GLOSSARY • WORLDS AND GEOGRAPHIES • Ga ~ Gz
Gewareh Glent
{geh-WAHR-eh GLENT}
forest on the planet Oraea
A long thin land fairly distinctly composed of two biomes, with short twisting stretches of shadow-speckled, gnarled forests between moss-shagged rocks and burbling streams that snake down to the seas on both sides.
The northern biome, flowing down from the Xeonaxai with its petrified forest and calderas, is a rocky mossy shrubby riot of rough boulders and bold brooks where the land is full of buckles and bumps. These waters dip and weave above and below the earth on the course of their downhill journey, descending underground for most of Gewareh Glent’s southern half before re-emerging much farther south in the hollows and glens of Aliat Erren. A few trees manage to grow here, adventurous newcomers who have somehow made a little hold.
The southern biome features a low, wide forest whose treegrowth splits the ancient stones. This is perhaps the oldest of forests, at least on Oraea, which perhaps explains in part why there is so comparatively little of it left. The forest is thickest at the point of biomic transition, the trees dense and dark, bodies wizened, crooked roots wrapped with moss and ferns They pulse with the richly-hued fruitgrowths (and seed pockets) called Gavinogia, so scrumptious in their juiciness, so deeply imbued throughout Oraean hume history by its uses in arts, crafts, communications, and all kinds of culinary experiences.
However, in curious contrast to the more messy north, an aerial view shows that as the trees grow downhill they take on a progressively more geometrically-pleasing pattern of arrangement until they stop growing (which is were Aliat Erren begins). The bark becomes golden in these southern reaches, the trees lithe, the teardrop leaves opaque-white with veins of green and silver. In deep time this was an area of fens, the lives and events of their years preserved in compacted layers revealed by hume excavation.
Calm seas in the east taught one form of ocean navigation, the rougher seas on the west taught another. The mineral-rich waters of the land between nourished humes and other life well, and together with the humes of Xeonexai’s calderas there thrived there an essential early civilisation. Humes who now name Gewareh Glent as their home live mainly on the coasts, and sail more often than they walk the forest. This makes them more numerous than a visit to their villages and tradeports might suggest, as much of their population is always out on one sea or another.
Near to: Aliat Erren, the Xeonexai, Siumonahxolo, Sevranselise, Umaean.
Also see: Gavinogia (tisane ingredient).