Cygian Strait

The Cygian Straight is a body of water that cuts between the continents of Khilgara to the south and Zythrina to the north. Although there is another strait between the same two bodies that moves between Oxbreach and Egrania, the Cygian Strait is considered to be of greater relevance and importance.

At about 20 miles from either point, it is the closest point between two distinct bodies of land. The waters are deep enough to permit any seaworthy vessel, as well as plentiful ocean life.

Although not completely immune to the natures of weather or Wahweth's fierce storms, the waters here are generally calm, and warm.

Like the rest of the world, the Cygian Strait is the result of the destructive work of The Fey Crisis. In an event called The Sundering, the one continent created by the Gods was torn apart into the three that now exist, with the land mangled along the way, at times with no rhyme or reason.

Although Cygia does not have claim to being the first or oldest nation on T'sara, with that honor going to Stoneheart, it was shortly after. Societies formed on either side of water, trying to form a cohesive society. There was a constant push and pull to have residents of one side migrate to the other in the name of reunification, but it never worked. For better or worse, the first Shogun, a shrewd Dwarf, brought both sides together under one name and banner of Cygia through brute force. Although he hailed from the northern lands, in the neighboring mountains, he declared Kyomune the capital as a sign of good grace and magnanimity.

From that point on, the water that cuts the nation of Cygia in half has appropriately been labeled the Cygian Strait.

While the strait is remarkable enough for being a point where a Sailor on the weather deck of a ship may stand on the weather deck and see either continent with a turn of their hand, there is a special point of the strait. The First Shogun of Cygia had The Lover Monuments created very early in The First Age, to commemorate the immense loss and separation from The Sundering, when the land itself was torn apart into what it is now by The Fey.

Although these monuments, of a male and female on either side reaching out to each other, were intended to represent anyone and everyone who has experienced painful separation, with no indication of the species the Lovers are, the Monuments have taken a special value for Sailors. They as a group are all too familiar with this feeling, and it is only at sea, between the statues, that one can see them both.

The statues stand at the port cities of either side of the Shogunate, Miha, and the capital city, Kyomune. Some have felt it appropriately to name the statues in either city accordingly, although the Cygians generally find this distasteful and against the intent of the Monument. Ferries travel between these two cities every day, or near to it, both for native Cygians, and travelers trying to find the narrowest point of water to cross continents.