Stevie Lambert: (via JWB)

2026-05-20T13:23:41Z

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{{Infobox Region
|Name = Bnaik-nar Wasteland Spikes
|Other Names = Unknown
|Biome = Wasteland Spikes
|Size = Unknown
|Continent = Unknown
|Subcontinent = Unknown
}}

==History==
===Historical Overview===

Bnaik-nar is a large expanse of frigid ice wasteland in the southern pole of Taerel. It is the southernmost point in the entire planet that can be reached from a main continent without transversing an ocean. It is a very extreme, desert, and dangerous region. Bnaik-nar has remained a staple of crossing the natural limits of the world in zu'aan history. Much like other polar regions, it has been completely inhabitated by mainland zu'aan through most of the ages, and has only served as a point of interest for thrill seekers and adventurers. Needless to say, it is an extremely inhabitable region. For the longest time, it went completely isolated from the world and was considered by the older zu'aan tribes and people as an impossible barrier that led to the underworld, as none who crossed it were able to come back alive.

A fair amount of legends, folklore and mythos that survives still today in a considerable amount of mythology stems from the populations that have access to the border of Bnaik-nar. Its name itself means 'dead-gates', as it was thought that the dead had to cross the impossible tundra when they passed away, in order to reach the afterlife. Numerous legends also spread about mythological creatures that roamed within these lands. Animals, ghosts, beasts and all other sorts of incredible creatures were thought to sometimes wander at the edge of the ice lands and multiple stories told occasions where they would cross the barrier and come to torment the living, or take them away.

During the Ancient Age, when populations around the border became more frequent, specialized 'defensive' towns, called Amari Outposts, were even formed at the border in order to defend against 'creatures of the underworld'. A natural philosopher from the Middle Ages, Cornehi Fastus, even claimed to have captured one of these creatures and displayed it at his personal museums. The specimen, whose existence has been recorded by other sources, has been lost, but descriptions generally categorize it as a crystalline zu'aan-like head, severed from the neck down. As of the Early Modern Age, the border of Bnaik-nar to the outside world was shut by a government funded secret organization, and it was remained as such all the way until the Awakening Age.

Though the head organizations approving the continuous closure of this border changed throughout the years, it was kept unanimously shut off without change. Its verye existence was hidden from the public, marking the area as a military secret base in the later years in order to convincingly forbid the public from breaching the area. Bases were built and security was commissioned. The area remained like this until the kin'toni outbreak. Initially, not much changed. After all, the zu'aan inhabiting the border were all guards and people specially scouted for their defensive abilities in order to protect the border and operate the means necessary to do so.

Furthermore, they lived in a security checkpoint that acted as a military based and bordered on a frigid wasteland, and were very well-stocked in terms of food and other amenities. In the face of the apocalypse, there could be no greater protection. And yet the kin'toni came from the surrounding lands, and when they breached through their security and invaded their tightly-secured bases...they found nothing. Not a trace of life, not a single zu'aan left behind. The outpost had been left deserted, all of their important supplies and weapons taken with them. And there was only one direction they could've headed, one that the kin'toni simply did not have the means to transverse.

Furthermore, they assumed the zu'aan dead in the cold, and turned their backs on the frozen wasteland. Of course, the classified documents proving the existence of multiple secret bases within the continent had been long destroyed in the apocalypse. As of the Twilight Age, all remains the same, as the cold now slowly ravaging the world is no greater than the cold already ravaging the fields of Bnaik-nar.

===History by Age===

====Stone Age: Before 1E 0====

====Copper Age: 1E 1-1E 2200====

====Bronze Age: 1E 2200-1E 4400====

====Iron Age: 2E 0-2E 700====

====Ancient Age: 2E 700-2E 2200====

====Middle Ages: 3E 0-3E 2050====

====Early Modern Age: 3E 2050-3E 2600====

====Industrial Age: 3E 2600-3E 2700====

====Machine Age: 3E 2700-3E 2800====

====Atomic Age: 3E 2800-3E 2850====

====Space Age: 3E 2850-3E 2875====

====Information Age: 3E 2875-3E 2900====

====Genetic Age: 3E 2950-3E 3000====

====Awakening Age: 3E 3000-3E 3415====

====Twilight Age: 4E 0-4E 500====

==Geography ==

Bnaik-nar is a large (8.73 million km²) plot of barren, frozen wasteland. It has a single border point uniting it with the main continents in the northeast, which also also happens to be its relative position to the southern pole. It is surrounded by ocean from all other sides, making it a kind of peninsula, and it is separated from the pole by a not-so-large strip of arctic sea. It is an elevated land in almost all of its ground, only coming down to sea level at the northern borders. Geologically, it is a mountain, though its large, mostly plain surface has led to the popular definition of upland. Its main geographical feature is its ice spikes. Large, projecting ice spikes rise out of the ground in almost every inch of this elevated wasteland, making crossing it or even walking in nearly impossible.

