General Information and History

According to the various creation stories the era zero point relates to the first ever dome closure, created by a transduction barrier in an attempt to limit the destruction of a ship-crash vaguely six million years ago. While everything outside the dome was unaffected, the crash vaporised every living thing inside. It also created a hole in the mantle, forming the volcano.

The island, once created, was populated by the first θɛʃɾə, assumed to be the last member of a star-faring species, as well as their following creations, which quickly found and settled into niches to form the ecosystem of the island.

The entirety of that which is inside the Mist can be considered heavily terraformed, with the eruptions planned and programmed, and even the very composition of the rock, both solid and molten, being altered.

## Ecosystems

Map of the Isle of Micen showing ecosystem types and the borders of the traditional territories

 fɑɾɪko (θɪɾma)
 huɬ ʃɪɾal (ɔsən)
 fɑɾɪko (ɔsən)
 ɑɾɪko nɛtosun (θɪɾma)
 huɬ oʔəp' (zunɪmo)
 huɬ oʔɛk' (zunɪmo)

The island is about 10'000km2 in area, with an average radius of about 56km. It sits in the lower pacific ocean, close to the Antarctic circle, at a latitude of about -56o and longitude of about -164o. The climate is Cfc oceanic, with the Mist providing significant shelter from the prevailing westerly winds.

The weather is primarily cool to cold, with high humidity. The summer is short and cool, reaching a maximum of around 20oC. The winter is long and cold. The precipitation is not greatly impacted by seasonal changes, with a majority of cloudy days, with rain in the summer and snow in the winter.

There are 1510 defined ecosystems, with seven terrestrial and eight aquatic.

### Volcanic Eruptions:

The Isle of Micen is surrounded at some distance by a massive ring of thick fog referred to as The Mist. It is pseudo-magical in origin, like the volcano. It prevents the volcanic ash and smoke from escaping, forcing it to cover the ocean and the island.

During an eruption, the island’s inhabitants, as well as the mobile organisms in the surrounding ocean, all enter the Mist. uθ zunɪmo is exceptionally dangerous, with wild winds and seas, and the deeper you go the worse it gets. Above the water, it appears to be shaped as a ring, in actuality, it is shaped like a bowl, with the edges sticking up high above the ocean's surface. It looks the same above the water as below, as a thick fog of rapidly moving water. The bowl turns into a full sphere during an eruption.

The θɛʃɾəɾi worked out that flying up and out before the dome closes, it allows them to fly in relatively calm winds until the eruption ceases and the dome re-opens. Non-winged morph-types are carried.

When the dome re-opens, it starts raining heavily, which rapidly cools the land and fills the shallow lake within the crater, once filled, the pressure starts pushing the water through thin channels in the rock, which restarts the rivers in their proper place. The rain comes from the steam formed by the ocean boiling in contact with the molten rock.

The non-mobile organisms have their own adaptions.

## Life

While typical taxonomy has seven main "layers" (there are loads more, especially if you are a fish), the system on the Isle of Micen is rather different. All living organisms are referred to as kuɾɛs. This then separates into six "orders" (pɾɪnmə) as seen below:

 dʒɛɾɛs
 hɐʃiʔ
 fɛlvɪʔ
 gojəhi
 oçɛja

Where pɾɪnpu can be vaguely translated as "family".
fɛlvɪʔ, gojəhi, and oçɛja can be grouped together as a "superfamily" called lɛnlaʔ ("animals").
θɛʃɾə and dʒɛɾɛs are monotypic "orders", essentially meaning that there is only a single "species" in the order.

How an organism is organised into a pɾɪnmə depends on the comparison of its behaviour during a volcanic eruption to the behaviour between eruptions. The θɛʃɾəɾi will fly outside the dome before it shuts, lɛnlaʔ will enter the mist for the duration, and hɐʃiʔ will die off while their seeds are carried to safety. Of the lɛnlaʔ, fɛlvɪʔ are fully aquatic and go to the underwater portion of the mist during an eruption, gojəhi are semiaquatic and spend at least some of their time outside the water and go to the underwater portion of the mist during an eruption, and oçɛja can be aquatic or terrestrial but must go to the above-water portion of the mist during an eruption. dʒɛɾɛs are the only living thing that survives the eruption.

Taxonomy follows the process as seen below:

 pɾɪnmə
 pɾɪnpu
 ɾɛspu
 kɐzu

For the list of confirmed organisms, please see this page. They are listed as genera, not at the species level.

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### θɛʃɾəɾi:

The first majsɛnçɑzbɑ species on the island along with the dʒɛɾɛs, they are all descended from a single θɛʃɾə who arrived approximately six million years ago. They form the civilisation of the island.

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### dʒɛɾɛs:

A species which has a mutualistic relationship with the θɛʃɾəɾi. In many respects it functions like a fungus, connecting all the life on the island and the surrounding ocean together. It maintains the territories and the species within through signalling processes. It is, in essence, the lifeforce of the island itself. During an eruption, it remains mostly unharmed and quickly regrows up through the solid lava which is typically a couple of kilometres thick. It is mostly unseen, existing primarily within the rock, ash, and soil. However, it can be prompted to form a thick covering.

Main page here

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### hɐʃiʔ:

Each of the 1510 ecosystems has it's own unique set of non-mobile organisms, and each ʍɔkɛɾɪ territory has it's own variation.

#### Distributions:

(don't worry, my math isn't off, there is one less genus in the total because one of the lake species shares a genus with some of the lower riverine species)

These organisms seed en-masse in the weeks before an eruption, but have special protective shells around the seeds that do not develop at other times, covered by a nutritious fatty layer. This shell renders the seed totally indigestible, but the fatty layer encourages continued and even increased consumption of fruit and seeds. The seeds remain in the stomach during the eruption. After the eruption, once the fatty layer has been fully digested, the seeds are regurgitated. As the mobile organisms will return to their previous territory, the seeds are returned back to vaguely where they came from. For the θɛʃɾəɾi, there is a mass shed and moult (referred to as the ash-shed) once the eruption is over, and the seeds assist in forming hairballs which are then regurgitated.

There are six hɐʃiʔ 'families' as follows:

 b'ɛlk'u
 çɔli
 ɔt̪ɛm
 ɛlɛɾɑ
 hɔlin

While the hɐʃiʔ families could be ordered also into aquatic and terrestrial, the grasses and herbs would be in both.

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### lɛnlaʔ:

There are three 'orders' of mobile organisms, each having three families within, as follows

The orders refer to the behaviour of the lɛnlaʔ, comparing where the organism resides during an eruption event to the rest of the time. Fish cannot leave the water, and go to the underwater portion of the Mist during an eruption. Amphibians can leave the water, and spend at least some of their time out of the water, but go to the underwater portion of the Mist during an eruption. Birds are primarily terrestrial, though some are semiaquatic, or spend most of their time in the air (above the land or the ocean), and go to the above-water portion of the Mist during an eruption.