Chirayu

The largest island of the Tuta Hua Zamin is Chirayu (chee RAH yoo).  It stretches two thousand miles from the western-most tip to the eastern-most, and almost fourteen hundred miles north to south.  The coastline is at sea level, as is the Roshan peninsula, but the island interior is hilly.  These hills gradually transform from low, rolling dunes near the coast to steep, rocky hills that rise into the small mountain range in the south.  The mountains are dominated by the massive Mount Kohinoor, the tallest peak in this hemisphere.  At the southern foot of Kohinoor lies the placid lake name the Mirror of the Stars.

Much of the island is covered in rain forest and jungle, with all the diversity of life that implies.  There are about three thousand species of drakes, from tiny pollinators only a few inches long to six foot long predators.  There is, of course, a wide variety of other life: tiny deer, jungle cats, tropical wolves, primates, etc.

In truth, Chirayu hosts the largest population of primates in the hemisphere, with five major species and dozens of lesser ones.  These are distant kin to the four sentient bipedal races of the world.

Dwarves and gnomes occupy the interior of the island.  The dwarves have large communities in Kohinoor and the surrounding mountains.  Humans and elves occupy many small communities throughout the island, with dozens of ports scattered along the coast.  Because the four races tend to inhabit slightly different habitats, there isn’t much racial tension between them.  However, there is plenty of tension between different groups competing for the same territory.  These tensions often erupt into fighting, which quickly dies down again, with both sides settling into a new equilibrium.  There is little actual bloodshed during these skirmishes, and few long-lasting grudges or feuds.

Chirayu is ruled by an ancient dragon known to her people as Jalvayu Beti – Sky Daughter.  Easily a dozen of her daughters squabble over territory along the coasts and several hundred dragons, of varying stages of maturity, roam the island.  The people of Chirayu are far more likely to encounter a dragon than any of the people of Bhaskara.  It’s an added hazard to life on the island.

 

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