Straits of Doom

The Straits of Doom is a jungle frontier in The South. It is a hostile and cursed land, unsettled, untravelled and wrapped in myth and legend. Large enough to be considered a sub-continent, it functions as a natural barrier that separates the Heartlands from the continent of Gargantia.
Contents

Location and climate

The Straits of Doom is located in The South some 1,000 kilometers from the southern edge of the Heartlands. The region is bordered in the north by the jungle domains of Menyamar and Nergamesh, in the east by the Sea of Estwaith, in the south by the Cobalt Sound and the Sea of Korvosa and in the west by the Mountains of Doom. In theory, the countless waterways of the Straits of Doom could be navigated to connect Korvosa and Treal Shar to the Veiled Sea and the Gulf of Tyria beyond. Such sojourns have rarely if ever been attempted, however, and none have been successful. The Straits of Doom are braved only by the foolish or the insane -- and no one ever returns.
The Straits of Doom is the largest unified area of wild rainforest in the world, stretching over a distance of 3,000 km in the equatorial direction and some 800 km in meridian direction. The region is located along Amanor's equator, and due to it being untouched by mortals thanks to its fearsome reputation, its jungles are a sanctuary for natural life. Due to its size, the Straits of Doom contains an array of micro-climates, e.g. tropical rainforest regions with no dry seasons, seasonal tropical rainforest with a short winter period and even wet savannahs and tropical dry forests.

Other names
Straits of Death, The Straits, Divine Desolation, Jungles of Malediction, Godscar, Banelands

Owner

None

Contesting organizations

None

Natural resources

Unknown

Climate

Continental, cold and dry

Type

Jungle

Above: General map of the Straits of Doom and its surrounding lands. Detailed maps of the sub-continent are unavailable due to lack of exploration.

Geography

The Straits of Doom is a land that has been shaped by natural disasters of immense magnitude. Every square league of earth in the area is jagged and uneven, as if broken by the fists of an angry god. In the current age the region is geologically very stable, so whatever upheavals created it are a thing of the past.
Ravines, canyons, gullies, valleys and mountains with razor-sharp rocks scar the land, some no wider than a step but others yawning many leagues wide. These features are mostly filled with water, as if the fractured earth had sunken downwards and the three seas that border the Straits of Doom have flown in to fill the gaps. The incredibly dense network of waterways thus formed is the region's namesake. Thanks to numerous inlets that are large enough to be called bays, gulfs or even seas, saltwater can be found even very close to the center of the Straits. These large aquatic avenues are fed into by countless rivers flowing from innumerable lakes and swamps. Approximately half of the surface area of the Straits of Doom is covered by water.
In places, the geological features of the Straits of Doom are awe-inspiring, with needle-shaped spires of ancient bedrock rising from the forest floor to pierce the clouds and giant circular lakes having formed in craters that are so large as to fit several contemporary cities inside them. Other natural wonders are stupefyingly strange, such as geometrically perfect riverbeds running in absolutely straight lines for hundreds of leagues or a mountain top that is smooth and round as if the rock itself had been melted. As a general rule, the geography of the Straits of Doom can be characterized to be "larger in scale" than elsewhere. Everything is bigger than normal from mountains and canyons to lakes and rivers. The marks of ancient magics can be seen all over, no doubt cast by godly beings due to their land-shaping power.

Flora and fauna

The Straits of Doom is home to a plethora of beasts and plants unknown to scholars of civilized lands. Thousands upon thousands of animal and plant species dwell in the vast rainforests, never having been seen by a mortals due to the widespread fear of entering the region. Magical creatures thrive in the region as well, most of them as exotic and alien as anything else in the land: basilisks, hydras, wywerns, wild dragons and much more can be found at the highest ranks of the foodchain.

Myth and legend

Sacred texts of the Empyreal Faith state that the Straits of Doom were formed during the Divine Calamity tens of thousands of years ago as the gods themselves descended from the firmament to enact divine vengeance. The Four Horsemen rode across the skies and magical disasters scoured the world clean of the black-hearted mortals that populated it in those forgotten days.
The chaotic geography of the Straits of Doom is entirely unique, and surely the area must have been subject to divine vengeance unlike any other in the world. Truly, the mortal peoples that inhabited the area before the Divine Calamity must have been the most evil of folk for them to have incurred such punishment that their lands were smote asunder beyond recognition. Not a single ruin, statue or other piece of archaelogical significane has ever been found in the Straits of Doom to shed light on its cultural history. Legends told in the Heartlands about the Straits of Doom serve as a grim testament to the terrible wrath of even the most benevolent of gods -- the terrible state of the land being a reminder of the foolishness of going against the teachings of the Empyreals.