The spikes can be anywhere from a few centimeters to many meters tall. It is known that there are open craters in the center of the elevated plains, and satellite photographs reveal crystalline formations in this region, going down and theorically breaching far underneath the ice.As a region close to the southern pole of the planet, it follows a very exceptional day and night cyle. During the cold seasons it is almost completely shroudded in darkness, only occasionally seeing the sun due to its little distance from the actual southern pole. Similarly, it is perpetually lit by the sun during the warm seasons, seeing as the sun never goes down from the horizon and continually circles the earth just above it. The temperature never drops beneath negative 14 degrees.

Due to its extreme location, the land mass is almost completely dry and receives little to no rain, similar to a desert. Furthermore, it is perpetually covered in snow and strong winds and snow storms are very frequent. The high altitude only makes this harsh climate worse, at an average of about 3900 km high. Since it's mainly plain at the top, avalanches are not an issue. Despite this, the ice spikes that cover the region are very resilient and rarely do they shatter or break. Unlike other formations at the poles of the planet, Bnaik-nar is not an ice sheet, but rather a land mass covered in ice and snow. Thus if one were to dig far enough in the ice and snow, they would be able to find earth and even minerals.

This is backed by the existence of crystal fissues in the innermost plains of Bnaik-nar. Around the land mass, however, there are many actual ice sheets and icebergs floating and sometimes joining the frozen wasteland, most of them inclined towards the south pole, but some of them forming on the opposite side and drifting towards the warmer shores, eventually dissolving and causing cold currents to emerge towards the north. As of the Shattered Age, this has become more frequent, and serves only to further spread the chill that will slowly welcome the new Ice Age.

== Plants ==

There is little to no plant life in the barren plains of Bnaik-nar. There are, however, a number of specially engineered plants that were brought here artificially by the zu'aan, long before the Awakening Age. Here are some of them: Aumei, a fairly common species of bush berry that exists in most of Taerel's cold regions. The particular cultivar that has been brought to Bnaik-nar, however, named 'Erakh', is unique to this region, and specifically made to endure the harsh, freezing climate. The Erakh aumei cultivar is a pale green bush that spreads itself almost flat on the ground in order to survive strong winds and snowstorms. It is only cultivated in high places with constant zu'aan maintenance, so as to avoid the risk of burying it in snow, and is therefore not a perfectly sufficient cultivar.

Is is however, very useful. It produces a red berry shaped like a bell, with four streaks drawn parallel across its body, and a fleshy, dark orange interior. They are green at first and slowly gain color as they mature. Once ripe enough, they conviniently fall off the stem, and zu'aan use a special vacuum device to harvest them. They taste sweet and are packed full of nutrients, not to mention they grow fast, providing a fresh new harvest every 11-13 days, and produce a considerable amount of berries. A lot of food used in Bnaik-nar is derived from these berries directly. As they were made and refined specially to suit zu'aan dietary needs and constraints related to the environment, they do not decay easily, in the extreme cold, and they bear fruit all year, as well as plenty of seeds.

They are watered via melting and heating ice blocks, although they are able to withstand the cold soil and don't need much sunlight. They are able to very efficiently utilize the minerals and crystals present within Bnaik-nar natural soil, thanks to zu'aan genetic engineering. After the Awakening, they are kept growing still, to the best of zu'aan ability. Gsiam, a tubular yellow plant that grows in small clusters, similar in appearance so some corals. It grows a pale white flower every two years, at the end of its stalk, and can be found natively around some areas near the shore of Bnaik-nar. It is cultivated and has been brought artificially to the center by zu'aan due to artisanal properties in the stalk and leaves, which may be used in medicine and construction.

The plant cells that permeate the tube-shaped stalk are particularly and unusually resilient, and if harvested in the right away, will keep these properties even after separating from the plant. Due to its rare flowering, it is somewhat difficult to propagate this plant, despite zu'aan efforts, but it is nevertheless a valuable resource. It remains dormant all year, occasionally closing and opening the end of their stalks, pointed outwards from the root, and flowers bianually, for only a couple of days. During this period, it will produce seeds within the flower. The stalk will gradually consume the flower inwards as it reaches maximum production, and once the flower is gone, it will spit the seeds out.

The mechanism by which it does this is via a natural, biological firing system within the tube stalks, which contract in the presence of certain molecules once the flower has been 'digested' and cause movements similar to muscle tissue in zu'aan, spitting out the seeds into the enviromnent. It has very short leaves which hug the stalk, similar to bamboo. They are rigid and most of the plant's sap can be found in them. The stalk is not edible, nor are the flowers or leaves or the thin sap. They have medicinal properties, as well as artisanal use due to their molecular structure, and the sap acts as a great anti-inflammatory. They cannot be eaten however and while they are not toxic, they will likely cause some gastro-intestinal problems in zu'aan.

