Anidara - The Southern Daughter

Anidara is certainly more amiable than her sisters. Sure the climate may be a little drier, but at least we don't have to contend with storms of divine magnitude or blood-freezing blizzards here.

— Archivar Vendrik Gamean

Youngest and smallest of Tyanis's Daughters, Anidara is a land of rolling hills and endless, windswept plains. A land where ancient cities and nomadic clans dwell in the shadow of the Dawn Wall's sky-piercing peaks. A land of ancient tribes and young nations, luscious forests and ashen wastelands. Anidara is, without a doubt, a continent as varied as its inhabitants.

Over the River and Into the Hills

by Mai Anh Tran

Coming from Interra, one must cross the mighty river Elenis to reach Anidara. Crossing the stream, several hundred meters wide at its narrowest point is only possible by boat. Ancient cities with white walls line the southern banks, the first bastions of the old Themyran people. From there, cobblestone streets lead past many a farm or village and into the jagged hills of the hinterland. Here, among the rough terrain of the Themyran Highlands, lies the primordial heart of Themyran civilization.
Trees are rare here, consumed by man's ravenous hunger, for over three millennia. Above it all looms the dark mass that is the Dawn Wall, its peaks so high that they often disappear within the clouds. Moving further south and then turning west, one will find the hills flatten out again and soon find themselves on the banks of the river Ion.

The Land between the Streams

Although not as massive as the Elenis, the Ion has several bridges build over it. The lands behind it count among the most fertile in the entire world. Reason for this are the three great streams of Anidara, the aforementioned Ion, the wild Efrin and the leisurely Tiganari, as well as the myriad of minor rivers and streams that feed them. Vast farms and plantations stretch in all directions, the land cramped with villages, towns and large cities. Odd to outsiders may be the fact that even the smallest village possesses strong fortifications, mini castles in every sense of the word. A necessity, as the flat expanse is dominated by cavalry armies and raids from the west could devastate an entire region with frightening speed.

Green Heart of a Continent

by Paul Canavan

The Onadaran Reach is where these are coming from. By all accounts, the heart of Anidara, the region is named after the legendary kingdom that existed here many millennia ago. Sometimes ruins are still found and to the people of the western coast, it is a holy place. The cradle of their people. Stolen by foreign invader. Unlike the eastern plains, where the rivers make the earth fertile, the dry climate of Anidara has created a vast expanse of steppe here. Only occasionally is the monotony broken by chains of hills or small forests.

Hegathi Coast

From the endless chain that is the Dawn Wall, the Reach stretches all the way toward Aniadara's northern coast. Similar to Vardania, its coast is a mess of jagged cliffs and stretches of flat coastal plain. Here, where in ancient time the Ferans settled, the plain of the Hegathi Coast melds into a series of steep hills that separate it from the interior. Several Vardanian colonies and castles exist here, remnants left by the Tarquinnian Hegemony.

Pesh-Ashura

Without a doubt the very core of central Anidara. The cities of Peshara and Shura, the largest cities in the south of the world. Cosmopolitan metropolises, melting pot of the various tribes that repeatedly invaded from the Outer Lands. Often seen as one, massive city, they represent the cultural, economic and political centre of the continent. As the old saying goes, he who controls Pesh-Shura controls Anidara.

Into Empty Lands

In the far south of the Reach, one will come across an awe-inspiring sight. A jagged cut splits the Dawn Wall here, hundreds of kilometres wide. This is the only known passage into the lands beyond, the Outer Lands. An endless, empty plain. Few would want to settle here, for the earth becomes hard and dry. Only fools would think the Outer Lands empty though for it is from here that all the invaders of ages past have come.

The Trail West

Further west, the flat steppe slowly morphs into rougher terrain. From northern coast to southern wall, the Western Highlands swell. Anidara's Mark as some call it, the scar tissue leftover from the Oblivion Hour. A labyrinthine mess of jagged cliffs shadowed canyons and broken hills. Primordial forest still covers much of this land and it is here that the fiercest and most barbarian of Anidara's tribes still reside. The common southerner fears these regions and even the most harmless of stories on them are rife with cannibalism and cultists intrigue.

Golden Coast

While the hinterland may be barbarian, the Golden Coast presents a bastion of civilization in western Anidara. Once tales had sung of enormous gold veins in the area, giving the coast its name. And even though said tales had been lies, merely spun to draw in settlers, the milder climate and fertile earth, made for a good place to settle down. From Cetara in the far south to Tojara on Tyanis Wound, dozens if not hundreds of small cities dot the coast. This is the last bastion of the ancient Anidaran civilization, those tribes that lived here since the Time of Twilight.

