Continents (WtC)

Aerb has forty-four **continents**, divided by eleven major oceans.

## Layout

Thanks to their arrangement, the infinitely tessalating plane of Aerb is most neatly rendered on maps as a specific hexagon; other projections are theoretically possible but would require splitting a continent in half on the map. This hexagon's border is referred to as the Perimeter Route, portions of which have centuries-old significance in shipping. The same map layout is also used by certain magic items, such as the Teleportation Keys.

The climate of different regions is determined by regional variations in the projection layer between the atmosphere and the sun (which is also responsible for the seasons), rather than by anything resembling Earth geography.

An at least somewhat canon map of Aerb in it's entirety, approved by Alexander Wales and created using private info he provided, can be found here.

## Known Continents

* **Auberlo**, the largest continent, contains a vast grassland laced with sedate rivers. In the center of the Auberlo lies the Spine of the World or World Spine, the greatest mountain range on Aerb.

* **Widders** is a continent notable for being slightly tilted; its eastern edge is three miles in the air, while its western edge is underwater. The three-mile-high Cidium Cliffs on that eastern edge are home to the eternal city of Cidium.

* An area known as the "Second Cradle", prominent in Imperial politics, is home to the Jesh; Aerb's longest river, which spans three continents. The Second Cradle is Aerb's largest rain basin.
* **Bretaigne** is perhaps the most historically significant continent on Aerb, nicknamed the "First Cradle" as the birthplace of the First Empire. Most of the continent has minimal Infernal activity thanks to the impact of Uther's battle with the Apocalypse Demon on the region's dimensional topography. It's located "two continents away" from the Boundless Pit, so somewhat adjacent to the Lion's Mane (see below).
	+ Bretaigne's primary claim to fame is that it's home to the country of Anglecynn.
	+ The Risen Lands exclusion zone is located there.
	+ The Zorish Isles are adjacent to Bretaigne, in the Bryllyg Sea, and sometimes lumped in with it.

* The Lion’s Mane is a feature made up of multiple landmasses; a "face" of water, with mane and facial features made of land. The Mane portion includes one or more continents and at least one mountain range, and is thin enough in places that you can see water stretching away on either side. Cranberry Bay is at one end of the Mane, and the Boundless Pit at the other (a train called the Lion's Tail runs between the two); the vast river Buol drains into the Pit from one of the continents making up the Mane to the east. Nations found in the Mane include the Monarchical Democracy of Esplandian (where Cranberry Bay is located), Drabian,and at least at one point the Kingdom of Mosenol (which included Headwater, at least during the First Empire.)

