The Danderillon

The Danderillon was the most populous & important area of the world. It was a large, roughly rectangular temperate subcontinent that made up the northern chunk of the Indrateran continental mainland. It was ~3000 miles east to west and ~1200 miles north to south. To the north lay the boreal subcontinent of Gildegra, and to the south lay the Burning Hills & the Moors. Various great heroes, battles, stories, nations, and landmarks were integral to its history and landscape. 
== Name ==
The region's name was contested in its origin. It might have come from the Old Rakki name Ðanaamaraaka, meaning "mark/march of green land". It could have instead come from the Old Vrei Dânureĝlei, meaning "great kingdom". It may even have come from the Middle Euluska Datrarillada, meaning "garden of bounty". Hell, it possibly even came from the Proto-Gildegran tanaqgilonuk, meaning "here there are trees". No one knows, not even me. 
In Modern Euluska, it was spelt Dandërillën, pronounced /dan.də.ˈrɪlː.ən/ 
== History ==
The continent's history was rich, and could be split into several key eras.
=== Prehistory ===
The indigenous inhabitants of the Danderillon mostly migrated southwards from eastern Gildegra, which was one of the two cradles of civilisation, driven by new lands as the world warmed. (Indratera's last glacial maximum ended about 300kya, and currently it is entering an ice age). These inhabitants found a huge untamed continent, wild and rife with resources. The landscape was varied and livable, with numerous different types of biome. Most of the continent experienced warm summers and chilly wet winters. There were a lot of beasts and monsters to contend with, but the land was workable and bounteous. 
In the Stone Age and Bronze Age, there were countless small tribes that called the region their home, most only a few thousand in number. These included the leathery-green-skinned Old Vreigardt war clans (including the Eja), the Anoquit Gildegrans, the Vistu dreamweavers, the Brackian valley dwellers, the Galean Nemyran builders, the Thuar/Tavar/Tahua animal-worship clans, the Tbikhlan miners, the Nirsi merchants, the Galikhnar ditch-diggers, the Nethir, and many more lost to time, These groups inhabited their own areas, occasionally engaged in small-scale war or benign trading, and lived in calm rural simplicity. They coexisted with the megafauna of the continent, which included giant beasts and even some things comparable to dinosaurs. Villages some of these groups settled turned into later towns and even modern cities or ruins that are notable - such as Galéa from the Galeans & Galikhnar, Nisos from the Nirsi, and Bracken from the Brackians.
During the early ninth millennium before zero, a large meteor struck the continent just west of the Forest of Firth, creating the Anoq Basin that nowadays is the main body of water in the central-western continent. This meteor killed a lot of the ancient societies like most of the Eja, the Galikhnar/Galeans, the Thuar/Tavar/Tahuans, and the Nirsi. It also killed a lot of the megafauna, but most of them still live in the Firth. The Anoquit notably survived the meteor and settled the town of Yurontoq, which would be the later site of Felonil and Halcyon.
=== Skyndrar Age ===
By the time of the late iron age (also known as the Skyndrar Age), the Vreigardts were the most numerous inhabitants of the continent, with the Vistu second. Many of the other groups had gone extinct or migrated further south. The Vrei numbered perhaps a million, and they had started to split into the three main lineages of today, due to geographical boundaries - those being the Sword (west), Plateau (east) and Blood (central) Vrei, the former speaking Nadûra, the latters speaking the Vrei language. 
At the very start of the third millennium before zero, some of the Rakki who were exiled or expeditious (sources vary) ventured to the continent and founded a citadel in a large cavern, which they named Kol Darim. To this day it has become a modern nation. A few centuries later, as the world warmed, the early fledglings of the Rakkimarran empire declared the doctrine of Skyndr, or "exploration", and the Rakki began charting and settling lands to the far south of them. 
At the beginning of the eighteenth century before zero, Rakki settlers landed on the northeast coast of the Danderillon at the Plateau-Vrei village of Lupkówa. They intermixed and interbred with the people there, as well as in the nearby villages of Pšow (later Malphur) and Daków, (later Datria). At the same time, the continent witnessed some of its first examples of organised rule with the Rīce Bræknge [ɹit͡ʃe bɹækŋ̩], the Kingdom of Bracken. The Rakki settlers turned into raiders, uniting the Kintirakki (mixed-race Rakki/indigenous clans) with the Darim and invading Bracken to destroy the kingdom, establishing the first Rakki rulership over the northeast Danderillon. The Rakki named their new kingdom, which lasted a few centuries, after the polar continent whence they came - and thus, the northeast coast of the Danderillon to this day is known as the Tarkas Coast.
