting parties, with fur, bone and meat serving purpose in the society, even if it is only to be traded with the gryphons to the west. However, hunting is restricted to the section between Noveria and Shatterglass, so as to prevent the over hunting of prey in the area.

Southwood

Thicker than the Northwood, Southwood spans from the Gryphon border to the Winterfang Range. Just north of the Graveyard, Southwood is the very first sign of the territories of the False North, and the first sign of an altitude rise - the entire forest on a heavy slope that makes it difficult to navigate, especially with the thick, tall trees.

The Southwood is logged all along the northern border, due to the fact that the Southwood’s trees are each as thick around as a barrel, or thicker, stretching hundreds of feet tall. Just a dozen of the trees can build half a town - and so their value and demand are always high. Well aware of how limited all resources are in the north, Noverians only ever log as much as their quota, and are very strict on how many trees are logged a year - planting when the snow thaws on the borders during summer.


Wildlife in the False North

While most of the life in Noveria and its surroundings are entirely ordinary, there are a few species that have altered themselves to suit their surrounding environment. These creatures are extraordinarily few, in most cases, with some being near extinction.

Frost Wyrms

Ordinary dragons are creatures of Ardor, yet there is a small remnant in the False North that are an exception to the rule. Frost Wyrms are descendants of dragons that were living in the False North at the time of the Windigo events, and were drastically changed from the removal of heat in the area. They became Frost Wyrms - a violation of dragon biology, their blood and body run at a temperature well below freezing, and they are able to project supercooled mist in place of fire. Though they were common during the North’s super-cold period, after the small recovery before the creation of the Three Hearts, the temperature was too high for them to survive comfortably, and their species has been in decline ever since.

Windigoes

After their near-destruction at the hands of the first manifestation of friendship magic in recorded history, the spiritual windigoes were nearly entirely wiped out. The few that were left were forced into a state of hibernation in order to survive, since the remaining ponies had travelled south and out of their reach, and the magic that destroyed their fellows had drained them of all strength.

This changed as the fledgling town of Noveria was first settled by a joint group of both ponies and gryphons. With life to feed on once more, the windigoes had a means of healing and regaining their power, however slowly. With less than ten windigoes theorised to remain in the area of the False North, they lack the numbers and the hatred to drop the temperature any further, only succeeding in keeping it stable despite the natural opposition of the sun and climate.
Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Arpeggio
Member Avatar
Musical Moderator
[ *  *  * ]
This seems good from what I can tell thus far.

*Seal of Arpproval*
Nothing is ever as it seems...
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
« Previous Topic · Lore · Next Topic »
Add Reply