Sulorod Seasonal Taiga

Place

Place Name:

Sulorod Seasonal Taiga

Biome:

Seasonal Taiga

Size:

Unknown

Continent:

Unknown

Subcontinent

Unknown

Geography

Despite being surrounded by lands of eternal winter, Sulorod still has all four seasons. It’s funny, to struggle through a snowstorm in the deep south of Taerel, and suddenly realize that, ahead of you, it’s not snowing, but raining — ahead of you, there are trees blossoming. Or suppose you come in the summer instead of the spring. You’re struggling through fields covered in snow, with a bright blue sky above you, and then you see trees covered with green leaves in the far distance. It’s even more absurd in the autumn, because you don’t even have to be looking in the direction of Sulorod to see orange leaves blow past you in the wind.

But in the winter, of course, you can’t even tell that Sulorod even has a separate existence from the rest of the desolate arctic wastes about you. Its trees just look like tiny mountains of snow from a distance. But even though Sulorod still has all four seasons, I never said these seasons lined up with the rest of the world’s weather, or even that it’s always the same season in all parts of Sulorod at the same time. Since, clearly, the weather in Sulorod has nothing to do with the things that cause weather in the rest of the world, perhaps you might be asking what does cause its weather?

The answer to that question is volcanoes. There are an unnumbered bunch of underground and underwater volcanoes in Sulorod. Though these volcanoes never erupt, they do often suddenly spew forth immense quantities of heat, usually for months at a time. This heat temporarily shatters the hold of winter over a certain part of the land. The appearance of heat and its disappearance are entirely unpredictable. Sometimes almost all the volcanoes will be spewing heat for more than a year, effectively creating a year of summer; sometimes all the volcanoes will remain dormant for more than a year.

Making Sulorod indistinguishable from its wintry surroundings. But most of the time, the volcanoes aren’t even pretending to be synchronized: you’ll find some of the land in spring, some in summer, some in autumn, and some in winter — these seasons often all happening right next to each other. It’s difficult to get a good approximation of how large Sulorod exactly is, since the effect of its volcanic summers can extend well beyond its treeline. But in any case, the Ineper kin’toni clan seems to think that Sulorod’s borders end at its treeline.

This is probably just a temporary tactical decision, since an army of a given size can only guard so much land; when the Ineper can hold more land, they’ll likely take it. Though there are many mountains within Sulorod, none of them are volcanoes, and their peaks are always covered in snow. True, you can sometimes find little heat vents up there, and some men live by those heat vents, but they’re never hot enough or big enough to melt the whole mountain. That’s probably a good thing, because an avalanche could be devastating to anyone who happens to be living at the bottom of the mountain.

Avalanches sometimes occur anyways, but usually not because of the heat vents.

Plants

Only the toughest plants grow naturally in Sulorod, because they have to be able to survive over fifteen months of harsh winter if necessary. Oddly enough but predictably enough, though, you can grow even tropical plants in Sulorod if you’re able to transport them quickly from the cold regions to the warm regions. This does of course also require a certain amount of luck, since it’s not guaranteed that there’ll be a single warm spot in all of Sulorod at any given moment. But even if your plants freeze, you can always try planting them again if you have spare seeds.

Evergreen trees are much more prevalent in Sulorod than deciduous trees and other smaller plants, since winter can be unpredictable and it’s not nice to have your leaf buds frozen. Deciduous trees (and other smaller plants) still grow here, though. The growth of deciduous trees is slower than that of most other trees, however. They also grow leaves and lose them much faster than normal trees. As a bit of compensation for their slower growth, perhaps, the wood of these trees is much easier to work with and much sturdier than normal trees.

The group of other, smaller plants that grow in Sulorod includes grasses, of course, but they also include a surprising number of berries. Despite the fact that summer in this place can last indefinitely if you keep moving to the right places, food is still pretty scarce, and berries are a welcome treat for wanderers — or else their untimely demise, since there are a few poisonous ones. Only the toughest plants grow naturally in Sulorod, but they still like the heat when they can get it. One flower likes it so much that it will literally move around to find it.

The okorimathri of Sulorod doesn’t actually walk, it just crawls fairly slowly through the dirt by using its roots to dig and shove itself forwards. It’s still a really strange sight, though, especially when they do it in large groups, and it’s no wonder why it was named the okorimathri. There are a few theories about how the Walking Flowers know where the heat is currently at. One theory suggests that the wind coming from a warmer place will carry some of the heat of the warmer land to the flower, and that the flower can detect this heat-bearing wind.

