The Hills of Mahday

The territory of Mahday is ruled by an old green female known simply as Pahara, the Watcher. Pahara wanders her lands, patrolling them. She is ruthless in defending them. Her people both love and fear her.

Mahday is predominantly tall rolling hills, the remnants of an ancient mountain range. Heavily forested, interspersed with land cleared for agriculture and herding, the hills provide abundant food: deer, bear, rabbit and other game; nuts, berries, and fruits; honey, and maple syrup. Honey and syrup are two of Mahday’s major exports, along with furs and timber.

Winter is long, with heavy snows. It’s followed by a spring of riotous growth and an explosion of flowers. Summers are short and mild. Autumn is a season of unpredictable storms.

The people of Mahday are hardy folk who are land wise and self-sufficient. Most communities are small and tightly knit. Although Mahday has each of the races in equal proportion, communities tend to be racially homogeneous. There are frequent clashes between gnomes and humans over prime real estate, though these are short affairs since both sides are terrified that Pahara will catch them at it. She has been known to destroy both sides in such a dispute, thereby resolving the issue permanently.

The sea provides for Mahday as well. The northern waters have an abundance of fish, clams, crabs, lobster, shrimp, and turtles. Seals also provide meat, and fur as well. In addition to meat and blubber, whales provide oils, baleen and whale bone. However, hunting whales is perilous as the whalers are not the only hunters in the sea. Many ships have been lost to sea drakes hunting the same pod of whales.

Though the coast is rugged and the waters treacherous, there are many small fishing villages and a few large ports along the coasts of Mahday. The largest settlement is the port of Devdari, in the Daitya bay. From there, Mahday trades with the eastern islands, and with Akshay, Vasu, and Jarayu. The second largest settlement, the port of Svas Sitkalin (Breath of Winter) is on the northern coast. Vessels from this port go west, and link Mahday with Mhadhavi, Mohanshu, Devidhyaan, and Lalika.

Mahday is a land of plenty: plenty food and shelter; plenty storms and winter; plenty opportunities; plenty dangers.

This work by Jean Headley is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

The featured image this week is a photograph of the Blue Ridge Mountains, by Alex Grichenko.  You can see his work here, at http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/browse-author.php?a=49311