Stevie Lambert: (via JWB)

2026-05-20T13:23:59Z

(via JWB)

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{{Infobox Region
|Name = Ilshlia Boreal Highland
|Other Names = Unknown
|Biome = Boreal Highland
|Size = Unknown
|Continent = Unknown
|Subcontinent = Unknown
}}

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

The Boreal Highland is the region that connects the harsh deadly North of Taerel with the warm, magnificent pastures of Achceros where the sun always shines and both zu'aan and kin’toni clans prosper. It could be said that the Boreal Highland gets the benefits of both climates depending on the season. The Boreal winter covered its countless hills and mountains with a thick sheet of snow. However, if someone dug below this blanket, nature would reveal the emerald-green grass that fills the eye when wandering around the Highland in summer and spring.

The overpowering smell of fresh grass, the fields of colourful flowers that adorn the earth, the wondrous sights from the Boreal mountains’ peaks, they are what fill the hearts of both zu'aan and kin’toni with joy. Animals that inhabited neighbouring regions come to the Highland to graze on the plentiful flora that the region has to offer. Temperatures are moderate to warm throughout the year, but there tend to be a couple of weeks in the winter season where the first snowflakes finally fall and the grass gets covered with a layer of white.

The entirety of the Boreal Highland can be geographically divided into precisely three categories. The plains, the mountains and the hills. The plains make up slightly less than a third of the Highlands, and are the main grazing spots for the Boreal wildlife. Plains in the highland are also a place for the flora to thrive, so a traveler is bound to stumble upon huge fields of Taerel’s most awe-inducing flowers, or even fruit trees towering above them in loosely packed columns.

It truly is a wonderful place to experience. The mountains make up about a fifth of the landscape in the Boreal Highland, but despite being such a small fraction of land, they are a very critical centerpiece to what allows kin’toni to sustain themselves in this region. Much like the mountains further up North, they’re filled to the brim with metals that get forged into weapons, armour and building materials by the nearby kin’toni clans. Mining in the mountains of the Boreal Highland is a great compromise between safety and profit.

The freezing winds near the mountains further North than the highlands feel like blades on zu'aan and kin’toni skin, frostbite takes the limbs of those not used to life up there. Therefore, mining in the moderately warm climate of the Boreal region is much better for kin’toni who don’t have strategies to deal with the unforgiving tundra of the North. Nearly half of the highland are occupied by hilly terrain, and those hills range from some that barely stick out compared to the adjacent plains, to those who blur the border between what constitutes as a hill and as a mountain.

The hills of the highland have the same flora and fauna as the plains, and the climate in those areas is not much different. The hills of the Highlands are where one will meet the majority of kin’toni on their journey throughout the region, because high ground offers clans a powerful tactical and strategic advantage both in warfare and in other political disputes over the Boreal land. The Ilshlia Boreal Highlands are rich with rain.

While it does make autumn a visibly gloomier season than the other three, it’s also what allows the highland plants to grow and blossom more than in all other regions of Taerel, and what allows lakes to both adorn the beautiful landscape and allow living things to prosper. It’s often said that the Boreal region is the only one that has four seasons, because the weather and look of the environment changes all year around.

==Plants==

This is a place famous for its sprawling flora. The near-endless array of the Boreal plants is enough to cover every colour of the rainbow. Of course, among all this alluring exhibition of exotic plant life, it’s important not to forget the most common and simple of them all. Plain, boring, green grass. It’s everywhere, and it’s the central reason as to why the Ilshlia Boreal Highlands function as they do. The sheer impact of the large-scale grasslands may be hard to imagine, yet grass is what keeps everything running smoothly. Herbivores migrate from both the North and South to graze on the delicious highland grass.

The increased food supply draws in zu’aan, who serve as a food supply for the highland’s kin’toni and create a complete food chain which allows resources to always be in good supply. Obviously, grass is not what fascinates travelers that fare to the highlands. Something that can often be seen in the Southern Ilshlia Boreal Highlands is a phenomenon which causes rows upon rows of flowers to grow right next to each other instead of spreading out, creating patches of colourful ground that can take up to three square kilometers of space in the plains.

