From the Journals of PRINCE HALDEMAR OF HAAKEN Lord Admiral of the Mightiest Empire Captain of the Ever-Victorious PRINCESS ARK Imperial Explorer, etc, etc. NYXMIR 11, 1964 AY: I am astounded by the complete lack of interest in geographical matters on the part of Alphatia's younger mages. Worse, it has been found that the geographical teachings offered at Eriadna High are based on the fallacies of a Thyatian lowlife! This general - without a doubt a failure in the Thyatian legions - retired after a shabby campaign in Thothia. There he stole an ancient map of this world from a pillaged temple. The map was but a simple continental outline with a few words here and there. Upon his return, this lowlife invented kingdoms and empires, then placed them on the map and wrote tome upon tome about them. His knowledge of ancient Nithian and his interest in the truth being what they were, nothing good came out of this ignorant barbarian's overactive imagination. He made a fortune selling his books, and many took them as the final authority on the world. His errors were legion. Ridiculous assumptions were made about the size of the Thyatian Empire. The map shows the limits of that empire stretching beyond the Wendarian Reaches, north of the Principalities of Glantri. Poppycock! There are at least a half-dozen countries between Thyatis and Glantri having nothing to do with Thyatis. You can forget about those absurd borders, too. These were in fact various creases in the original crumpled map which that Thyatian dimwit mistook for actual borders. The "Empire of the Great Khan," east of our province of Esterhold, is another fantasy. There are indeed large steppes there, but no Great Khan - we'd know about it by now! And, yes, about this Dorfin Empire: It was the joke of a certain gnomish king, the inventor of wondrous but totally useless contraptions, who went by the name of King Dorfin IV. His kingdom is, in truth, merely the workshop of a few hundred gnomes in the hills of Karameikos. One of Dorf's favorite pastimes was to send loyal followers beyond the Sind Desert. There, they would pose as plenipotentaries of the imaginary "Empire of Dorfin IV," then hire local people to carry a sealed message back to the real King Dorfin. These strange messengers, obviously from a distant place, seemed to make quite an impression on local Karameikan barons when they brought the gnomish king those phony and pompous greetings from his "imperial cousin to the west." These messages hinted at the outrageous size of this bogus empire, alleged to be twice the size of Alphatia! What nonsense! And the barons believed it, the fools. I shall skip the details on other equally fals kingdoms such as "Vulcania" (that was the Thyatian general's wife's name), "Cestia" (his mistress), "Brasol" (his dog), "Tangor" (a brand of cheap beer found in the streets of Newkirk), or "Zyxl" (a deceased gladiatorial hero whom the general claimed was also a fallen queen of that same nation). For all this, I find that I grudgingly admire such a bold and irreverent joker. After all, everyone fell for his fake encyclopedias. I propose that in the name of grand buffoonery, we keep these place names, since they are now the ones with which laymen are most familiar, but we should use them in a purely geographic sense. For example, let's do away with the nation of Nentsun (an Ethengarian word for a Heldanner's arm pit) and simply call that land the Nentsun Peninsula. Similarly, we'll forget about the state of Izonda (Hin for "fruitcake" - it figures), renaming that area the Desert of Izonda, since this is what is really there. So be it! It is time to see for myself if this old Nithian map has any truth to it. I today obtained permission from her Imperial Majesty for the /Princess Ark/ be recommissioned for a last but glorious mission of exploration in the name of Our Illustrious Empire.... ALPHAMIR 15, 1965: Finally, she is airworthy again! It took no less than 35 master crafters and 300 slaves to refit the beautiful skyship. Her five masts stand majestically over her black hull, bearing the sails that will trap the magical wind. One can almost feel a strange life emanating from her as she gently pulls on her mooring lines in her desire to cast off and head into the sky. SULAMIR 10, 1965: Days have come and gone since our departure from Sundsvall. After leaving the capital, I ordered a southerly course. Our /Princess Ark/ sailed well into the clouds above Edairo, Caerdwicca, and Beitung. Soon we reached the barbaric coast that lies east of the Thyatian Hinterlands. Some people refer to the region as The Coast, or the Four Kingdoms. The Four Kingdoms no more exist here than water exists in our bilge. As far as The Coast goes, we in Alphatia prefer calling it the Jungle Coast, because that's what it is: a forsaken, endless jumble of tropical growth. It is always hot and humid here, and torrential rains from the Bellissarian Sea drench the place every day. If the boredom doesn't kill you, then the savages, diseases, and monsters will. It is no wonder the stiff-necked Thyatians did not waste their time in conquering thie foul region. The white sandy beaches are idyllic, but no pleasures can be found here. Immediately beyond the beaches stretch hundreds of miles of rolling hills. Dark jungles blanket the highest terrain, and repugnant swamps corrupt the lowlands. SULAMIR 25, 1965: The savages who live on the eastern Jungle Coast are quite different from those in the neighboring Thyatian Hinterlands. The latter are believed to be descendants of slaves brought from the Nithian colonies nowadays known as Olstland and Vestland. The Nithians carved out a southern domain from the jungle for their priests. Then three tribes of slaves rebelled and escaped north, seeking their fatherland. Instead, these ruffians found (and founded) what would later become Thyatis. A century later, Nithia foundered. The unruly slaves who stayed south obliterated whatever remained of their Nithian origins; in a few centuries, all was lost to the jungle. These hardy, blond Hinterlanders survived and became savage jungle warriors who were capable of fighting the original natives on equal footing. SUDMIR 3, 1965: Terrible, those natives. We came close to a large town deep in the rain forest. Smoke from their fires could be