Mapping the Eferian Continent, part two: Overview Landscaping and Thoughts

[This post talks about general chartography and landscaping of the Eferian continent and not storyline-specific locations or places within the main series which would tell of future knowledge surrounding relevant story-ruining accepts.]

The Eferian continent is a very large place.

To give a broader overview of the Eferian continent in its entirety, this post will go over the largest parts of the landscaping within the continent itself. Places like Roamen will not be featured since it is towards the western borders outside of the perimeters of the official crossing between the Eferian continent and the Roamen lands.

This post will talk about the largest sections of the Eferian continent, including the Eferian empires such as ROUE, Varangia and Nimghrad. Though this post will only feature information surrounding the general landscaping of said empires, each section of the continent will be getting its on future posts surrounding more detailed insights within the empires themselves.

Overview of the Eferian Continent and Issues Concerning Terminology

Going north to east, the largest land parts of the Eferian continent are:

• Varangia — north
• Hillsan Hills — north-east
• Rimward — centre north-east
• Highmore — east
• Grimrail — centre east
• Sprout — south-east
• Saga — south
• Nimghrad — south-west
• Aerine — centre south-west
• Tailen — south-west
• ROUE — west
• Amana — centre west
• Remai — centre north-west
• Milandra — north-west
• Crinoline — centre

Within the lore, the names, and borders of the continent was mainly coined after the Roamen forces was defeated and the lands were split up between the Eferian species to establish peace amongst them. Not every Throne and/or people within the continent agree on these terms, names and where the borders start and end. Terminology for the Eferian continent too varies depending on how, within the lore, the locations and the Thrones were categorised by the Realm of the United Empires.

As the name implies, ROUE labelled the largest powers within the continent as empires. This is a correct term to use for some of the powers within the continent but fails to recognize how other Eferian people live and function. One of these powers is the Nimghrad Empire. Within the current time of the main series, Nimghrad is a large collection of kingdoms with one central regime in its capital city of Amrealie.

The issue is that Nimghrad’s forces don’t function by the seer control of the Amrealie capital nor adhere to the commands of Nimghrad’s largest controlling Throne. Instead, the people of Nimghrad function by the Th’emin’s structure of ‘’pack families’’ which entails that each location is operated by an everchanging group of Th’emin people within the location where those pack families reside.

In Th’emin tradition, each person born is taken to orphanage housing. And then later in their lives travels around the land to find and live among whichever pack of Th’emin people are willing to house them. This means that it is very rare for blood related Th’emin people to live with each other. And this style of pack family living is many times temporary as each person moves and find new packs to live with several times within their lifespan.

This tradition affects how Nimghrad operates overall.

Family linage like we are used to with royalty do not exist whatsoever within the Th’emin people. And by how the Nimghrad lands work too makes it so there isn’t a central power controlling every land within the Nimghrad borders.

Nimghrad is closer to a republic then an empire in that regard. They do have a central monarch-type regime yet the person who is in charge do not come from blood related linage and are chosen on a verity of factors. One of which being people elected and favoured by the Nimghrad people within the capital city itself.

The terms and names for the largest parts of the Eferian continent was primarily made by ROUE. And because of that, the names used for each part isn’t favourable by many outside of the ROUE lands.

The Realm of the United Empires and the Issue with the Usage of the Term ‘Empire’

The Realm of the United Empires, or ROUE for short, is the largest city within the Eferian continent. Constructed over the once Roamen-owned lands, ROUE was built with the help of Kloros as a way for the Eferian species to establish peace and to prevent wars like the Yulis by Nedrian War from happening again. Originally, ROUE was just a singular, circular city with a watchtower within its centre. And after centuries of construction, each empire within the Eferian continent built their own cities surrounding the ROUE centre.

This means that ROUE is a collection of several cities all coming together around one singular centre and continuingly building outwards.

ROUE is not only the largest city within the continent, but it also serves as the meeting ground for all major powers to come together into one place. This means that each empire has a great need for ROUE to continue operating and will help the city to function in several different ways.

Including political.

Because ROUE became the meeting point for the Eferian people, the city has become the place where most laws and regulations are created for the remaining empires to follow. And too where the largest Eferian force, The Sun Army, operates.

This includes the naming of locations. Though the city has the largest influence when it comes to the naming of locations within the continent, the terms used are broad and general. This means that many times the naming schemes ROUE choices apply to some places but not to others.

One the naming schemes is the term ‘empire’. In the lore, ROUE gave the name ‘empire’ to every major Throne within the continent who had a large subsection of the Eferian landscapes and people within their power in a specific region. And then gave the title of empire to the largest Throne for each power. One of the aspects ROUE took into consideration was the influence the largest Throne within each region had in the Yulis by Nedrian War.

