Geography

The Ship can be reasonably divided into several regions, each with distinct patterns of climate, terrain, and demographics. For climate, see Climate.

## Bullwarks

These four mountain ranges surround the more densely-inhabited Lowlands. While often inhospitable, they are nevertheless inhabited by a range of people, creatures and monsters.

### Foksells

The most northerly part of the Ship, the Foksells are the great mountain fastness of the orc people. First to suffer the cold of winter, and last to emerge into spring, the Foksells are a challenging, inhospitable place, which, to the orcs, makes it the perfect place to forge themselves anew.

### Sternwall

Steep and difficult to climb, the Sternwalls are the ancestral home of the Ship's dragon population. Deep beneath the mountains lie the dwarven kingdoms.

### Porgunnel Range

The Porgunnels, the great western walls, border onto the Silver Ocean, and are sparsely inhabited.

### Tarburd Range

The Tarburd Range, marking the eastern boundary of the Ship, is riddled with mines and excavations, providing coal and other raw material for the Valley of Fire.

## Middek Plain

The general terms for those parts of the Ship that can see the Star and aren't so steep as to be uninhabitable. Sometimes called the Lowlands. Largest settlement is the great city of Midship

### Porbau Marsh

The northwest of the Ship. Runoff from the Golden River forms the large, brackish marshes, which has settlements on higher or drier areas of the marsh. Several roads lead into the region, many of them impassable for horse or wagon traffic. Divided into several petty kingdoms, which exist in a perpetual state of semi-warfare. Capital, such as it is, at Meriden.

### Northern Middek

Rolling, fertile plains, although colder and less populated than the region around Midship. Principally farming communities and market towns, connected by a web of roads maintained out of local resources. Largest settlement is Howden.

### Chainlocker

The region in the north-east, around the great city of Anchorhead. While the Ship is In Dock, this is where the Anchor is lowered to the World Below, but even while Aweigh, Anchorhead (and the Chainlocker) are a mercantile powerhouse.

### Valley of Fire

Formally the Iron Quarter, and not technically a valley, this region, which lies to the east of Midship and between the Chainlocker and the Girwood, is the industrial heartland of the Ship - at least, that part of it above ground. Largest settlement is Junction City.

### Girwood

Home of the elves, and their vast, trackless, leafy fortress. The elven capital, the fabled Orthond, is in there somewhere, but the elves do not welcome visitors, even less those of a cartographical bent.

### Engineering

South of Midship, and running up to the Sternwall, is a region officially called "Southern Middek" but called "Engineering" by everyone because that's what's written on all the ancient ruins that dot the area. Not as industrialised as the Valley of Fire, but considerably less autocratic, Engineering is popular with artisans, engineers, and entrepreneurs. Politically disunited, Engineering is effectively a collection of city-states, the largest of which is Rockholm.

### Quarter

Named after its largest settlement, Port Quarter, a town on the Silver Ocean. Neither especially fertile nor exceptionally rich in minerals, the Quarter is home to most of the Ship's magical laboratories, universities of wizardry, bardic colleges, sorcerers' lairs and all the various establishments of the arcane (and divine) arts.

### Coast

The region between Midshop and the Silver Ocean is the portion of the Plain most firmly under the Midshippian thumb. Largest settlement is Port Oakstone, the nearest large port to Midship.

## Underdecks

The general term for the underground regions of the Ship, which is the natural home of the Ship's dwarven population.

### The Crags

This is the term for the dwarven communities gathered under the Sternwall, named after their largest member and the capital of dwarven culture, Lannettcrag.

### Lost Lands

The rest of the Underdecks is generally called the Lost Lands - the dwarves say they did once have cities and delves and mines under the entire Ship, but many of them have been lost to cave-ins, landslides, and forgotton secret ways.