Larea

Portrait of Danae, a holding his peace bird pen and a book containing a map

Danae by Naelin

The cartographer Danae from the City of Birdland in Thaur was commissioned to draw a map of the Haan Archipelago for the second edition of The Book of the Habits and Beasts, published in the 3rd of Birthing, 3 E.Ru. Danae took advantage of the enclyclopaedia's team of researchers to gather precise information and went himself into research expeditions to survey remote areas. His work resulted in what is considered the most accurate and widespread map of the Archipelago to this day, which details even most of the coasts of the Savage Isles.

Located in the north-west of the Haan Archipelago, west of Red Crest's southernmost coast and of Dhalmain's northermost one, West and East Larea, collectively known as just "Larea" are the smallest of the archipelago's soveirgn islands. Home to a marvelous natural environment and a poorly documented but fascinating culture, Larea is a place with a lot to be seen and experienced past the farming of the mark of the teen that placed them on the economical map.

Geography

Larea is a very humid, forested area with little variance on elevation and fertile soil, and is one of the hottest regions in the archipelago.
Half of the west island is made of white forest terrain with the rest of the terrain supporting green vegetation.
Its beaches are muddy, with the waters around it being quite opaque, especially in the stretch between the two islands.

Natural Riches

The islands enjoyed a unique, diverse and intensely beautiful fauna and flora before the arrival of widespread trade brought exotic predators to it, causing irreparable damage to its ecosystem.

The purple berry

Larean forests are rich in wild mark of the teen bushes, a plant whose berries were found to be useful for manufacturing slippery jellies that dry very slowly and can be used as personal lubricants among other uses about two centuries ago.
Due to the plant's specific needs that make it difficult to grow in other islands, Larea is still sustaining itself largely thanks to the production of Mark of the Teen-related products, with a large percentage of the population dedicated to the farming and processing of the plant.

Native Fauna

Before the Larean started trading with the rest of the Trade Isles, Larea enjoyed being bare of khoms and lyraiks, giving space for many species of small critters to evolve with little competition, with the main predators being the hapists and hopists, and some herald's gnaws on the white forests of the west island. The whole family of Mjellic species and a variant of tark known as "Muddy tark" can be encountered in the wild only in these islands.

Hapist by Naelin

Ecological crisis

The Larean islands were once an ecological paradise free of major predators, which allowed many species there to evolve to prioritize reproductive selection over their abilities to escape predators.
Though the original settlers of Larea did generate some damage to the ecosystem by hunting, their nature-oriented culture and their diets allowed the creature species to stay afloat.
However, when sea travel and commerce eventually brought lyraiks, khoms and foreign societarian hunters to the island, the destruction of nests, displacement and hunting caused species such as the majestic lilac mjellic to become extinct in the wild, with merely a few individual surviving in private collections, where others were never to be seen again, wild or otherwise. Eventually, the Lareans took many strong measures to prevent the access and spread of predators on the island, slowing the decline and managing to restore the population of some species, though the khom are still a strong menace, counting on the thousands and potentially millions in the forests.
Nowadays Larea is the only area of the archipelago where lyraik pets are strictly prohibited, and their use is only allowed by official bodies that use trained kennets to hunt other invasive species.

The people of Larea

The Larean are the only known ethnicity in the archipelago to be conformed entirely of segmented societarians, with Stunveldt and Daltael also having them but sharing their land with other subspecies.
They are known to be reclusive, non-confrontational and profoundly respectful of the land and nature, growing their buildings and crops while keeping the disturbance of the land to a minimum. Since the discovery of purple jelly, a large percentage of the Larean population works in farming of the mark of the teen.