The problem with this — as mentioned previously with Th’emin — is that not every power has the same structure within their lands like ROUE does. The usage of the term ‘’empire’’ is then based one the largest sections of Eferian power who have some sort of central reign. But this too is difficult to define since not every location within Eferian have that either.

Highmore v. ROUE: A War Which Never Technically Ended

Before the Yulis by Nedrian War, Highmore was the largest power within the Eferian continent with their reign existing from the south-east to the north-west regions of Eferian.

After the war, Highmore’s reign only exists within the eastern regions of the continent bordering the lands of Hillsan Hills, Rimward, Grimrail, Sprout and Mane Corail. But a lot of locations with Highmore affiliation can be found in multiple places within the continent due to how large the empire used to be before the invasion of the Roamen forces.

In the lore, Highmore never technically ended their part of the war with Roamen. This was mainly due to the annexing of the former Highmorian capital city where the Tree of Life used to reside. Within current time, the Tree of Life reside in Mana in the southern regions of Highmore. Because Highmore never fully agreed to end the war with Roamen, the empire is within the declaration of war without a concrete enemy to fight against. This means that Highmore are still viable to wage warfare against locations which they redeem to be a part of the former Roamen forces. Alongside other powers who helped Roamen to siege the Highmorian capital formerly located in the current land of Sprout.

The remaining parts of the Roamen Throne still exists but do not interfere with the Eferian continent. The lands of Roamen can be found within the western borders of ROUE.

This also affect how Highmore view the borders of the Eferian continent in its entirety. According to the High Elven reign, Eferian was given to the species after the disappearance of the original Yulis during the reign of C’alorus. Highmore then proclaims themselves to be the keepers of the Sagen world and protects the lands against those who which to harm it.

To Highmore, the new borders drawn by ROUE have never been accepted by the Elven regime. To the High Elves, the borders used by many within the Eferian continent in current time of the main series do not exist for the Highmorian powers who continuously attempts to take back land it once used to own. Many of these annexing attempts have been towards Remai and Grimrail with some annexing attempts going so far as to attempting to annex Mane Corail whose lands are outside of the continent’s official borders.

Tailen v. ROUE: When Resistance Wins the People Over One

One of the biggest examples of Eferian people who rejected ROUE as the new power is the lands of Tailen located within the south-western regions of the continent bordering ROUE to the north and Nimghrad to the south.

After ROUE were constructed, a major wave of Th’emin people began to travel from the Nimghrad lands to the new capital city. But as they crossed over to the new lands — known to the current time of the main series as Tailen — the people travelling to ROUE were meet with the capital’s new force, The Sun Army. With the new force becoming a barrier for the Th’emin people from entering the ROUE lands, the Th’emin people began to build up new homes within the lands of Tailen.

As the new life in Tailen began to form, The Sun Army started to form camps and kept marching into the Tailen lands to establish their presence. Many of the people who had at this time begun to permanently reside in Tailen saw this as a threat to their new lives and started to fight against The Sun Army. Since the Th’emin people were much more familiar with Tailen’s environment opposed to the knowledge The Sun Army had, they were able to withhold the forces from establishing themselves within Tailen.

The Tailen lands has since been a tremendous resistance against the presence and power of ROUE who have next to no power in the Tailen lands within the time of the main series. Tailen is the only region within the Eferian continent where The Sun Army do not have a known presence.

Tailen’s borders have always been murky. It isn’t entirely clear where the borders between Tailen and Nimghrad begin or end. Neither is it clear where the borders between ROUE and Tailen begin or end either.

Just like many other instances, it all depends which side you are on.

In Conclusion

The lore examples given in this post were brought up to showcase the overarching problem with the mapping of the continent: within the lore, it is next to impossible to give an accurate picture of how the Eferian continent is drawn up.

Though this problem is primarily for the bordering of the continent and not for the landscaping itself which do not change from the Eferian species drawn up mapping of it.

It does show, however, that the need to more information surrounding how the Eferian people move and behave amongst the lands is of an ever-expanding concern. Since having drawn maps will always limit the amount of creative writing one can do with an already made-up set of borders for the storyline to be told in. And with the continued creation of the Sagen world will demist the Eferian continent to the point where it can be drawn on a map.

As I have mentioned previously in older posts.

Yet it’s from the constant will to keep developing the Sagen world where these concerns will be solved. And even be solved within the time the locations are being written about. Just like the creation of the half-island of Th’ead.

Related: See “Mapping the Eferian Continent: Concerns and Limitations to a Continued Creation” for details on Th’ead.

For it is only within a closed mind where it becomes impossible to find an answer.