Saturday, February 02, 2008
- 6:09 AM
I don't exactly know where to start, so I guess I'll start with the different places that there is...
There's really only one real "city" in Maten, which is Maten City...its surrounded by a wall because regular people don't really live there and its very complicated for them to get clearance to come in. The purpose of Maten City is to house the souls of the dead until their afterlives. See, it doesn't happen right away, so when people die (in Maten, or here, or in a few other worlds), their spirits go there, where lots of paperwork has to be done in order to get them into their proper afterlives (based on their religions/beliefs/behavior/etc). So, most of the people in Maten City are in fact spirits (which is why its pretty much the only place you can find humans in Maten). Maten isn't very modern, so there's no electricity...everything's either steam powered or lit up with oil or other burnable things. Maten City is pretty huge, and in the middle of it is the OniStar building...which is where they sort through the paperwork, and also where they train the soldiers. The main tower of it is insanely tall, and covered with white one-way mirror glass.
Since it already takes them a long time to sort through all the paperwork (constantly backlogged), they don't really like people who commit suicide, as, that's an unplanned death (everyone's got a certain thing that's sposed to kill them, killing themselves stops that from happening), and so all of a sudden they have to deal with something that they shouldn't have for a while. SO, what they do with those spirits is...they kinda string them to ropes along the sides of the main tower. They keep them there until the day they were SUPPOSED to die, and then they let them down and start actually processing their files. So its not very fun :/
Um, since I already rambled a million years of that, and did much more than just explain the place, I will move on ^^'
Most places don't really have commonly known names (like, the villages might, but they're really only known to the people around those areas). The regions are divided into North, East, South, West, with Maten City in the centre.
I explained the North a little bit in that story I was writing. The far North is very mountainous, with rocky mountains...not many plants grow up on the mountains themselves, but there are some flat areas at lower altitudes on the mountains where things like pine trees grow (They're called something else there, but I can't remember the language). It's very dark there most of the time...not pitch black but dim at best, and the sky is usually darkish grey-blue. It rains a lot, which is good because the mountain rock poisons the water. In the vallies between the mountains there's even more pine forests, which are very thick without many clearings. It's pretty dark inside them, but near some of the more populated areas there's torches out which light up the places.
As it goes down towards Maten City, the land flattens out, mostly to grassy hills and eventually to plains. This also means the water gets cleaner closer to the centre cause there's none of the mountain rock to contaminate it. The water's only dangerous if you drink it, but plants and animals (well, animals who are immune to its poisonous effects) purify it (so if you eat things grown with the water or eat an animal who drank it, you won't get sick). The sky also gets lighter towards the centre too.
The West is very dusty...its very warm there but only slightly humid. Its not a desert, most of it is covered in forest (leafy trees, not pine-like), which gets its water source from huge underground lakes. The underground lakes stretch all the way down to the South, but, I'll get to that later. Above ground the biggest body of water there is are small ponds. Around most of the populated areas, torches burn contantly. Because, most of the people in that area worship a fire God, and also have fire-type abilities. They're Kimoura and Oura's people...I called them the Fuera cause that's the name of their religion, but I'll explain races and such later. Most of the original Western people make their villages in clearings, not in the forests, so that there won't be so much risk of setting them on fire. The sky is also light there, except for at night time of course. Its a little bit cooler at night than it is during the day. The forests have very little ground cover (like little bushes and things) because the soil is so sandy. So mostly its just made up of the trees. The forests reach all the way to the walls of Maten City without thinning, but at they move up the the North they kind of fade out because its too cold for them.
As they go South though, the forests get thicker and there's more variety in the types of tree, and there's more groundcover. Almost like a rainforest but not as humid. Its very cool around there because of all the trees, but a comfortable cool, not cold. The sky's light in the South too, and if you're out in the open its warm, but not unbearably so. Its the most populated area, though there's only a few large villages and settlements because they don't want to destroy the forests. There's a lot of water there, with beaches surrounding huge lakes...there's no oceans, because everything is fresh water, but the lakes are pretty big. The underground lakes from the West are connected to them. The forests stay thick all the way up to Maten City's Southern wall, but kinda spread out more as they reach the East, and pine-like trees become mixed in.
There used to be a large city in the East, that I can't remember the name of because it was destroyed a long time before I came there. The ruins of that city are pretty much abandoned, because most people think its bad luck to live there. Some people still do though, but not very out in the open. Now that I think about it, that's a security hazard, but whatever...The sky there usually is an orangey yellow colour when its not night time. Its warm and dusty as well, and not many plants grow around the ruins. But once outside the city limits, there's mixed forests that are somewhat thick. South-East of the ruins, the Eastern Mountains start, they're rocky but less harsh and made out of a different rock than the Northern ones. The East kind of has a strange feel because the Ruins are somewhat "haunted", though not with actual spirits, just with negative energy from all the killing that went on there. Not many people live close to them but there's more villages farther away. A lot of people also live inside the mountains too, including The King. I've never actually seen the The King, because he's kept under heavy security to protect him from the Lights. They keep him in his hidden palace within the Eastern Mountains. North-East of the Ruins the Northern Mountains ease down, so it gets a little colder.
I might've left some stuff out, but that's all I can think of for geography for now...I'll ramble about other things separately, so you don't get bored. Also, it doesn't snow anywhere in Maten, and there are no deserts.