Zahmal (Zahm-al)
Summary
For countless millennia, Zahmal sat within its corner of Veltrona, undisturbed by all others. The hundreds-to-thousands of miles of Vastia's waters has long served to keep it secret and safe. Few would willfully go exploring in such uncharted waters, least of all to contend with divine tempests, sea-borne leviathans, and other unknowable terrors. Thus, despite its often close proximity on the map to Nerzin, almost no one on that continent had any awareness of its existence. Those born in Varnkof, similarly, had little reason to visit westward for uncharted lands. Indeed, word of Zahmal first came from wyverns who lived in Prak. Those whose sky islands drifted past Zahmal spoke of a strange land, one forged of sooty blacks, iron grays, silvery steels, and so much more. A place, seemingly, made of metal and veltron unlike anywhere else in the world. Brave wyverns would descend to the strange land, confronting creatures the likes of which no one else in the world had heard of. It was often believed that the wyverns simply made up fanciful stories for their glory. The carcasses they provided, while strange and alien, could've easily come from somewhere else in the world. For most of history, as it would come to be, the 'land of metal' existed in myths and legends. It would be hard to validate its existence, after all, when so many other fantastical places already existed on Veltrona. Not to mention the likes of divine realms and other ephemeral, temporary places that came and went in their connection to Veltrona. It wouldn't be until the age of the Imperium that a radical shift happened. Imperious, ever drawn to the prospects of great foes to defeat, became enamored with the legends of the metal land. Something she bore an inkling familiarity with, or so was claimed; it's difficult to tell if she was being whimsical or romantic. Regardless, Imperious sent the likes of Bloodwing and her greatest wyverns to find the legendary land. While finding testimonies of those who'd been there was easy, it still took decades to narrow down 'where' the land might've actually been. If, after a fashion, it was still there at all. When Bloodwing returned with half her numbers, it was by her the name Zahmal–'The Dead Land'–would be coined. Contrary to what the name conjures, Zahmal is not only thriving, but rich in all sorts of alien life not even Bloodwing had seen before. Creatures of impossible physiologies were the norm, juxtapositions of some things Veltrona itself had, and ever more bizarre types of flora. Zahmal was not only very real, but exceedingly permanent; a true, largely unexplored continent. Unfortunately, it would be out of the reach of Imperious and the other dragons of the Imperium. Practical problems reaching Zahmal aside, a prolonged expedition would leave the Imperium unstable. Imperious, though gravely annoyed at such contemptuous issues, stowed any expedition to Zahmal for later. For whatever she intended to find, her later disappearance and the destruction of the World Gate swiftly buried any plans to visit the mysterious continent. Two centuries later, when the Great Darkness receded, Votyoger revisited the topic of Zahmal. The fact such an immense continent seemingly existed without any dragons living on it was an utterly curious thing. Although, it's possible that some lineages did live there once, or claims of having lived there were simply brushed aside. It proved to be something that vindicated the spiteful wyverns who were once scorned for their tales of triumph. Still, none among dragonkind lived there, and seemingly no other sapient species did, either. For its part, Votyoger commissioned both wyverns and dragons to lead expeditions to Zahmal. While the air route had largely been proven, the sea route remained unclear. It was then that the draconic vessels encountered the Roil, the massive geological barrier around Zahmal. An ever churning sea of flash-boiling water, noxious gases, and dangerously unstable mana, it proved formidable even for their kind. Hampered by the likes of divine tempests from Vastia, the Votyoger expeditions were slow in making landfall. Eventually some teams braved the dangers, and some decades later would return with troves of information. While the true extent of what they discovered is kept to private circles, Votyoger did make announcements at large about Zahmal's existence. Describing it as one of Veltrona's 'greatest' and 'most ancient' mysteries, intellectuals and explorers from all across the world became fascinated by it. However, none more than the zahd Starwatchers, a Dominion-era baarham noble family, took interest in the details. Cross-referencing their long, storied history of dealing with anything that 'falls' from the Heavens, they made some startling assertions. The lead researcher of the time, Yrlanna zahd Starwatcher, proposed two possibilities: either Zahmal erupted from Veltrona with great force, or it fell from the Heavens like a meteor. In the latter case, the sheer size and scope of the continent means that Zahmal would've had to been a moons-sized meteor, at the least. Despite the incredulous rebukes Yrlanna received, no one could debunk the massive, crater-wall like mountains surrounding Zahmal. At least, no one had any compelling evidence to the contrary, even if it wasn't accepted initially. Since it would present a cosmological event of unprecedented scale, the Starwatchers assembled a comprehensive team of scholars to visit Zahmal. Unlike the draconic expedition, almost none of their findings were disseminated upon their return. However, they were willing to affirm that Zahmal as a land is uniquely strange, and inordinately dangerous. There was one particularly curious thing they did publicize, though. Across Veltrona, there are occasionally random spikes and pillars at the scale of small hills to mountains. As they're valuable sources of very pure metals, nearly all of them have been mined out in their entirety. The few remaining examples that exist to the modern day are typically protected tourist sites, or objects of ignoble study. The Starwatchers affirmed that these bizarrely random and out of place spikes were, essentially, fragments of Zahmal. Or, at least, composed in the exact same manner as Zahmal's lands itself. While the Starwatchers remain firmly convinced Zahmal is something that fell from the Heavens, scholarly debate continues. Much of the evidence they have also could mean Zahmal, and its various fragments, emerged from the core of Veltrona at some point. Regardless of when either, or possibly some other, event happened, no one alive–not even among dragons–knows when Zahmal appeared.Geography
Zahmal is markedly different in two large categories from other lands on Veltrona: its topology and material composition.
