Five miles above the surface of the sea circles Akasa, a piece of land that drifts through the skies above. Rotating anti-clockwise above the middle ring, you'll spot glimpses of it peeking through the clouds above Nalendi or Shisama in the summers, Vittania or Carassia in the winters. Unreachable to all but the bravest (or perhaps most foolhardy)
Aarakocra and
Otus for hundreds of years, it wasn't until the invention of the airship that true exploration and settlement of this strange land began in earnest.
A World Above
Most of the time, you'll only notice Akasa when it begins to cast a shadow on your location. It rests higher than much of the clouds do, often hidden behind their volume and the patterns of weather. If you do catch the sky at the right time, it's sillhouetted by the sun, appearing more like a great shadow above than a truly discernable landmass. Scholars did their best to study it from a distance. It had a rocky underside, that much they could tell. Telescopes showed the shadows of flying beasts that called it home, and hints of water flowing off the edges only to dissapate into the clouds.
Only a few decades after the invention of the airship, an intrepid minotaur captain called Duke Barnoozh staged an expedition, bringing together a crew to build a modified airship he believed could reach the heights of Akasa, so he could set hoof on it for the first time. Only a few avian explorers had reached it before, reporting strange flora and fauna and dangers that made it impossible to stay and rest after such an exhausting journey. Most believed Barnoozh's ship wouldn't make the trek, and it almost didn't. Storms battered the balloons, the thin air threatened to sink them, and sudden drops in temperature sapped the crew's strength. Through some miracle, they survived, and landed on one of the lower parts of the island. Those twenty-two explorers and aeronauts spent three weeks mapping the island's shape in detail, collecting samples of plant and animal life, and establishing a campsite that would become the town of Barnoozh that we know today.
Life in the Sky
Akasa's distant location has kept its native life isolated from the world below. Plants here grow in different shades, often teals and yellows. Native mammals are non-existant; but peculiar birds, prehistoric-looking reptiles, fearsome wyverns, and even fish call it home instead. Its waters seem sourced from moisture in the sky - clouds that rise high enough to hit it dump their stored water, forming the lakes and rivers that criss-cross the island. Though it may not get much snow, winters here are just as cold as those in
Ranesh and
Honamaya.
The structure of Akasa was quickly understood to be much different than it appears from below. It isn't truly one island - rather a massive central island with hundreds of smaller floating chunks orbiting it much like the sun and moon do the World. These smaller pieces of land vary in size from only a few meters in diameter to large enough to support a village. The central island has several distinct "levels", or uneven changes in elevation. The tops are several hundred feet higher than the lower portions, and rarely are there clean paths to traverse between the two. The cause of the island's levitation is also now understood: a unique type of magicite is held within its core, imbuing the entire island with a lighter-than-air buoyancy.
In this age, Akasa is home to some 3,000 sapients. Almost all towns are near one of its edges, where airships and balloons may dock easily. The locals have adapted to the native life, growing crops unique to the region and hunting its strange game. Barnoozh is the fourth largest town, eclipsed in size by New Rellea, Speerana, and Fort Akasa.
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