Lake Nith

Make sure your crops are watered before you dry up the well.

— Alkaner proverb

The ecosystem around Lake Nith is always in flux. The native Alkaner have lived by its shores for generations, using the natural runoff of the nearby mountains and slowly directing it to this place to form a watery home in the midst of the great central deserts of Algonas. The land is now filled with their irrigation projects and their bountiful farms. But damming of the rivers and an overdependence on wells and canals has caused the lake to shrink from year to year. The Alkaner are now afraid that the land could become uninhabitable within a generation unless something is done.

A Fragile Beauty...

The artificial nature of the lake means that everything from the shoreline to the depth to the rivers that lead to it are all made by hand. Natural processes over the centuries since has made those actions less visible, but sometimes a section of river seems a little too unnaturally straight or a shoreline drops off a little too suddenly to be normal. All the same, the grasses, birds of prey, scurrying mice and shiny fish that have come to live in the area don't seem to mind, and the Alkaner are often found discussing the beautiful sights that they have cultivated outside their tent settlements. Visitors have commented heavily on the palette of blue, purple, green and yellow that fills the horizons here, hence the colours of the flag of the Alkaner Confederacy.

...Constantly Under Threat

The Alkaner are under no illusions of grandeur; they know that the constant ebb and flow of the lakewater is as precious as the blood in their veins. Current worries in the region also reflect this relationship. The major concern is that the shallowest parts of the lake have not refilled in recent years, leaving large muddy areas of silt at the lake's edges and requiring deeper wells and canals to access. Many causes have been brought up at the Matlokane, including overpopulation, abuse of water resources by certain family groups, and magical or divine interference.
It wasn't until Artaka Virasgupi and her people went to the source of one poisoned river that one very real threat was discovered. They encountered a Stalwartkin settlement had damned the river and dumped pollutants in whatever water was left for multiple years, leading to its degradation. Artaka secured a diplomatic victory over the Stalwartkin of Inqen and got them to release some of the dammed water, but the solution has not exactly saved Lake Nith as of yet.

Alternative Name(s)

Alkanith (native name).

Type

Lake

Location under

Algonas

Owning Organization

The Alkaner Confederacy

Characters in Location

• Artaka Virasgupi

Flag of the Alkaner Confederacy

Ruins of Times Gone By

When the Alkaner settled the region, they found several stone structures. These Vestigal Towers, as they are called, seemed to have been placed at regular intervals across the region, forming an intricate grid pattern. Each ruin also has indecipherable runes carved on the walls, many of which contain very small amounts of magic. The common belief among scholars, Alkaner or otherwise, is that these towers are the remains of a civilization that was destroyed back in the past, either by the Zarkul Empire or possibly even earlier. Occasionally, small animals that enter the Towers never leave.