The Pilgrim Lands

Farewell and adieu to you Summer ladies

Farewell and adieu, you ladies of Gwayn

For we've received orders for to sail for the Pilgrim's

But we hope in short time for to see you again!

-Lebarallian sailors song,

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The Pilgrim Lands is the westernmost continent of the known world, and one of the largest and most contiguous landmasses currently known. The cultures that developed upon it are some of the oldest in the world, and the Pilgrim Lands are perhaps the largest collection of pre-Old Empire cultures in the world, many of which still exists in similar forms to how they were two ages ago.

It's also a place that is deeply divided by the Great Wyrms and their teachings, with some accepting, some partially accepting, and others outright rejecting the Wyrms. Never violently, as far as history shows, but many cultures were firm on rejecting the Wyrms for myriad reasons. Some already had their Icons deeply set into their culture, and others had more philosophical issues with the concept of allowing the Wyrms to 'guide' them. The Wyrms, as is their nature, would not force their lessons upon these people and as such they were widely let alone. The Pilgrim Lands remained fairly untouched until the War of the Wyrms broke out.

While there was no concrete objectives to be achieved there, other than perhaps allying with the nations that had grown upon the continent, arial fleets sailed there non-the-less. Modern historians believe that a combination of rumour and spy work convinced several forces that the others were steaming towards some unknown goal, and once one fleet got moving it only confirmed the suspicions of the others.

They chased each other across the Heartless Waves, clashing whenever they came in contact with one another and leaving a trail of destroyed airships and bones on the ocean floor. When they got to the Pilgrim Lands, a place where no commander had ever operated out of and where none had any support or an easy ability to supply themselves, the stress started to set in. Each fleet was on a time limit of fuel, food, and Crystals, but they also needed to stop their enemies from completing the objectives each had convinced themselves the others were there for.

Each conducted their airial war in whatever way they saw fit, though we know not of whatever valor or cowardice was displayed, those stories were lost with the sailors who were there. In the end, they all achieved their objective of stopping the others from achieving objectives that didn't exist, and each fleet limped back across the ocean as best they could to continue fighting a war none would see the end of from mortal wound or simply time.

What they left behind, however, is far more important to the history of the Pilgrim Lands than any battle of the Wyrm's war. For every ship destroyed or forced to ground, never to rise again, it is rare that all it's occupants perished. Be it a single survivor, or a handful, or a majority of each crew, they each found themselves in the same reality.

They were strangers in a strange land, and no one was coming to retrieve them any time soon or, perhaps, at all.

They asked themselves and each other the question of what they would do, and it seems the answer they found was "what they could.".

They banded together, some forming small villages that they carved from the wild landscape around them that housed members of fleets that had put each other into their situation in the first place, while others struck out to find the inhabitants of the land and ask for assistance. Similar endeavors were happening all across the continent, fueled by the wide scattering of ships that had met destruction in the skys above.

It should not come as a surprise that the massive air battles, and now the movements of these strangers did not go unnoticed by the inhabitants of the Pilgrim Lands, who curiously came to see who and what had fallen upon their shores. Just as the sailors had a myriad of responses, so to did the natives. Some simply observed for a time, others made greetings. Other's were hostile from the go, or hostility was earned with misunderstanding and conflict.

In the north of the continent, where there was no singular dominant power, the reaction tended to be more along the lines of aid and acceptance. Some doing so because they viewed it as the right thing to do, while others recognized the power that these visitors could provide them. In the southern half of the continent, where the Empire of Xotlac ruled handedly, survivors walked a far greater knifes edge. With one hand they would be welcomed and fetted in the major cities, but with the other they were perfect fodder for the Red Gardens that didn't require much effort to round up and capture. Where each group of survivors wound up was largely to chance and the ambition of whoever found them first.

The sheer amount of a sailors, however, and the fact they had access to the dregs of the Old Empire's technology, meant that they were in the Pilgrim Lands to stay, and that is where the more curious facts of their arrival come to play.

The Wyrm's war would rage on for millenia longer, and the continent would be left out of the remainder of the conflict, in no small part because of the ever shrinking capabilities of the fracturing forces. Long winded expeditions became less and less possible, and even if they were, none were keen on sailing to the edge of the world (not even mapped at that point) for no reason at all. Left to their own devices, and with a new addition to the social structures all across the continent, the societies started to fuse.

Now, you can find an impressive gradient of cultures across the whole of the continent, with very little having gone untouched by 'foreign' influence between now and then. Old villages and towns that contain structures in myriad styles that would be recognizable both from the Cradle of Seasons and the Pilgrim Lands themselves. People from all creeds can be found all over, and the mix of ideals has resulted in some truly unique outlooks on life, society, and government.

Geography

Almost all of the landmass of the Pilgrim Lands is near continuous and all connected to each other, though it has a few notable island landmasses as well. 
In a cartographical sense, the continent is often split between north and south, though the split more imagined thatn it is a real split, or marked by any real geographic feature. 
The north of the continent is largely Spring and Autumnlands, with a few pockets of summer. Old growth forests cover much of the east and northeast, while vast grass-plains crawl west in a golden-green blanket. The westernmost edge of the north has the largest concentration of Summerlands, though they are too hot and dry for the usual benefits such land provides. They border on desert, with vast mesas being the only thing that break up the otherwise monotonous landscape. 
The south of the continent is largely Summerlands with little variance to it's seasonal disposition. Despite this, it's landscape is no more uniform than it's northern half. Jungle covers much of the southern reaches with a great deal of mountains and river basins giving the space a huge variance in height and making long distance travel a far more difficult in the region. Swamps and wetlands are what break up the jungle, resulting in a truly humid stretch of land.

Type

Continent

Included Locations

• Xochiyotli

Included Organizations

• The Farcast Union

Inhabiting Species

• The Beast Tribes

Related Historical Events

• 32602
  The Battles of the Plunge

Given the size of Old Empire ships, the amount of surviving crew that eventually joined the population of the Pilgrim Lands was statistically significant. All together across all fleets, there were thousands of survivors, if not tens of thousands. Given the largest of the ships had crews that rivaled the populations of small cities, their addition to the population marked a stark change to the makeup of cultures and social expectations.