seen from miles away. Thousands of huts sprawled across a clearing in the forest, with several stone buildings placed near the clearing's center. We spotted what seemed to be a temple of some sort. Upon our descent, it was observed that the natives were of a much smaller build than the Hinterlanders. Tattoos covered their copper skin, and most of them had long, black hair tied in the back. The natives immediately attacked our vessel, using poison needles and blowguns against our exposed crewmen when we came within range. The gray substance on the needles was deadly, and we lost two men. Magic from their barbaric sorcerers cracked and thundered, but the /Princess Ark/ withstood the crude spell-strikes. As we sailed away, we spotted some of their shamans - or se we assumed those monstrosities to be, as they all had various snakelike features. Alas, we did not remain to study this culture any further. We will return at a later time to deal with these natives in a more fitting way. I sent an invisible messenger back to Her Imperial Majesty with our last position, then ordered the /Princess Ark/ farther east along the Jungle Coast. SUDMIR 25, 1965: This morning I watched one of the nicest sunrises just as we steered eastward toward the Pass of Cestia. There we reached an unknown cape on the continental coast. I named it Cape Eriadna, in honor of Her Imperial Majesty. The place seems deserted. Despite the hot and rainy weather of this area, no rain forest grows here; instead, savannah spreads out as far as we can see, with occasional clusters of trees dotting the land. Unlike the dominant northeasterly winds of the Jungle Coast, the winds here usually blow to the southeast. SUDMIR 26, 1965: Talasar, my second in command, is in charge of replenishing the /Princess Ark/'s food and water supplies. The magic from his Immortal patron is powerful, but some of the supplies are now reported to be spoiled. This is quite unlike Talasar; he is a dedicated priest. This will be investigated at a later time. I am sending an away team to gather food and samples of the local vegetation. VERTMIR 1, 1965: The away team - or what's left of it - has finally returned. Xordon, the captain of the guard, took matters in his own hands and mounted a rescue mission to find the team. I quote from his report: "We had marched 30 miles south when we found the antelopes that the team was tracking. With their hunting wands, the men should have easily caught their prey, skinned it, and cut it up. But there was no trace of the team nor of any fight. "Then Ramissur, my forward boltman, saw a glint on a nearby hill. I ordered the men into skirmish order and approached it. The grass was nearly 3' tall, and the ground was a bit marshy. Suddenly, one after the other, guards screamed in horror. I ordered the men into a tighter group but found that those who had screamed were missing. We made it to the hill and found two survivors from the away team. None appeared wounded, but they bore strange purple marks on their bodies, like bruises. Both were insane, and in their mad babbling they screamed of an attack by tentacles that shot from under mosses and peat. The other poor devils on their team must have been pulled underneath and devoured by foul beasts. "Once warned, it wasn't difficult to spot the concealed creatures on the way back. My two elite boltmen on point took pleasure in blasting the things once they found them. Ramissur managed to stun one creature that had rags hanging from its tentacles, rags that probably belonged to Azoth, the Dispel Warden of the lost team. By Razud, I'll now have to train Ramissur in the art of magic dispelling. Azoth was a fine guard. I cast a binding on the creature's mind, then brought it back. And so we returned." VERTMIR 5, 1965: These beasts are quite a discovery - they are vegetable beings. I have named them "Cestian gobblers." Each appears to have a short, fat trunk with a slimy, sphincterlike mouth on top. Three to six gooey tentacles grow on the sides of each trunk, which are used to capture prey. The tentacles exude a substance capable of stunning an ox. When I brought fresh meat near the opening of one gobbler, small translucent tendrils stuck out of it like little tongues, each of them ending in a noisy, smacking suction cup. It took the gobbler very little time to suck the juices from the meat. Afterward, the opening widened and the gobbler gobbled its food. I was able to retrieve Azoth's partially digested remains from one plant, and after some cleaning of his remains, I animated the late warden's body and set it on permanent duty in the hold. There, away from the common crew, Azoth will cater to the Cestian gobbler, now properly restrained and potted in a large jar. I was surprised to see that the gobbler wouldn't attack Azoth in his present state. In fact, it seems the gobbler now looks forward to Azoth's arrival with fresh food. This unusual vegetable specimen deserves to be brought to the Imperial Greenhouse. It appears these gobblers commonly grow throughout the coast in the Pass of Cestia. This explains why we've found no human population there. Beware of low-lands with high grasses in this region! This is where gobblers are most likely to be found. After this discovery, I ordered the /Princess Ark/ back to her original easterly course. VERTMIR 7, 1965: After Cape Eriadna, the coast runs directly to the south. Another land lies to the east; the pattern in the clouds is quite clear about it. So far, it seems the old Nithian map is quite accurate. After pondering our course, I decided to head due east. Heavy clouds persisting in the south warned of violent weather; I feared the /Princess Ark/ would hardly be able to climb above them. The eastern coast is no more than a few hundred miles away. VERTMIR 17, 1965: After reaching the western coastline at dawn, I decided to follow the coast to the north rather than penetrate this unknown land. The terrain is similar to the Jungle Coast, and so far no sign of population has been seen. By evening, we reached the northern end of the Isle of Cestia, which I named Cape Andor. Our choice is either to veer toward the isle to the northeast, or to follow the other side of Cestia, due south. Tonight I will consult the Auguries and make a decision. Which is the most interesting course?