=== Imperial Era ===
The Euluskan Empire began colonising the Danderillon in the year 299 with a landing at Yurontoq, founding a fort that would grow to become Felonil, and compounded this effort in 329 with a landing at the Vrei-Rakki village of Daków (which soon became Datria). The Empire began to colonise the continent from two opposite coasts by heavily settling it and subjugating any present populations (primarily of the Vistu in the west, and the Vrei everywhere else, plus small tribes like the Highlanders and Boarwooders), eventually meeting in the middle in the 540s and founding the mountain town of Carmogan as well as the fort at Prior's Gap (later Accipiter). The Empire also fought the Darim, and forced them to pay tithe for the next ten or twelve centuries or so, but they could not fight the Brackians, whose valley was too rugged and hard to attack. The Empire's reach linked the continent edge from edge - going west to east with the cities of Felonil, Accipiter, Carmogan, and Datria, each roughly equally spaced; in addition to later large towns or small cities like Sedia, Taros, Jarren's Well, Malphur, Adzvolta, Treeknife Alverosa, etc. This colonisation made the continent what it is today. Now, almost everyone in every city speaks Euluska.
=== Industrial Era ===
The continent grew in wealth and influence due to the vast resources and the Imperial colonial cities. Datria grew powerful from shipbuilding and a booming timberindustry. Felonil was the centre of the Industrial Revolution and of oil, metal, and steam. Accipiter was the only safe route linking the two halves of the continent, so every land traveller had to pass through, and trade made it fat and rich. Carmogan was the home of the continental garrison, insurmountable and mineral-rich. By the twelfth century, there were more Euluskans and Euluska speakers living in the Danderillon colonies than in the Horn, their actual homeland!
In 1490, Datria fell to a succession of natural disasters and a reactor meltdown that destroyed the city and caused the largest loss of life in one day in history up to that point. A necrotic plague also ravaged the land for a few years around that.
The sixteenth century saw Felonil's Industrial Revolution which rapidly spread around the continent. Machinery and steam power took off in the early 1500s, followed by factories and industrial levels of production, only increasing as the Euluskan Empire fell. The newfound town of Naysayer became a city too. The Empire's fall fragmented its colonies into several independent states - in the Danderillon, this resulted in Felonil becoming its own state (Scarossar), and then Accipiter, Carmogan and Datria forming an alliance after a few decades of juntas and republics, known as the Datrian Empire. By the 1550s, trains and steam turbines were everywhere in the great cities. In 1561, Felonil was taken over by fascists, but then liberated by the Lakayan Federation and renamed to Halcyon. Halcyon became the cradle of modern civilisation, pioneering Electricity by the 1570s. The cities and their nations allied, bickered, fought, and traded sparingly throughout the century and into the early seventeeth century. Thereafter, a bitter dispute between Halcyon and Datria set the powder keg for the God Wars to ignite in 1622, leading to a seventy-two year period of world war which saw global civilisations crumble and be reborn from the ashes of a dead, frozen world. The Danderillon was blanketed in snow for decades during the war.
=== Collapse Era ===
In the Collapse Era after the God Wars, the Danderillon was still the most important continent (probably), but it had been heavily affected by widespread warring between the three powers of the war. This crippled links and small villages that connected towns and cities. The result was that the continent was made up of several disproportionately large and powerful insular cities and towns, with hundreds of miles of lethal wilderness between them. It was simply unfeasible to have a widespread empire when the world had been devastated by the wars, famines, and the cold. These civilisations kept to themselves, and people left home at their own peril. The Vrei and Vistu roamed their ancestral homelands, avoiding the wrecks of ancient military vehicles and crashed aetherwing planes.
== Cultures and Language ==
The Danderillon was home to numerous cultures throughout history. In 1600, it was home to 48% of the world's 51 million inhabitants; and by the 250s C, after the God Wars ravaged it, it was home to 45% of the world's 67 million inhabitants. Of course, many of the Danderillonian cultures went extinct, or merged with others, and have been forgotten to time. But the most notable are-
* the Vreigardts, who spoke Vrei (east, central) and Nadûra (west, central). Proud warlike warriors with leathery greenish-brown skin who hunted big game
* the Vistu, who spoke Vist. Lived all around the west half of the continent as nomads who lived off cows. Believed that dreams were reality, and used them to foresee, to hurt, and to heal
* the Euluska, who trickled in steadily as Euluskan colonialism abounded in the 4th century, and have become the most numerous in the land ever since population booms in the twelfth century.