== Animals ==

There are a number of microorganisms brought to Bnaik-nar to help with the plant life. The most significant find in terms of fauna, however, pertains to a single animal species found natively on the frozen plains: The 'faue-onnome', meaning 'ice corpse', named by zu'aan natural philosophers as early as the Ancient Age, is a parasitic worm organism that can be found on the plains near the border that divide Bnaik-nar with the outside world. It is a very small, thin creature colored light rose, with a lenghty body reaching up to 12 meters uncoiled. It has a very adapted and specific way of reproducing, which researchers believe has been a byproduct of zu'aan colonization near the border.

Microscopic cell data suggests that these worms were never meant to live in freezing cold climates to begin with, and the fact that they are able to survive can be attributed only to the fact that their bodies are made to be extremophiles, capable of surviving and adapting to nearly any enviromnent. It is presently believed that they were introduced to Bnaik-nar following en masse zu'aan migration from the equador, where they are likely a sub-species or variation of the more well known chovei worms, which prey on medium and small mammmals on the savannas deep inside the continent, by letting themselves be eaten by smaller prey that in turn is consumed by those large mammals.

Their reproductive cycle is different, however, as there is very little mammal fauna to be found inhabiting the cold regions surrounding Bnaik-nar. Further evidence for this is the existence of records detailing some sort of 'cattle plague' which assaulted bovines and other farm animals by the end of the Iron Age, detailed through cuneiform writings. This is theorized to be an early manifestation of the chovei worm. Researches speculate that these worms, infecting the meat of cattle, might have figured a way to enter the zu'aan body. They are, however, unable to properly cause a parasitic infection on a well-oiled zu'aan immune system, and therefore likely failed to cause any harm and went unnoticed.

It is theorized that these worms were finally able to hatch their young inside a zu'aan body during their early excursions to Bnaik-nar. While it would be very unlikely that these worms could cause a parasitic infection inside a live zu'aan, it is more than possible that they could have hatched inside a dead zu'aan corpse. All it would take is a zu'aan dying during an expediction, from the cold or starvation, and the worm could breed inside of it. All it would take to spread then would be another zu'aan coming by and interacting with the body. As extremophiles, these worms could easily endure the bitter cold atmosphere and remaind dormant inside zu'aan corpses and live bodies for considerably long periods of time - years.

Thousands of years in relative isolation, in a freezing climate and only able to breed on the occasion, are believed to have sparked quick evolutional traits in the worms. It is not unusual to hear of parasites that can somehow alter the way of thinking of some species. There are a handful of species capable of manipulating their hosts, already dead or otherwise, to get themselves in danger in order to be eaten by better hosts, or to get themselves drowned on water so that the parasite may breed in its preferred enviromnent. Thus, it is believed that having zu'aan as their only hosts for very extended periods of time has caused the faue-onnome to further develop this side of their evolutionary tree to an extreme level.

They cannot, due to a massive difference in complexity, alter thought patterns in zu'aan or do any significant change in their brains, apart from headaches. They are, however, able to do whatever they please once the host is dead. Lack of bacteria in this cold climate means decomposition is slow and often non-existant, as so bodies are preserved well for a very long time. This enables these parasitic worms to take hold of these bodies, and slowly and clumsily move the muscles for a while longer after death (up to 3-4 weeks). It is believed that this host-parasite relationship is what caused a great deal of legends surround Bnaik-nar. Before the Awakening Age, the parasite was all known and zu'aan were treated in order to get rid of it, and aside from lab samples, it was on the brink of extinction.

As of the present, however, the technology to ensure this is no longer functional, and they may once again be active and laying within zu'aan. This is not considered a large risk, as they are, fundamentally, harmless as long as their zu'aan host is alive. But fears of them evolving ways to leech of zu'aan while they live has made them eager to re-purpose their old medical knowledge and get rid of these creatures once again.

{{Template:Controllers
|Stone Age = Unknown
|Copper Age = Unknown
|Bronze Age = Unknown
|Iron Age = Unknown
|Ancient Age = Unknown
|Middle Age = Unknown
|Early Modern Age = Unknown
|Industrial Age = Unknown
|Machine Age = Unknown
|Atomic Age = Unknown
|Space Age = Unknown
|Information Age = Unknown
|Genetic Age = Unknown
|Awakening Age = Unknown
|Twilight Age = [[Andiayu City Zu'aan]]
}}

{{CrossSiteAttribution
| User = [https://www.fiverr.com/mightyvanilla mightyvanilla]
| Holder = mightyvanilla
}}

[[Category:Places]]
[[Category:mightyvanilla's contributions]]

Bnaik-nar Wasteland Spikes - Revision history

Stevie Lambert: (via JWB)