Coast of Thorns

Your head is so empty, it is a part of the Catenae.
~ Common insult in the Emerald City

The Coast of Thorns forms the southwestern border of the Corelands and separates its toxic marshes from the Sea of Fog. It is a rocky and barren land whose most prominent features are the hundreds of Misurit Spikes that can be found throughout the region.
These conical-shaped structures, which are often dozens of meters high, are formed through the crystallization of so-called Misurit nodules, which are mineral aggregates that have been released from the surrounding rocks by wind and rain.
Dependant on the exact composition of these aggregates as well as the types of impurities sealed within them the Misurit Spikes growing from them, will not only possess a different coloration and surface structure but also oscillates at a different frequency if struck with enough force.
Once struck a Spike will emit a deep humming sound that slowly converges into a pure musical tone, similar to a tuning fork. If spikes with a similar frequency are close by they will start to resonate with the first spike and thereby adding their own tone to the sound of the first one, which once again might cause further spikes to oscillate.
While these resonance chains are usually only able to complete one or two cycles of replication before running out, there are certain groups of spikes known as "Swinging Catenae" which allow such a chain to travel along the entire length of the Coast.

Geography

Maze-like trenches to the north, a city full of poison in the center, and collapsing plateaus in the south.
After walking through the Corelands, this land sounds oddly welcoming.

The Coast of Thorns can broadly be divided into three different regions, known historically as Flanres, Cenres, and Wolres.
Flanres which lays in the northwestern part of the coast is dominated by the dried out beds of several ancient rivers, which together create a complex network of natural trenches, valleys, and groves that proved to be a major obstacle for the Vitreous Empire's forces during the initial conquest of the area.
As one might already guess from its name Cenres takes up the central area of the Coast of Thorns. It is a mostly hilly terrain that is spotted by numerous flat plains of sand and dust, which amassed themselves in the wind shadow of the hills.
The region is cut into two halves by the Great Canal, which connects the Empire's capital An Hylaria with the Sea of Fog. At the mouth of this canal lies the emerald-colored Metropolis of An Periot, which serves as the headquarter for the Emerald Guild.
The southeastern region of Wolres is a series of rocky plateaus that are covered in clefts and sinkholes, which form whenever parts of the extensive cave systems that lay beneath Wolres collapse.
The tremors caused by these collapses can commonly be felt throughout the entire region.

Notable areas and landmarks

The Thoothpick

The so-called "Toothpick" is a massive Misurit Spike located within the Cenres regions, which reaches for more than 260 meters into the sky. Nearly its entire surface is covered in markings and engravings, which denotes the great cultural importance it once held to the inhabitants of the coast.

Ditches of Yipal

The former site of an intense battle during the First Expansion war, the "Ditches" are a ramified network of canyons, trenches, and caves located in the heart of the Flanres region.
During the battle, large parts of the area were covered in clouds of poisonous gases, which due to their great stability and heavier-than-air nature still haven't dissipated yet and therefore pose a lethal hazard to anyone unfortunate enough to stumble into them.
In addition to the bodies of their most recent victims, these clouds also cling to the corpses of their original victims that succumbed to them during the original battle. Despite being over a hundred years old these corpses still look like they could stand up at any moment, as the gas that killed them also removed all microorganisms that could decompose them.

Alternative Name(s)

Singing Shore, Needle's Shore, Razorback Cliffs, Emerald Province,

Type

Coast / Shore

Owning Organization

The Vitreous Empire

Crystal Mail

Since the days of the Coast's first inhabitants, the resonating capabilities of the Misurit Spikes have been used in order to quickly transmit Morse coded messages throughout the entire region.
Given the great deal advantages such a quick and reliable communication system possesses for both civil and military uses, it is no wonder that numerous factions attempted to replicate it.
Yet so far none managed to artificially grow Misurit Crystals in the required quality and quantity in order to build anything more than a few meters of communication lines.

A Song of Thorns

Whenever one of the collapsing caves sends its tremors throughout Wolres and the rest of the coast, hundreds of Misurit Spikes are set into motion, which causes an acoustic tidal wave of ear-piercing noise to roll over the entire region.
Anyone caught by this wave without wearing adequate hearing protection risks temporal or even permanent deafness depending on one's distance from the epicenter of the quake.