Terrónsta

Terrónsta (Elvish for "northern grounds"), often simply called "the North," is the ungoverned region between Scalados and the Elemental Plane of Earth. It is sparsely populated and lags technologically and culturally behind the rest of Belcantas, having been stuck in a perpetual "dark age" since the fall of Bjália.

Geography

Terrónsta is mostly inland, with no navigable ports even on the slim coastline towards its extreme southeastern reaches. It is mainly a high plateau, albeit with hilly regions to the west (where it borders Draxhaven and Erdelan) and north (where it borders the mountains of the Elemental Plane of Earth).

Climate

Summers are short, but warm and pleasant. The majority of the agriculture for the year happens in this short growing period. Winters, in contrast, are long and harsh. The first snow in Terrónsta often happens in October or November, and snowfall typically stays on the ground through the beginning of April.

History

Terrónsta is one of the last regions reached by the humans in the Age of Audacity. These early human settlements were among the first to be destroyed by natural disasters in the Age of Anxiety. To this day, the gnomes (who never settled the area) largely regard it as a cursed land.
In the golden age of Bjália, a few auxiliary settlements reached into what is now considered Terrónsta. The largest towns boasted several thousand residents, including human, dwarven, high elven, and even some dragonborn residents.
Terrónsta was cut off from the rest of the known world after the Siege of Bjália, during the War of Great Sorrow. With Bjália no longer around to provide wealth, many fled the region, with the few remaining survivors largely scattered into small villages of hunters and subsistence shepherds.
Today, the North is known primarily for its extreme cultural isolation from the world. Society often still holds to the rigid gender beliefs and expectations of the pre-Tenserian eras. It has become something of a cliché, particularly in Scaladosian and Erdelanian culture, to tell stories of heroes coming out of the North. In reality, such stories are uncommon, although a few famous heroes from the region are still known. Examples include Gustav the Mauler of the Heroes of Brightwater, and Marnie and Ulrich Fiensbane, the founders of Fiend's Bane.

Alternative Name(s)

the North

Type

Region