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 When I closed my eyes, the teleportation key presented me with a field of small yellow dots, and littered among them, a handful of green ones, with a single green line. I waited three seconds for the character sheet to pop up, but apparently the game was smart enough to not interrupt me (or possibly, this was the same interface that the locked-away fast travel system used, which was how I might have done it). I almost asked what the yellow dots were, but I figured it out on my own; I had seen a map of Aerb’s forty-four continents, with all the major cities marked, and it was clear that the yellow dots would overlay the cities almost exactly. Those, then, were the touchstones. - Chapter 41: Truth and Reconciliation
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Aerb can be represented as an infinitely tessellating hexagon with an edge length of approximately twenty-seven thousand miles and a surface area of 1.9 billion square miles. [...] Aerb contains forty-four continents, divided by eleven major oceans. Biomes are largely determined by the super-atmospheric projection layer, which changes the amount of available light from the sun, while seasons are largely determined by the fact that the sun’s apparent size grows in the summer and diminishes in the winter. The shape and properties of the projection layer, now well-mapped, are largely responsible for hexal weather patterns. In certain areas, the projection layer is inwardly warped, providing hotter climates, or outwardly warped, providing cooler climates. - A Brief Description of Aerb
3. ↑ Aerb only has a “center” by convention, but that convention is dictated by what’s known as the Perimeter Route, a perfect hexagonal path that a ship could take without ever touching land, the only such route in existence. Portions of the Perimeter Route have been used for trade for several centuries, though other portions are more treacherous (and shipping is somewhat rare following the advent of bulk teleport). - A Brief Description of Aerb
4. ↑ The largest of Aerb’s continents is Auberlo, which contains a vast grassland laced with sedate rivers. In the center of the Auberlo lies the Spine of the World (sometimes, World Spine), both the tallest and longest mountain range on Aerb. - A Brief Description of Aerb
5. ↑ The continent of Widders is notable for being tilted, with its eastern edge three miles in the air, and its western edge gently descending down into the ocean. The Cidium Cliffs on that eastern edge present an enormous sheer drop, and it is within a crook of this cliff that the city of Cidium is located, spanning three vertical miles. - A Brief Description of Aerb
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 The longest river is the Jesh, which spans three different continents, and is also part of the world’s largest rain basin, in an area known as the ‘Second Cradle’ for its prominence in imperial politics (the first cradle being Anglecynn and the continent of Bretaigne). - A Brief Description of Aerb
7. ↑ I checked out Anglecynn as well, and saw it mapped in grey, both the country proper and most of the surrounding continent, including the Zorish Isles. According to legend, when the Apocalypse Demon had reared his head, Uther had gone on a long quest to track down the warhammer Marcion, which everyone else had considered Apocryphal. He’d returned to Anglecynn at the final moment and hit the Apocalypse Demon so hard that it had crashed through every single layer of hell and bottomed out with such force that it permanently pushed every single hell away from Anglecynn, like a four-dimensional crater. After that, demons and devils weren’t really a problem that a well-armed militia couldn’t take care of, or at least that was how the story went. - Chapter 69: In Mutual Congress
8. ↑ Three weeks ago, he had taken his first steps outside Anglecynn, and now he was two continents away with one of his great-grandfather’s few surviving Knights, standing before the Boundless Pit and looking up at an entad that was, by rights, his. - Chapter 97: Rapping at my Chamber Door
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 “Now, the hope is that it’s not unique to the Risen Lands. They’re a former territory of the Kingdom of Francorum, so we can probably start by, ah -- here.” She pulled out a card and showed it to me. “Start with *Diagnostic Manual of Fatal Diseases of the Bretaigne Continent and Zorish Isles.* Come find me if you’re having trouble.” - Chapter 38: Don't Split the Party
10. ↑ Chapter 57: Place Your Figs
11. ↑ “Zona Delzora was the Queen of the Zorish Isles,” said Amaryllis. “They had been part of Anglecynn for hundreds of years, but declared independence when the Dark King swept in, and made a series of treaties with him as he tried to quell the rebellions. The Zorish Isles presented barriers to trade for Anglecynn -- this was before bulk teleportation -- but they had also been destabilized by the Dark King’s passing. Joining two countries in personal union is never a simple thing, but it was the most elegant solution to their problems for a number of reasons.” - Chapter 55: Bond Girl
12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 We got to the station and selected the *Lion’s Tail* in mid-afternoon, and after a somewhat tense inspection of our legitimate tickets and illegitimate papers, we found our rooms, which given how late we’d been in booking our tickets, were spread out all across the train. Grak was on his own, in what the ticket agent had called a roomette, while Fenn and I had one room together, and Amaryllis and Val had another a few cars away. The train started to move, and I was treated to a rapidly receding view of Cranberry Bay. For certain stretches of our trip, the train would be going more than a hundred miles an hour, tracing the Lion's Mane, a geographical feature that looked a little bit like a lion's head if you squinted and tilted your head a bit, water making up the face and land making up the mane, with enormous islands making up a few features of the 'face' -- eyes, nose, mouth, and archipelagos that might have been whiskers. You really had to squint though. - Chapter 82: Aboard the Lion's Tail
13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 I was still feeling that tight anxiousness when the train began its approach into Headwater, the city that sat above the Boundless Pit. The curve of the rail was such that we had a decent view of the descent down into the geographical depression that housed the pit. It was dozens of miles wide, mostly dark gray stone forming crags and slabs, with green mosses and grasses growing up where they could. A river ran down into the basin, thick and quickly flowing, and it had been there long enough to carve a little valley for itself. It wasn’t some mere stream; this was the Buol, a river that drained most of a continent to the east of Pit that made up that edge of the Lion’s Mane. The Buol was more than a mile thick as it passed Headwater and dumped over the edge of the Boundless Pit. (Per legend, the Boundless Pit had been carved by the Buol’s might, which no mere ocean could have contained, but I was fairly sure that whatever the hell was going on geologically or hydrologically, it wasn’t that. It smacked of being more mythological than Aerb usually tended to be.)

