Denezhé

The continent of Chichū, ancestral homeland of the Denezhé peoples, lies deep in the southern hemisphere of Erthas. Shaped by ancient cratons and living fire, it is a land of contrasts—between tundra and savanna, mountain and bay, silence and storm.  

Geography

  Chichū is an immense, geologically ancient continent that broke away from Kōbō roughly 80 million years ago. It is dominated by an old cratonic mass, roughly polygonal in shape, bounded by the longitudes -135 to -150 and latitudes -23 to -67. Along its eastern edge, a massive accreted terrain formed by a subduction zone stretches like an arm toward the southern seas, curving within 200 kilometers of Kōbō’s southern bay. This terrain includes volcanic islands, high escarpments, and steaming calderas.   A long, mountainous tundra “tail” traces the -67° parallel from -135 to -102, home to windswept ice valleys, fire-warmed caves, and glacial passes. At the root of the tail lies a boreal forest belt, giving way eastward to humid continental lake country, then steppe and prairie in the northeast. Beyond these steppes lies a subtropical coast of warm valleys and volcanic peaks.   South of the central craton lies a desert band around -30°, with savanna in the north and arid plains tapering to the southern tip. Here, Chichū curves sharply into a deep gulf with a Mediterranean climate, which then transitions into a fjord-laced marine coast, culminating again in boreal forest and tundra as it rejoins the great tail.  

Peoples and Languages

  The peoples of Chichū are speakers of the Denezhé language macrofamily, inspired from Proto-Athabaskan. Denezhé cultures are entirely Mesolithic—relying on complex foraging, aquatic trapping, fire-driven hunting, and the seasonal gathering of cold- and heat-adapted plantlife. They build hide tents, bark huts, stone hearth circles, and coastal driftwood lean-tos. Some live in deep volcanic vents or glacial overhangs for part of the year.   The Denezhé are subdivided into seven major cultural-linguistic blocs:  

• Ankhūra (Tundra): Ice-dwellers of the far north and tail — Qhākari, Nuskheda, Vaatra
• Zhoghwen (Boreal Forest): Forest foragers and canoe-kin — Shendokha, Tsilēna, Ahruti, Nēkhwana, Zekhali, Bovrēti
• Mazhān (Interior): Peoples of lakes, rivers, and grassland edges — Tadiri, Boshket, Erchūna, Gwelṭān, Thoma, Lakēshar
• Dechúwa (Volcanic Coasts): Mountain and subtropic dwellers — Khotani, Yesruda, Axtari
• Zh’āmba (Desert Belt): Sun- and wind-driven peoples — Zhalaq, Munetcha
• Net’aru (Western Climes): Coastal and canyon peoples of the west — Uvāta, Brenya, Koshal, Delzin, Wiqada, Eshwen, Norqēl, Futha, Jakha, Sholket

 

Ecology and Fauna

  Like the rest of the southwestern quadrant of Erthas, Chichū evolved apart from the mammalian lineage for over 300 million years. Its native fauna consists of:  

• Large terrestrial reptiles — including scaled runners, shellbacks, and glider-beasts
• Burrowing insectivores with multi-limbed gaits
• Amphibious predators that occupy river deltas, geothermal basins, and inland lakes
• Cave-dwelling, heat-sensitive creatures evolved in volcanic pockets
• Rare marine mammals along the coasts, descended from recent migrants from Dainan

  The Denezhé have mythologized many of these beings into spirit-kin, seeing themselves not as masters of nature but as stewards of its rhythm and peril.  

Mythology and Lifeways

  All Denezhé peoples share common cosmological motifs:

A triple world of Stone Below, Fire Within, and Breath Above

A sky-arch divided by storms and light-paths

Lineages traced through maternal songs and paternal footprints

In northern tundra, survival depends on glacier-breath reading, aurora chants, and ice fishing. In the interior, root-maps and name stones guide movements between springs and salt licks. On the coasts, tidal drums and fog beacons communicate between wind-carved shelters. In the deserts, shade wells, wind-bone towers, and mirror-rocks are sacred technologies.  

High Elven Contact

  To the High Elves of Daitō, Chichū is a remote continent marked on early star charts as a land of storms and shadows. While no formal name was given in the Kanshi Chihyō coordinate system, Elven travelogues refer to it by various poetic titles: “The Hollowed West,” “The Serpent Arm,” or “The Listening Land.” Though brief contact was made with some coastal Net’aru, the Elves never penetrated far inland and soon abandoned their attempts to chart the continent.