The grass sea. Miles of rolling plains rippling in the wind, broken only by the dark shapes of mammoth herds moving like storms across the horizon. This is Silwyn, homeland of the Silzar, the plains ogres who rose from hunted prey to regional terror in a single generation.
It's beautiful country, if you can ignore the war. The grass runs gold in autumn, green in spring, silver when the wind bends it flat. The sky stretches forever. At night, you can see the moons rise hours before they clear the horizon anywhere else. Travelers who cross Silwyn peacefully speak of it with something like reverence.
Travelers who cross it during a raid speak of it with nightmares.
Geography & Borders
Silwyn is a prison shaped like paradise.
North — Eros: The haunted forest. Home to the Nemo, the spectral remnants of elves who sought to become one with the trees and succeeded too well. The Silzar do not go north. They do not speak of what lies north. When children ask about the dark treeline on the horizon, parents change the subject.
East — Iylovia: The war front. Dense forest where the Gyv retreated after losing the plains. The treeline marks the limit of Silzar expansion: mammoths cannot fight among the trees, and the forest itself seems to resist invasion. Raids strike the forest edge constantly. No one goes deeper.
South — The Desert: Beyond the Silwyn River's headwaters, the land dries to sand and stone. Mammoths cannot survive there. The Silzar cannot follow. Traders come up from the desert routes bringing metal; they leave quickly.
West — The Desert: More of the same. The plains simply end where the water ends.
The Silzar dominate everything within these borders. They can reach nothing beyond them.
The Thundering Way
The ancient mammoth migration route. A vast loop through the plains that the herds have walked since before the Silzar existed, and that the Silzar now walk with them. The path is worn smooth in places, packed earth where countless feet have trod for countless generations.
Following the Thundering Way is the safest route through Silwyn. The Silzar expect travelers here and generally leave them alone, assuming they show proper respect to passing herds. Straying from the Way is more dangerous. The Silzar aren't hostile, but getting lost on the plains is easy, and getting found by the wrong herd at the wrong time is worse.
Grandmother's Rest
A lone rocky hill rising from the flatness of the plains. According to Silzar tradition, the first mammoth to accept the Covenant died here of old age, surrounded by the people she had carried to freedom.
The Silzar leave offerings at Grandmother's Rest: carved bone, braided grass, small treasures. Warriors departing for raids stop here to ask for blessing. Families who lose members to the war come here to grieve. No one camps at the hill. No one hunts nearby. It is sacred ground.
Outsiders who show proper respect at Grandmother's Rest earn Silzar goodwill. Outsiders who desecrate it earn something else entirely.
The Scar
A burned strip along the Iylovia border, a no-man's-land perhaps a mile wide where neither grass nor trees grow. The Silzar burned it during the early assaults on the forest, trying to deny the Gyv cover. The Gyv burned sections in turn, trying to create firebreaks.
Now it's just dead ground. Neither side claims it. Both sides use it as a killing field. Silzar raiders cross it to strike at forest-edge settlements; Gyv ambushers lurk at its margins waiting for anyone foolish enough to approach.
The Scar is where most of the dying happens these days.
Seasonal Gathering Grounds
The Silzar have no cities, but they have places where the herds converge, and where the Silzar converge with them.
The River Bend: Where the Silwyn River turns sharply east before entering Iylovia. The largest gathering ground, used in summer when water is abundant. This is where the Council of Herd-Chiefs meets, where traders come to deal, where young Silzar from different herds meet future spouses.
The South Springs: Near the river's source, used in winter when the northern plains grow too cold. Smaller gatherings, more intimate. This is where disputes between herds are settled, or where they escalate.
The Grandmother Circuit: A three-day journey around Grandmother's Rest, undertaken during autumn as a sort of pilgrimage. Not all Silzar participate every year, but most try to make it at least once in their lives.