Geography of Myrnia

By Alice Webster
If you have bought this book as a curio for your parlor or as a novelty for your student’s library, then first my thanks for your patronage. However, I must ask you a favor: once you have made the proper impression on your salon or lecture hall, package up this book. Take it to the docks. Look for a young woman in a fresh set of travelling clothes, looking from ship to ship for a destination. Give her the book and your best wishes.

This is a travelling book. I’ve arranged with the printer to leave large margins for notes and with the bookbinder to leave room between pages for tickets, drawings, and mementos. The cover is oiled leather and I can personally vouch for this volume’s ability to stop a crossbow bolt. It has been sized for a pocket in a cloak or pack.

I fear the book will grow bored on a table or shelf. I will consider it a personal favor to deliver it as I asked, as the young woman at the docks was myself twenty years ago and I would so desperately love to gift that young woman the information I have gathered here as it would save her many missteps and wrong turns. Thanks, friend reader.

Now, if you are that young woman, on first reading you will not know what may be important. It is meant to be re-read by the light of a lone candle in a cramped room rented for a few coppers on the wrong side of the port, or by light of a campfire in a desolate wilderness with an icy wind that cuts straight through your thin blanket. Add those notes, drawings, and names that will serve your future exploits, because this is your book, and given enough time it will grow to become your story.

Enjoy it, as I have enjoyed mine.

Overview
Myrnia’s north and south are hilly. The northern Gatakenak Hills rise above the icy-covered Uncier Ocean and are covered in snow much of the year, while the southern Rock Sea extends to islands in the Feccian Sea which are, in my estimation, just hills with flooded valleys between. The two hilly areas are connected by the Starfell mountain range that runs like a spine along Myrnia’s back. To the east of these mountains is a fertile plain that extends to busy ports on Sylva Bay. To the west, swamps and dark woods top the inhospitable coastline of the Widlas Ocean. It is said the continent of Oestria, home of the dragons, lies past the Widlas Ocean, but none have sailed there and back to prove the legend true.

If you know where to look, you can find the ruins of lost empires that circle the continent like rings in a tree stump, marking the passage of years. The oldest of these features is also the most used: the high roads and the cromlechs that were built along them about one day’s journey apart.

Travel on these roads is faster and safer. The roads have stood up to millenia of traffic without needing maintenance. If you’ve travelled them you know the cromlechs, which are three upright stones taller than a person that support a large, flat capstone. They make decent shelters for 3-4 people in a pinch, and on very dark nights you can see dimly glowing writing wrapped around the supporting stones. I once asked a Halfling what it said. He said it was the same words repeated over and over again: hasten, protect, bleed.

I’m not sure if he was teasing me or not. The magic that powers the high roads remains mysterious to even the greatest wizards.

There are four high roads. The longest is the Mountain Road. It starts at the Myrne Barrowberg near Demos and runs south along the western base of the Starfell Mountains. It ends at the Falech Barrowberg, just north of the Rock Sea. There are only two roads that meet, and the Mountain Road meets the River Road at a point called the High Cross.

River Road runs from along the Flyssa River, then turns north along the western coast to the Barrowberg of Lom about a day’s journey north of Ixthos. Its eastern path goes beyond the Flyssa’s glacial source to a plateau that overlooks the coastline. There’s no barrowberg there, so it’s unclear what purpose this site held for the ancient empire that built it, but for whatever reason it warranted a high road that ran to it but no further. More recently, a more mundane and treacherous road has been carved into the steep path down to reach the eastern coast and the Sea Road.

The travellers on the Sea Road are solitary folk who don’t like questions. This high road extends down the eastern coast, from the eastern reach of the Gatakenak Hills to Lake Walbern near the Althmeg Barrowberg. The lake is sacred to the Halfling people, and perhaps always was, as it was they who are said to have built these roads ages ago.

The Rock Road begins near the eastern coast, just north of the Rock Sea, and runs along its northern border where the land is still flat. Like the River Road, it turns north as it moves west, ending at the Monai River. If there was a river crossing or port at the location where the road ends, it has been long lost to history, though there are some enterprising folk who run a ferry service across the river there.