* Various others I mentioned above, to be real I can't be arsed to repeat them twice.
== Geography & Ecology ==
=== Regions ===
The Danderillon was a land of various climates. It could generally be split into several key ecoregions: 
* The Halcyian Delta, a set of peninsulas, islands, and saltmarshes on the west coast now long since concreted and covered in the tarmac of Halcyon.
* The Western Danderillon Salient, anything west of Firth, included the endless hilly Scarossar Moors, the thick warm Boarwood forest, the grassy Valari Prairie, and the seasonally frozen Hextorr Fens. 
** It was rocky and snowy in the north with mountains and muskegs...
** hilly and grassy in its centre with long grasses, few trees, and massive valleys...
** and thickly forested and defined by dramatic rivers in its south. 
** There also lay an impassable swampy muskeg in the south, and numerous dramatic large waterways. 
** Here lay towns like Jarren's Well, Vintner's Keep, Bard's Crossing, and Shrike's Roost.
** The main corridor-shaped north-south passageway was known as the Western Danderillon Salient.
* The central Danderillon, which generally consisted of harsh and unlivable terrain for all but the indigenous inhabitants.
** There were the huge swampy muskegs and rivers of the Anoq Basin, seasonally frozen...
** And the dense, ancient, living Forest of Firth, which seemed to act almost as one organism
** Down in Prior's Gap, the only passable land route, lay Accipiter. In the swamps to the north lay Aomodos, Ambition, and others. 
* The East Danderillon was defined by huge open moors and prairie, which transitioned to thick forests in the northeast. 
** The easterly mountains were low, and the coastline beyond was warm and bounteous., home to Datria and Alverosa.
** The lone Mount Carm stood above Carmogan.
** The mountains in the far northeast were huge, impassable, and dire, however, and provided great shelter to Bracken and Kol Darim or a true obstacle, shaded above Malphur.
** And the Farwydd Inlet was a large spar of the sea that provided the nearby lands with dense temperate forests and muddy deltas. It was home to Nisos, and Taros, and even Deadman's Rest.
=== Waters ===
The Danderillon was defined by several rivers and bodies of water which brought life to their surroundings. These included the great rivers of the Reidos, Reiros, Vikreux, Triao, Olea, , Juron, Hekaa, and Dvoryac; the Farywydd Inlet, the Scarossar Overflow (Apofrese Lake), Pilgrim Lake, and more. In addition, the ancient and living forest of Firth cut the continent in two, and the Anoq basin provided more area in the continent's centre where cities could not grow due to the harsh landscape. 
=== Climate and Ecology ===
The weather of the continent varied. In the north, it could be bitterly cold in the winter, but hot in the summer (summer daily means of 20°C and winter nightly means of -10°C), and there was about a month of polar day/polar night at Bracken's latitude. But even in the central part of the continent, warm currents from Lakay and the Vortic Isles kept the continent's west warmer than its east - despite Datria and Halcyon being at similar latitudes, Datrian autumns averaged 8°C whilst Halcyon's averaged 19°C. Most of the middle and south parts of the continent were very, very rainy, with cool wet winters and warm dry summers. Thunderstorms were common and the southwest regions were quite humid, but high winds and freak weather were isolated to certain places. The southeast, for example, was perfect for the formation of tornadoes, and the far east coast was often battered by the sea. 
The flora and fauna were numerous, and really everything you could think of lived somewhere around here if it would thrive in the temperate climates. Firth was home to gigantic versions of many animals, and even extinct ones like pterosaurs and theropods roamed here. The Tarkas Coast's flora and fauna for example were quite notable, as were Datrian Pearwood Trees or Savrin Trees.
File:West Danderillon.png|An old out of date map showing factories in Scarossar
File:Old Danderillon.jpg|An ancient Euluskan sketch of the continent.
File:The Danderillon Crash Course.jpg|An out of date list of the powers present in the 1530s.
File:The Danderillon vg.jpg|An out of date map of the land.
File:Danland v2.jpg|A map of the rivers of the northeast coast, flipped upside down by the Rakki.
File:Danderillon New Distances.png|One of my first maps of the region ever. So old.
 
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