Zahmal's only significant divine mountain sits at the heart of the continent, shaped as if it very much erupted from out of the ground. It branches in three distinct paths before gradually terminating, leaving the rest of the landscape molded around it. Hence, there is a general curve of increasing altitude as one approaches the center of the continent, but that is not always true.
Weather erosion and tectonic activity have created valleys, depressions, small inland seas, and even growing new mountain chains. The shorelines and outer barrier mountains are particularly dangerous in their weather worn sharpness and general inhospitability.
The land itself, and much of the flora and fauna, are all heavily metal-aspected to some extent. It is so pervasive that one begins to wonder if the fundamental basis of life for Zahmal arises from metal, rather than veltron. If so, it would pose all sorts of questions about evolutionary processes and the manifestation of life in its entirety. As a result, even very 'simple' things like grass take on different forms, appearances, and even capabilities.
The southern half of the continent is generally the warmest, while the northern half is where Zahmal intrudes into the northern polar region of Veltrona. While the ambient weather changes, the sheer amount of energy present in the local environment maintains a lot of temperature volatility. The colder, and sometimes frozen, regions experience turbulent flashes of freezing cold and blistering heats as the two attempt to establish a balance. Conversely, the southern half is where most divine tempests tend to strike, so a lot of outside weather interference becomes its problem.
Ecosystem
The broad ecosystems of Zahmal have grown on a completely different evolutionary tree than the rest of Veltrona. Some of these have diverged so far that, while superficially recognizable, it's difficult to tell why they came to exist that way in the first place. Some are so incomprehensibly alien that there's no way to define them except by their own existence. This reality proved the hardest for all the explorers to the continent, as it very much threw them out of their depth.
Despite that, very recognizable patterns maintain themselves: predators and preys, comprehensive types of competing flora, adaptations toward utilizing mana and crysium, and so on. One noticeably distinct thing is the relatively high energy nature of Zahmal's environments. Both the land itself and everything grown from it exhibit dense amounts of mana, often only comparable to what naturally occurs within divine mountain ranges.
The result of that is an incredibly broad spectrum of fauna and flora, from the tiny to the gigantic, that exist in their ecological niches. It is bountifully rich as a result, perhaps even giving Etzli Cuauhtla a run for its money. However, the true value and diversity of the land still largely remains unknown. Attempts to setup expeditions is already difficult, nevermind more permanent outposts or settlements.
What is curiously clear is that, so far, no real sapient species native to Zahmal has been found. Some scholars postulate if the Ilansu might actually be one, as their metalic nature is eerily similar to what can be found on Zahmal. If that was true at some point, the history of it was lost long ago when the Ilansu were wiped out for the first time.
There is some indications that fauna and flora from Veltrona proper have found a home on Zahmal as well. Whether it be through generations of interbreeding creating strange hybrid offshoots, or authentic specimens seemingly transplanted from somewhere else, there is no denying their presence. Most are willing to attribute these out-of-place creatures as having come from Prak in one form or another. Others blame more esoteric or unfathomable ideas, like random acts of teleportation, as the culprit.
It does go to show that for how ever different Zahmal is, it is not impossibly different in its entirety.
Natural Resources
The rich biodiversity in exotic, alien life, as well as the vast amounts of metals present make Zahmal incredibly rich in all kinds of resources. In fact, even rarer sorts of resources like platinum-laced crysium exist more commonly, making them potential gold rushes. The fact that, for the most part, there is no signs of intelligent exploitation of the land means it's quite possibly untapped everywhere. Its certainly piqued the interest of some of Veltrona's most powerful entities, the pragmatic reality of getting to said riches aside.
What is even more curious is the varieties of previously undiscovered metals, and the subsequent flora or fauna that evolved off of them. Strange compositions of even contradictory types, like iron and copper being fused together, exist with complete regularity. There are even those no one has a real, comprehensive name for, but some curious first hand accounts were things like 'serrated black steel', 'twisting prismatic iron', and 'glass infused tin'. Whether or not that is actually metal itself, or some bizarre land formation, remains unclear.
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