Headwater itself was no metropolis, nothing like Cranberry Bay or even Silmar City, though it was large enough that a few prominent buildings gave the suggestion of a skyline. It was perched to one side of the Buol, most of the bigger buildings closer to the edge of the Pit, and the city as a whole gave the feeling of being clumped up and tightly packed, despite the wide open basin around it. - Chapter 86: Headwater
14. ↑ The sun was starting to set behind part of the mountains that made up this section of the Lion’s Mane, and most of the people on the train had already eaten. - Chapter 83: The Familiar and the Foreign
15. ↑ The train was passing through a part of the Lion’s Mane where there was a fair bit of water on either side of us, and to my left I could see ocean stretching out into the distance, lit by the multi-colored stars that I still wasn’t bored of looking at. A few small towns dotted the coast, visible by what lights they still had on, but it was to all appearances a calm and quiet night, which I decided to take as a good omen. - Chapter 85: The Great Train Robbery
16. ↑ “So … I guess I don’t know the legal landscape well enough to say,” I replied. “We’re currently traveling through the Monarchical Democracy of Esplandian --”

“Nope,” said Fenn. “We passed the border while we were,” she made a gesture, thumb and index finger making a circle, other index finger moving in and out of it. “We’re in Drabian now, though we’ll be through by the time we go to sleep.” - Chapter 83: The Familiar and the Foreign
17. ↑ He had finished his negotiations with the King of Mosenol, bringing that country into the fold of the First Empire, an adventure in its own right. [...] Uther brought with him a contract, written by the authority of the King of Mosenol himself. In exchange for a small army of workers and as much in the way of material goods as the house would require to be completed, it was agreed that Uther Penndraig and those he immediately designated would be the only people to take up residence at the house. The land had been purchased from the Kingdom of Mosenol outright, which meant that even if Omar had been of a mind to dispute the deal, he wouldn’t have had a leg to stand on (and this was not to mention that contracts were heard in front of manorial courts, where Uther would have immense sway). - Chapter 91: An Open House
18. ↑ The form of Kuum Doona appeared in front of her. It was the same teenaged girl the house had seen in Uther’s notebooks, long ago. She had altered her appearance, as suited the Kingdom of Mosenol at that time, with sleeves that became wider toward the cuffs, and a dress that hung to just a few inches off the ground. [...] “First off, I’d have to live in a tiny little island of Anglecynn within a sea of Mosenol, which itself isn’t the most interesting place to live, aside from the Pit.” [...] The tuung had been trading with Mosenol for some time, and coming off the better for it, without anyone noticing until it was almost too late. The mister tanks allowed them to go on land for extended periods of time, and given that they made their home in the Boundless Pit, soaking in the spray of the Buol, there was really only one direction for them to expand towards. The King of Mosenol tried his best to contain them in a variety of ways, but eventually diplomacy had done as much as it could, and it was time for the tuung to take up arms. I was to play my own part, as a mobile fortress, a service that the King of Mosenol was willing to pay the Penndraigs a small fortune for. - Chapter 97: Rapping at my Chamber Door