The Golshire Plains

The Golshire Plain, in the Southern Hemisphere of the continent of Golren, is one of the most important regions on the continent. The homeland of the halflings after the Millennia War of the first age, the plains have become a cultural center for halflings around the world, the birthplace of the philosophy that would spawn the Church of Sacris Ordinum, and the most fertile lands on the continent.

Geography

The Golshire Plains are a large bowl surrounded by mountains and rolling hills. To the West, Northwest, and Southwest of the plains run the Great Mountains, some of the highest craigs on Daearen . Little grows in the farthest western plains of the region, as the foothills of the Great Mountains are largely made of rock falls and rocky outcropping. To the South of Golshire Plains runs the highly eroded Halan Mountain Range. Large foothills run from these mountains north to the flatter plains in the center of the region To the East of the plains, the lip of the bowl is made of the Valtonese Mountains, which rise up along the shoreline of the Medrith Sea. Much of this land sports rocky hills as well.
Hydrology
The northern perimeter of the Golshire Plains is delineated by the Tiban River, to which all the water precipitated onto the plains and snow melts from the mountains run. In the mountainous and hilly regions of the Plains, a large number of fresh water springs push water up from the aquifers below, and start many of the rivers and creeks that cross the land. These tributary rivers combine into the River Serene in the Salt Flats of Ivry, and continue to North to the Tiban River.
Playa Lakes, temporary lakes formed at depressions in the land that generate after rainfall, dot the landscape. Typically, one could find Halfling settlements found around these playa lakes.
The Salt Flats of Ivry
Natural Philosophers have speculated on the existence, and cause of the Salt Flats of Ivry for centuries. The modern consensus, is that this exceedingly flat area of the plains was at one point a small inland sea that covered the center of Golshire Plains. At some point, as scientific endeavors seem to have proven, a large breakout occured, resulting in a deluge that swept away a majority of the hills and outcropping down river of the deluge. Natural Philosophers have placed the time of this breakout before the First Age.
Whatever the cause, the Salt Flats remain the largest known salt flat in the world, an important cultural and economic aspect of the region.

Fauna & Flora

The ecology of the land is very simple. Most of the region is composed of prairie grasses, and exotic wildflowers that bloom after every rainfall in the spring and summer. The food chain is built off the animals that feast on the grass. The top predators, which have been largely forced to the periphery of civilization, are the packs of Golranian Worg, a species small but faster species than the Eastern Worg species.
The Salt Flats of Ivry are currently not know to possess much in the way of wildlife. It is speculated, based on the discovery of carapaces below the crusts of salt, that the salt flats at one point provided an ecosystem that produced large insects, some of which seem to be huge trap digging arachnids.
The foothills of the mountains surrounding the plains are more diverse. Towards the Medrith Sea in the East, the foothills, at times can house small forests of gigantic evergreen forests. To the south and west, the vegetation tends to be that of dry prairie land with the occasional copse of stunted evergreen brush. this land is often prowled by monstrosities, as it remains relatively sparsely populated.

Natural Resources

The Golshire Plains are one of the largest growing regions in the world. The denizens of the plains produce more than half of the required grain supply for the Union of the Nine Cities and to the continent of Golren as a whole. The crops most widely grown in the lower portions of the plain are wheat, barley, sorghum, and corn.
A unique type of corn, Golshiran corn, was recently breed with a more common strain of maize, and has now produced a corn variant known as Alvanian Corn, which is used explicitly to create the biofeul know as Alvanian oil. This crop is grown exclusively in the Golshire Plains. The biofeul generated is shipped around the world, and has become the main cash crop of Alvania in the North.
Clumps of evergreen forest make up the foothills of the Valtonese Mountains, and have been used for logging purposes. Mainly however, these forests are used sparingly.
The foothills at the periphery of the plains are used for two purposes, as the fertility of the land is not acceptable for annual crop growth. The land is pockmarked with stone outcrops of mainlty limestone and granite, which are occasionally quarried for the region. More importantly, the land is used for animal husbandry and grazing land.

Alternative Name(s)

The Great Western Plains, Breadbasket of the West

Type

Plain

Location under

Golren

Included Locations

• The Luminous Temple of Ivry

Contested By

• Halflings