Ournu Lush Tundra

Place

Place Name:

Ournu Lush Tundra

Biome:

Lush Tundra

Size:

Unknown

Continent:

Unknown

Subcontinent

Unknown

Geography

Many roads have been built in Ournu, but they are no longer maintained and your chances of getting a wagon over them are unreliable at best. Still, they do run between all the main settlements and also run to the lands to the south. They serve as useful guides if not useful roads, since they will at least tell you which way to go if you want to get to civilization. The main settlement of Ournu was the first one built. All of the zu’aan within it have been kicked out and live elsewhere. And now, this settlement is the home of the Ieni kin’toni clan.

What once used to be the greatest community hall has become the fortress of the Ieni: it’s been upgraded, as well. A new wall has arisen, and new towers, too, and the old, ordinary, wooden walls of the house have been reinforced with stones. The name of this fort is Borea’hicaya. The minor settlements of Ournu have likewise received renovations, though these renovations generally didn’t touch the community halls. Rather, new towers were built, so that the Ieni clan might keep their eyes and ears open in every part of the land. There are a few secret dwellings in the middle of the wilderness.

That have yet to be discovered by the Ieni, but they are not many.As for terrain, Ournu is almost entirely flat. Plentiful rainfall in the summer allows trees and crops to grow anywhere, but there are no rivers. The water all drains into underground aquifers instead, since the soil is quite loose and allows for drainage on such a large scale. (These aquifers are fairly easy to tap into and build wells on if you know where they are.) Still, despite the easily-draining soil, sometimes small lakes can appear in the spring, when all the snow melts.

These lakes will generally hang around for a few weeks before suddenly disappearing. Be careful not to build your house in a ‘flash lake’ site, as they’re called. The mountains of the north can be seen in the distance, if your eyes are sharp enough and the day is clear enough. These mountains don’t intrude into Ournu: the land between the mountains and Ournu is a separate territory and is called by another name. The northern border of Ournu is marked by noticeably hillier terrain. The eastern and western borders of Ournu are marked by rivers.

The southern border is marked by what was once a great highway of the zu’aan empire. Not much traffic runs along that highway anymore, other than the occasional army of marching soldiers. Ournu has little communication with its neighbours. Rumour has it the leaders of the Ieni clan are planning a war on somebody, but nobody knows for sure which neighbour is going to be the target of this war. It probably doesn’t matter, the five closest countries are defended with roughly the same amount of strength. Ournu’s own defenses are minimal since the land is large but not particularly valuable.

That might have to change if the Ieni start picking fights with their neighbours.

Plants

The cold weather of Ournu tends to kill trees and plants that don’t stay warm. So the trees that are still alive are the ones that stayed warm; the plants that are still alive are the ones that sprouted this spring and will probably scatter their seeds before succumbing to the winter. There are some exceptions to this general rule, such as the odd plant that can survive a winter or two, but these exceptions are so rare and insignificant that they’re not really worth mentioning. Eketatoka of Ournu, generally referred to as eketatokas, have absurdly complex mechanisms for digging themselves holes.

In which to hide during the winter. Even when just small little saplings, their roots begin to shove aside the soil beneath them, creating a small cavity in the earth. During the summer, the tree stores up water for the oncoming winter in this cavity: it grows as many roots as it can to prevent the water from leaking out of the cavity. By the time early autumn rolls around, the eketatoka is ready for winter, but continues to get as much sun as it can, before the cold turns its leaves orange. (eketatokas are deciduous trees.) But when the frost hits, and all the eketatoka’s leaves are gone.

Then the tree’s largest roots, the ones keeping it from falling into the cavity it’s dug beneath itself, collapse. And thump. Where a tree once stood, now stands a sort of carpet of twigs. These twigs are the leafless upper boughs of the eketatoka, packed flat against the ground so as to take minimal damage from being stepped on by something heavy. Trying to uproot these twigs is a tricky business, since their ‘roots’ are actually branches. The ‘roots’ get thicker the deeper you look, not thinner. The shape of the sunken tree is designed such so that anyone stepping where the tree used to be will not fall into a hole.

