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Battal

Page history last edited by PBworks 17 years, 1 month ago

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Battal

History of the Geography

The world in which the Elemenstor sagas take place. The world itself has had many geographic upheavals (sunderings, resunderings, unsunderings, breakenings, and more) throughout its long and storied history.

 

Battal is a round planet that orbits in a solar system with other planetary bodies which are known to its residents. During most of the world's history almost all of the surface is covered in a vast unnavigable ocean, with a single land mass existing on one side of the world. Often the word Battal is used synonymously to mean this landmass (made up of The Shield and The Sickle), rather than the planet itself.

 

Sunderings and Unsunderings

Battal was sundered into three parts (The Shield, The Sickle, and the Cataclysmic Bluont) by the Eldritch Rift during the conflict between Zonard, last of the line of the Magic Sword Kings, and Yar the Sorcerial.

 

Battal was remade by the Unsunderer, Harbinger Portent, though he himself was struck down by his pupil, the malevolent Char Reyarteb during The Unsundering. The world slowly repaired itself during the Century of Fire, during which time Char unleashed his ferocious War Men to conquer the reformed world.

 

The land was Sundered again due to the machinations of the Dark Master, but this time the sundering was not too terrible.

 

For more details information on such geologic transformation, see the Saga Timeline.

 

The Names of the Lands

The Lands of Battal and the land mass itself are referred to by many names throughout the saga. Different races and languages call it by different things, and over time new terms become fashionable as old terms fall away. The term Battal itself was widely used by the speakers of plaincommon as early as the year -31,348, where it was found written on many ancient monuments.

 

The Elves call battal Shik'leSeal'd in their Arcane Elvin Language, the Dwarves call it Battaaalj, the War Men call it Hichoba (presumed to have its roots in the War Man concept of Hiki'Chognog'a'Hab'a).

 

The Magic Sword Kings often called Battal The Lands, The Landworld and other land variations and conotations. Often in writings it is called The Old Place and All of Rounders Kingdoms (archaic). Additionally, some old writing still followed the traditions and referred to Battal as The Magic Sword Kingdom, even as a reference to Battal after the end of that period.

 

Other names, such as The Shielded Country, World Country, Lands of Battle, The Greater Island, the Greater World, and curiously Bobadise, have enjoyed some level of common acceptance.

 

Kingdoms of Battal

The history of Battal is long, and many nations have risen and fallen. Below is the list as compiled by cartographic scholar Archibald Almalastor, which is considered to be quite good.

 

The First Battal

After the Darkstorm wracked the four vales and combined them into the existing world, the lands of Battal formed. Coming into the familiar shape the lands were divided into four regions that each had a correspondence with one of the vales in which the Hierarchs had existed for so long.

 

The First Kingdoms

 

Battal of the Magic Sword Kings

This was the time of rise of the mighty Twelve Realms of Antior. In addition to these legendary realms, other kingdoms existed.

 

The Kingdoms

 

To Be Continued...

 

Maps

HERE is a Battal map from just before The Sundering. Not all location names are yet in place, due to the fact that this map is reconstructed from canonical maps which were in varied states of disarray when pieced together. I will fix this as I can, pulling from texts and other maps I can scrounge up on ebay. -ewige

 

HERE is a map of Battal post The Unsundering, which shows evidence of the sloppy work of Harbinger Portent in the formation of Mount Wor. Again, I'm still placing names.

 

Battal as it appeared in textbooks after the Unsundering.

 

*バタル

 

Discussion

TimSo... doing some research into the big honkin' lake in the middle of Battal... talk about nose blindness. So it could either be Adhnaten Lake, Effervescent Lake, or another unnamed lake. There are very few mentions of any lakes anywhere in the wiki, which is surprising given the number of lake men and various lake harlots that make appearances in 11 of the books.
TimOn further inspection, I think I see the Effervescent Lake south of that... must be Adhnaten Lake (or a third lake.)
asuraI believe that Adhanten Lake only existed for the short time that the Vampyres dammed the Sw'ftfl'w River, and the lake was emptied when B'llbr'dsk' destroyed the dam with one blow (well, not really... but it's a better story than one of the vampyres burning it down with some ill-placed gothic incense). Also there are two rivers that are actually be flowing out of the lake. I can't for the life of me remember what it is called.
TimThat's what I thought. Perhaps it is The Accursed Lake, although I never realized it was so big.
ewigeThe lake is actually a former spica quarry (actually part of the grotto of woe, really) which filled with water after an underground spring was tapped into by the errant miner, Thule Runderkrust. The lake's waters are rumored to be infused with some of the properties of spica, and thus are perilous to navigate, let alone consume. I don't remember it ever being referred to by name in any of the texts, but I have forgotten large swaths of information thanks to the recreational habits I had when I read the books back in college.
TimYeah... that's The Accursed Lake alright. I know it's name is mentioned in Epic Hierarch Monthly.
TimHow about the mountain range between the sickle and the shield after the unsundering? Any idea the name for that?
ewigeI know the mountains were the result of the calamity of the Unsundering, but I believe they are considered an extension of the Smoos (if I recall there was a passing reference to Mount Wor as the "Great Smoo Mountain" in the Crystalcrown Chronicles).
TimOh yeah, that makes sense.. although I thought that there might have been some coloquial name for the range rather than just like "the northwestern extention of the smoos" or "the lesser smoos" or something...

Comments (1)

Anonymous said

at 8:21 pm on Jan 26, 2006

seems sort of boring to use "battal" absolutely everywhere.. I've added a bunch of nice synonyms for the lands of battal that one could pepper in the speech and quotes. I saw we change some of the other pages to use these to add to the richness of the world.

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