Writers and editors like to reveal as little as possible about the nation of @@NAME@@, however at 1000 issues it's fair to say quite a lot has slipped through. Since I am fond of geography, I decided to look into them and pull the strands together. Unsurprisingly this is a long and sometimes contradictory process, not to mention all the NPCs. They will get their own post but first.
Welcome, to @@NAME@@
@@NAME@@ is vast, really vast as a country. This country spans an entire continent from North to the equator (sorry Austalian Republic, the older issues clearly imply northern hemisphere). This is supported by the fact that it has a coast up in north, one cold enough to freeze over in winter. The land area covers everything from scorching deserts, frozen polar icecaps to tropical rainforests. That said, the most commonly refered to biome is forests, which while a loose term as to what type of trees we are exactly talking about, does at the bare minimum imply trees. And a lot of them.
As a continent in and of itself, the country clearly has a coastline, likely miles upon miles of coastline. Going by the dozens upon dozens of issues that reference things at sea. This is further supported by the fact that name has dozens of islands ranging from prospering barrier islands close to the coast to barren rocks in the arctic. For various reasons, I think this is an eastern coast, and quite possibly a densely populated one too.
Densely populated eastern coast you say, how do you know? Because the people of western, northwestern, southern and southwestern name are explicitely and clearly isolated, rural populations. These are people so wildly disconnected that many believe in witchcraft, tribal traditions and don't speak the language of the @@DENONYMPLURAL@@ at all. That's right, @@NAME@@ is very sparsely populated on average, I'm talking US interior or even siberia sparse. By contrast, cities like @@CAPITAL@@ are worried about the effects of overpopulation. Few like living in terrifyingly huge swathes of deadly nature, after all.
So what of the @@DENONYMPLURAL@@? I can't claim to say all that much about them racially or ethnically, but we have bits and pieces. They are an old civilisation with a history stretching back thousands of years. One of the reasons I think they live on the coast is because these interior peoples must have been only relatively recently conquered (last 500 years I would wager) considering the sheer volume of issues discussing minority and tribal rights, including options that condemn the @@DENONYMPLURAL@@ as being imperialist invaders and colonialists. This is further backed by the many references to past martial prowess.
Of course, the @@DENONYMPLURAL@@ are not just warriors. They are farmers, artists, merchants, statesmen, campaigners, intellectuals and everything else under the sun throughout their history. They are a culture who has been in existence for millenia in some form or another, and so there is plenty of space to celebrate all of them.
Ok, and what about @@CAPITAL@@
Ah, yes. I can actually be very precise about this place actually, with it's many references.
The city is huge and is coastal. In fact, I can do one better: it is on the estuary of the river Orilenyo Flow.
We also know that this is a place that probably has a Mediterranean climate. This is due to there being issues about the city being hot and having nice beaches, but none about the city itself being cold- those are reserved for those northern polar regions.
However the key clincher on that one is issue 628. In this issue we discover that the city can and has been directly threatened with forest fire- a phenomenon that actually only happens in a fairly narrow band of climate. Try starting a forest fire in Scotland, Brazil or in the Sahara Desert.
The complete compilation of what the issues tell us about the neighbours, and the evidence lists that back up what I say, are in the pipeline. Stay tuned, and watch this space! ... for after i get off public transport.
) But there we go.