Sometimes there are very small gaps between the branches, where they do not mesh completely, but on the whole they pack together very well. When spring comes around, the eketatoka has the roots that collapsed repair themselves and begin to push the tree back up to the surface. The older trees take quite the force to push themselves back up, but the older trees also have most of their leaves back before they even start the attempt, as compensation for their extra weight and the extra force that they have to expend. The submerging and emerging process of the eketatoka of Ournu isn’t its only absurdly complex process.

It also has a process for very slowly burning away at its core during the winter, to keep itself warm. Oh, and eketatokas also produce nuts on rare occasions, which are their seeds. These nuts aren’t suitable eating for most living creatures, but they do produce quite the noise and colours when set on fire. The burning of these nuts at the coming of the new year is a practice that the zu’aan of Ournu have continued performing, despite their kin’toni overlords. It is thought that the eketatokas was made by genetic alteration in the era of the Xerea Empire.

This might explain their burrowing and their burning away on the inside. What purpose, they might of made the eketatokas for, who knows.

Animals

The four-winged Kaza is considered a bad omen by zu’aan and kin’tonis alike, but it’s actually quite a good-natured bird. It spends most of its days soaring above the clouds, basking in the sun. It is seen at its most glorious when the sun sets and the sky turns dark, when it descends to search for food: letting out a fierce cry, it swoops, tearing a hole in the clouds and letting through a ray of moonlight for a split second. Then the world goes dark again and the Kaza is invisible once more. The food it seeks usually consists of small creatures such as rabbits and smaller birds. If it sees a zu’aan, it’ll circle above him, hoping for some food.

If a single arrow is fired or a single stone is thrown, it’ll go away, but if you whistle for it, it’ll descend and land in a tree nearby. Then you can fire an arrow at it for an easier shot, if you’re a weakling and can’t hit it when it’s soaring high above you, but otherwise, if you’re not a jerk, you can give it some food. Don’t be surprised if someday the Kaza returns the favour, and brings you a piece of raw rabbit or something similar. Kazas have long memories and have been known to attack wolves threatening their favourite zu’aan. (Kazas typically do not go anywhere near kin’tonis.)

The wolves in Ournu are of a particularly small sort, but to compensate for this, they hunt in packs that are extremely large. They have earned the name of crinvos. There is no racket like the racket of a pack of crinvos howling at midnight, and every living being that requires sleep despises these canines. There are very few men or beasts that dare hunt for crinvos, however, since there is no death like the death by a pack of crinvos. First they surround the thing foolish enough to get anywhere within their range of smell, then they begin by nibbling at him, to see if he’ll react.

Then they start tearing off little chunks, until only the head is left. The head is always saved for the leader of the pack. You can always tell who the leader of a pack of crinvos is because it wears a ridiculous-looking skull on its head, like a hat, or a symbol of leadership. (Its leadership seems to be considered forfeit if its skull ever falls of its head.) A Crinvo on its own is a joke to fight; just kick it a few times and it’ll flee like the coward it is. But crinvos are seldom alone, since their females have been known to have more than twenty puppies in a single litter, and almost all of them will survive to adulthood.

The main cause of death for crinvos is starvation. When they do fall down and die, their brethren will hold a solemn ceremony and bury them. It seems honour isn’t entirely absent from these overgrown rats. It is thought that crinvos are similar to the early zu'aan ancestor the zu'aak in intelligence. It is aslo thought that they have the start of primitive tool usage, hence the skull helmets. They appear to have a simple and early social layout, much like the zu'aak, hence having burial ceremonies.

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	Ieni Kin'toni Clan

Place

Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown

Ournu Lush Tundra

Unknown Unknown Unknown Unknown

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