Lands of Arran

Arran is the land in between the Highlands and infernal jungles of Inferna. Largely arid and sparsely populated, it is the last treeless stretch of land for over a thousand kilometres. Ruins of past civilizations, signs that this area was once as fertile as the rest of Anidara, spring from dusty earth. In modern times, they are dominated by mighty fortifications and its inhabitants, small in number but hardy and warlike, are in a constant state of war with the Kha'ali Rushtra, those monstrous invaders that descended from the Dawn Wall.

Scars of the Cataclysm

by Reha Sakar

The Brightflame Hour changed Anidara forever. A catastrophe that annihilated a vast chunk of the west and distributed poisonous ash across the entire south. It turned the western highlands into the Sundered Lands. Enormous canyons and sinkholes can be found everywhere, hills and small mountains shattered by titanic force. Other areas have fallen severall meters and water has risen from the ground, turning vast swaths into putrid swamps.
Even two hundred years after, the earth has not come to rest. Earthquakes and sudden sinkholes are a daily occurrence. Largest of all the scars are the two massive calderas that have been formed during the disaster. Over centuries they have filled with water and now seem like sprawling lakes, almost mini-oceans in a sense. The locals call them Ahari Azda, the Abyssal Chasm, and Uhri Azda, the Nightmare Gate, for they know that the shimmering waters hide death within their murky depths.
Nature seems to have recovered, but one should not be fooled. At first glance, the flora and fauna of the region may seem normal. But the trees grow strangely deformed, their leaves a stained white. The grass here is pale. The flowers gleam in foul green. And the animals bleed a sickening yellow substance, with an odour worse than any chemical. And the light above the lakes shimmers in strange colours when the sun rises or falls. Truly, the Brightflame Hour may be over, but its essence still lingers.

It is quite interesting that Anidara never played an important role in world politics, but served as the origin for so many things that did. Iron-working, the Ferans and Akitians, Krigan the Kingslayer...the list goes on and on. And yet the world thinks of Anidara as a backwater, a lesser part of Tyanis so to speak.

— Jofren Halekis, King of Lydras

by Darkseid

Alternative Name(s)

Onadara (Ancient)
Ileniar (Feran)

Type

Continent

Location under

Tyanis - The Mother

Included Locations

• Ahari Azda - The Abyssal Chasm
• The Badlands
• The Rodine Hills

Owning Organization

Eleventh Dynasty of Pesh-Ar (Nominal)

Related Ethnicities

• Kha'ali Rushtra
• Mar-Ferans - The Unclean

Related Myths

• Tyanis and her Daughters

by Stas Yurev

Constant Invasions
Both Vardania and Anidara have been subject to repeated invasions from the Outer Lands. Tribes large and small have made their way through the gaps in the Dawn Wall. Many have disappeared into obscurity, others, like the Ferans, have dominated world history.
In contrast to the northern invasions, which have happened almost every century, the southern ones are but distant memory. Ever since the Kidarites stormed onto the Onadaran Reach in 801 DA, the Outer Lands have remained silent.
At least until now. The relative peace of the southern frontier has been shattered, for the Kha'Ali Rushtra have descended from the Dawn Wall. With terrifying speed, they demolished the, once so mighty, Itrakan Empire and only the cataclysm ended their advance.
Still, for over 200 years, Anidara has now lived in fear of the barbarians again. And it could only be a sign of things to come. For there are rumours of dust clouds rising over the Outer Lands...
Tripartied Conflict
Even without foreign invasions, Anidara is far from a peaceful place. Three forces, transcending national boundaries, constantly fight for dominance.
Themidians, or Royalists in the Common Tongue, view monarchy as the only viable form of government. Although the dominant of the three forces, they have begun to weaken in recent decades.
Argeads, or Imperialists, view themselves as the spiritual successors of the Argead Dynasty. Their goal the establishment of a pan-Anidaran empire, modeled after the ancient Argead Dominion and Tarquinnian Hegemony.
Last and oldest are the Herodians or Republicans. Following the old dream of the Themyran polei, they wish to return Anidara to the ways of old, a series of democratic republics, free from the tyranny of kings. They are gaining strength and even managed to return the city of Thenia to democracy in 3331 DA.

by Paul Canavan

The Brightflame Hour
A disaster that destroyed vast parts of western Anidara in late 3099 DA. The resulting ash fall contaminated much of the Onadaran Reach and caused widespread famine. Combined with hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing east and plagues caused by the ash, this resulted in a century of chaos for the south.