If the wind’s promise of heat seems better than the amount of heat the flower’s currently getting, then it’ll begin travelling in that direction. A different theory suggests that the flowers can sense the seismic activity beneath the earth which causes the different volcanoes to start spewing heat, and that the flowers know where to go based on these vibrations. Though this theory sounds more far-fetched than the other one, the okorimathri have been experimented on, and it is definitely proven that they react in strange ways to vibrations in the soil they grow in.

Okorimathri sort of plow the fields they move through, but since they just go around other roots and even fairly small rocks, they don’t do a particularly efficient job of it. Sorry, lazy farmers.

Animals

The animals that live in Sulorod aren’t exclusive to Sulorod by any means; most of the following creatures only come to Sulorod to mate and give birth. The rest of the time, they’re out in the arctic wilderness, searching for food. The andia are only going to last so long, you see, while there’s always fish to be had in the ocean. heolos are a kind of snow-loving fishing bird. Their beaks are long, curved, and sharp, as are their talons. Their legs are also long. Their wings are not nearly as long, and seem somewhat stubby compared to the rest of the bird, but a heolo is still light enough for these stubby wings to allow one to fly.

heolos are excellent swimmers, too — their strange wing shape is the result of a design compromise between flight ability and swimming ability. They can’t outswim a fish, but they can outlast a fish in a chase. And though fish make up most of their diet, they love coming to Sulorod even when it’s not during the mating season, to see if they can find any blackberries. heolos absolutely love berries, and their beaks tend to be stained with berry juice if they’ve recently had a feast. Baby heolos are hatched and raised in Sulorod; their eggs are typically laid during spring.

And they typically break out of their eggs during winter, but if they’re lucky they might hatch during summer or autumn. Summer and autumn are when the blackberries grow, you see. Sulorod is in fact adjacent to water — a lake — but it’s a long swim to get from this lake to the ocean, and fish don’t really like going into the lake, either. Probably because it’s too close to the heolos, but also because it’s too close to the bayrlaas, which also frequently visit Sulorod and this water. bayrlaas would empty the world of fish if they could, so voracious are their appetites.

Though these brown, sleek creatures need to breathe air, they’re on the whole much better suited to the water: in the water they’re a hundred times faster than they are on land, in the water they can see about twice as well than they can on land, in the water is where they mate, eat, and sleep. And yet for some reason they can’t breathe in the water. The two front limbs of a bayrlaa are gigantic. A single one of these limbs is twice as large as the rest of the creature. It’s debated whether these limbs are better termed arms or legs: bayrlaas swim with these limbs and catch whole schools of fish with them, but when on land they also walk on them.

Their back limbs they use to pick out individual fish from the catch they caught with their front limbs, and to steer when in the water, but that’s about it. Also, a bayrlaa minus its arms is about as big as a zu’aan or kin’toni. Yes, that means one of its arms is twice as big as you are. Don’t hunt a bayrlaa unprepared, because those things can crush your armour even if they don’t grab you and drag you down into the deeps.

Historical Timeline of Ages

Age Name	Dates	Controller
Stone Age	Before 1E 0	Unknown
Copper Age	1E 1–1E 2200	Unknown
Bronze Age	1E 2200–1E 4400	Unknown
Iron Age	2E 0–2E 700	Unknown
Ancient Age	2E 700–2E 2200	Unknown
Middle Age	3E 0–3E 2050	Unknown
Early Modern Age	3E 2050–3E 2600	Unknown
Industrial Age	3E 2600–3E 2700	Unknown
Machine Age	3E 2700–3E 2800	Unknown
Atomic Age	3E 2800–3E 2850	Unknown
Space Age	3E 2850–3E 2875	Unknown
Information Age	3E 2875–3E 2900	Unknown
Genetic Age	3E 2950–3E 3000	Unknown
Awakening Age	3E 3000–3E 3415	Unknown
Twilight Age	4E 0–4E 500	Ineper Kin'toni Clan

Place

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Sulorod Seasonal Taiga

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This article is written by Xerxes Worldweaver. Copyright 2026 Xerxes Worldweaver. All rights reserved.