Those flowers can be of any colour imaginable. From the blood-red, poisonous (but still extremely pretty) inuils to the azure-coloured alearas used by kin’toni and zu'aan alike for dye-making. There are so many different kinds of flowers that only a handful of kin’toni clans and zu'aan tribes that have succeeded in separating the ones that are suitable for consumption and touch from the ones that might kill you on the spot. One of the latter is the flower alenta, nicknamed “death’s lilies”, distinguished by their pure black petals and vibrant red stems.

The frightful effects of even a single touch to this cursed plant had not always been documented, and thus alenta has claimed many lives of both unsuspecting zu'aan and kin’toni. There is a similar level of variety among the trees that decorate both the hills and plains of the Ilshlia Boreal Highlands. Some of the Boreal tree types produce the sweetest-tasting fruit in the entirety of Taerel, while the taste of some others is so horrible that they are considered entirely inedible, and the act of intentionally breeding those trees is likened to blasphemy among the kin’toni clans.

As far as the highland mountains so, they too are not without beauty. Plenty of moss, berry, shrub and flower species consider the mountains their beloved home, although trees that thrive in the plains fail to survive on even the lowest Boreal mountains. Nearly all of the mountain plants have excellently adapted to the highland climate, possessing traits like the ability to bend a lot when breaking, which makes them more resistant to the strong mountain winds that plague the coldest months of the year in the highlands. They grow close to the ground to avoid being uprooted.

But their growth massively accelerates during the coldest weeks of winter to avoid being covered and suffocated by the snow. zu'aan value those plants very highly; it is said that they make excellent tea and medicine.

==Animals==

It shouldn’t come as a surprise at all to hear that the majority of the animals living in the Ilshlia Boreal Highlands are herbivores in their diet. The two main grazing creatures that stay in the highlands all year round are the behemothic aumat and the more peaceful, agile lo’tu. The former are giant tusked bovine beasts of burden. Those huge creatures are incredibly easy to provoke, and even a tiny spark of anger can set them off into an unstoppable fury. Aumat live all over the Boreal region and are considered to be the greatest trophy a kin’toni or zu'aan can bring back from a successful hunt.

The aumat feed on both grass and fruits, that they manage to pick off trees due to their height and muscular necks. These animals can be tamed with enough patience and care, but no clan has been able to do it yet. The military strength that aumat will be able to bring to warfare is terrifying though, and whoever wins this arms race will likely get to expand their clan far beyond their current territory. Lo’tu are similar to aumat in the sense that they too, are herbivorous four-legged mammals, but otherwise the two animals are completely different both in looks and personality.

Lo’tu are much calmer, unafraid of zu'aan and kin’toni unless they make sudden, threatening movements. If a lo’tu senses that they are in danger, they utilize their powerful legs and heart to break into a gallop of up to fifty kilometers per hour, over double the measly 20 kilometers per hour that aumat have to offer. Similar to the aumat, lo’tu can be domesticated. Some clans have already done it and use the gentle creatures to carry goods over long distances. Experiments with lo’tu riding are underway, and while the successes have been few and far in between.

It's very much possible for it to be widespread among highland clans in less than a decade’s time as a more efficient method of travel. However, it’s unfair to give all the attention to the large herbivores of the Ilshlia Boreal Highlands. Sometimes, the tiniest fauna can have the biggest impact, and that’s especially true in the highlands. Kilometer-long patches of flowers can’t grow and expand without help from pollinators, and the six-legged zali are the most widespread. The zali live underground in enormous hives but spent the majority of their short lifespan flying about and pollinating the thousands of flowers.

That each little bit of the Ilshlia Boreal Highlands contains. Their work does not disappoint, as every spring seems to breathe life into the atmosphere of the highlands, but some kin’toni are anxious about the future of the zali. As temperatures continue to fall across Taerel, the zali struggle harder and harder to survive. It’s likely that there will be a point in the Ilshlia Boreal Highlands’ history when the last speck of colour will bloom, and then leave the hopeless kin’toni in an icy, lifeless world.

{{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 = [[Kel'ony Kin'toni Clan]]
}}

{{NeartoDesktop
| Centre = {{PAGENAME}}
| North = Unknown
| Northeast = Unknown
| East = Unknown
| Southeast = Unknown
| South = Unknown
| Southwest = Unknown
| West = Unknown
| Northwest = Unknown
}}

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

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

Ilshlia Boreal Highland - Revision history

Stevie Lambert: (via JWB)