Shifting Lands

Beneath a blazing sky, amidst rivers of salt and fields of bleeding soil, the revered Goddess beloved by all, martyred herself and laid down her life to banish the Triumvirate and ensure the survival of her beloved spawns.
~ Ballad of the Dragon's War

The Shifting Lands are a vast hilly region located in the western areas of Cenorad. While visually not different from other types of hill ranges, the area possesses a peculiar property, which makes it not only incredibly difficult to navigate but also a Cartographer's worst nightmare.
Then within the Shifting Lands, the spatial distance between two points is not a fixed length, but constantly fluctuating, which means that points that at one day were only a couple of meters apart are suddenly separated by over five miles of terrain.
While these spatial distortions already would make it quite difficult to travel from one point to another, the fact that in addition to their spatial distance the orientation of these points towards each other also changes, turns a difficult journey into an impossible one as the very concepts of "position" and "movement" become warped beyond recognition.
Luckily for those that accidentally stumble into this area these spatial warpings and geographic shifts are of relatively low intensity in the outskirts of the Shifting Lands and therefore allow one the easily leave the area, as the way back is usually only 1-2% longer -or shorter- than the way in.
Those that decide for whatever reason to wander deeper into the Shifting Land quickly pass the point of an easy return, as the shifting geography of the regions transforms the way back into a drawn-out odyssey, which is a lesson the Ikona had to learn the hard way when they attempted to conquer the Shifting Lands.

/* spatial distortions cover the entire region, meaning that the length of paths within it constantly changes meaning that paths that look just a few hundret meters in lenght are actually dozens of miles long and vice versa.
, the very geography of the land has become unstable and constantly moves around.
While these effects are barley noticable in the outlayers of the region, they become more and more intense the closer one travels towards the very center of the Shifting Lands.
According to ancient oral traditions of the Golotian the land became the way it is today during the final
Ballad of the Dragon's War
formed during the Dragon's War.
A cataclysmic fight between the Marythred Goddess and the Triumvirate of Chaos. creatures of immeasurable might.*/

Geography

You know in any other region I would have been quite confused as to how a tropical lake could ever end up here.
But right now I am just happy to see something else than these damned hills.

While most parts of the Shifting Lands are covered by either grassy hills and dusty ravines, there are also some patches of different terrains, such as forests, mountains, lakes and even fields of snow which help to diversify the otherwise rather stale appearance of the region.
In addition to their differences in appearance, these so-called Gtugogalu Uoglon ("Terrestrially Island") are presumably not even parts of the Shifting Lands themselves but are instead pieces of other regions that were somehow trapped within the distorted geography of the Shifting Lands.
This circumstance also makes them the only type of stable landmarks available in the region as while their relative position towards each constantly changes, they nevertheless retain their overall shape and dimensions, which makes them ideally suited for the construction of small bases from which expeditions into the Shifting Lands can be launched and resupplied.

/*

A Place of Love and Birht

Aghor Gamorl ("Place of Bliss"), in order to partake in a series of ritualized orgies -Olo Ogloralubag Grah ("Great Espousal of Kin")- during which a large number of future Golotian are conceived.*/

Natural Resources

If you are looking for the pieces of a corpse, a grave is certainly a good place to start.

Given that the strange arcane fossils known as "Chthonian Spirals", which are required for the creation of Laurasian Artifacts are believed to be pieces of the Martyred Goddess' body, it is no wonder that they are a quite common finding within the Shifting Lands, as one would expect for the place where said goddess willfully gave up her own life.

/* Chthonian Spirals, the caves beneath the Shifting Lands hold even more ones, though are heavily warped.*/

Alternative Name(s)

Land of Unkown Paths, The Anywhere

Type

Rolling Hills

Included Locations

• Spiraling Depths

Stranded in a Sacred Place

You are quite lucky traveler, for the shifts are quite calm tonight.
So let's hop onto my Gikogi and we will have you out of here by sunrise.

While the Shifting Lands are nothing short of a death trap of most species, to the Golotian the Gull ghor Gamhura ("Sacred Place of Sacrifice") as they call the Shifting Lands are their most sacred and revered place in all of Cenorad, as it marks the location where the Martyred Goddess shattered herself int a billion pieces.
These divine fragments or rather the Artifacts that the Golotian create from them via the arcan art of Fossilcraft also enable them to effortlessly traverse the Shifting Lands, as the elemental powers of the Artifacts enable them to "read" the changes of the lands spatial dimensions with the same ease as an experience sailer would read the currents of the sea.
Because of this a group of traveling Golotians is the best chance a stranded individual has of quickly getting out of the Shifting Lands and luckly for most travelers the Golotian generally don't have an issue with their presence on the lands scared soil and are therefore usually quite willing to help a travler in need.

/* While the thought of getting lost in an XXXXX is certainly a scary one, the situation of those stranded within the Shifting Lands is not as hopeless as it might first appear, for the area is regularly traversed by numerous Clans of Golotian that are willing to take stranded individuals with them, if they are able to repay them with interesting stories, tales or booze. inhabiting the adjacent areas to each other also constantly changes, which renders any maps of the area completely useless */

Here be Dragons

While the conflict between the Martyred Goddess and the Triumvirate of Chaos, which supposedly created the Shifting Lands, is often referred to as the War of Dragons, this is actually a linguistic mutation of the conflict's original name.
For while the word "Doognon" which the Golotian use to refer to the Goddess and the members of the Triumvirate, sounds quite similar to "Dragon" it actually translates to either "Crowned One" or "Master of Plains".
Though given the fact that the members of the Triumvirate are the alleged progenitors of Splinter Dragons, this linguistical mixup might still hold a kernel of truth.

/* "Ruler of Plains", "Dominion*s Master" Found in myth and legends pertaining to the creation stories. */