The Causeway is an elevated stone road that runs for a thousand miles throughout Arneria. Its structure is a wall, a waterway, a haven from wildlife, and a bridge to the west. Entire cities exist on this monumental feat of Bat’yan and Beylik engineering.
The Causeway is the symbol of Arneria and the first thing about it that most people think of. Its western end joins Arneria with Allemance, as a 6-mile bridge across the Strait of Glass. It snakes through the Bat’yan rainforest, across the thundering Attamek river, and all the way through the Beylik desert in the east.
Monument to Collective Might
After the Attamek Wars ended in 212, beys who weren’t executed during the Unknown combined their power to form a single Beylik. Meanwhile, Bat’yan datus were eager for an enduring symbol of peace. Both sides of the newly anointed Arneria sought a way to unite their people with collective effort.
The Causeway began construction around the end of the 200s. After decades of research into physics, magic, and logistics, the effort com- menced to erect this road of lasting friendship. Every man, woman and child on the continent labored for over 60 years to make it real. By 366, the ones who drafted the original blueprints were all gone. Babies born at the start of its construc- tion were old men and women. But a lifetime of collective tenacity had forged a bond between the Bat’yan and Beylik, and the Causeway would stand for over a thousand years.
Safe Above the Canopy
The road’s elevation varies in each region based on its purpose. Through most of the Bat’yan, The Causeway is one hundred feet high, peeking over the rainforest canopy. The top is accessible via staircases and ramps every few miles that climb up the side of the wall. Some larger towns even build cable elevators, which haul food from farmland below up to the towns on the side of the road.
The Bat’yan’s Causeway is covered in moss and foliage that covers the side of the ancient stone structure. Wide arches stretch across the horizon to allow rainforest herds to move underneath. The road bridges rivers and keeps the residents of Causeway towns safe from the predators lurking in the depths of the rainforest.
Water Highway
After crossing the waters of the Attamek, the Causeway drives through the southern desert of the Beylik. Here, it serves a crucial role in delivering water to towns in the south and central regions of the homeland. Without the Causeway, much more of the Beylik would be uninhabitable.
Within the stone columns of the structure, water is pumped from aquifers deep beneath the sands. It’s forced upward into an aqueduct made of white stone, constructed on a shady level underneath the main road. This engineered river runs all through the Beylik, replenished whenever the Causeway passes through a major underground source of water.
Cities of the Road
Settlements of every size are alongside wider stretches on the road. Every few miles, a cluster of houses forms a village around one of the Causeway’s stairways to the ground. Some of them never touch the ground at all, sustaining themselves with traded goods and complex hanging gardens. The Causeway is never a lonely walk.
A few locations on the Causeway’s structure support sprawling cities. The road splits into a ring that surrounds farmland, and the roadside is packed with structures. They take up every inch of allowed space, and angled wooden supports allow them to dangle past the edge of the stone wall. Buildings also scatter out under the structure and everywhere in between.
Causeway Culture
The thousand miles of road are how the Bat’yan and Beylik to mix. The cultures blend on the road; some desert towns resemble barangays and some aghas oversee villages under rainforest canopy. The border of the Attamek isn’t as strict as it once was, and the two peoples are integrating more quickly than ever since the Pilgrimage.
The Causeway makes transit through Arneria possible for commoners who couldn’t make the journey otherwise. This freedom and mobility has made the towns and cities around the Causeway a third distinct culture from the rest of the Bat’yan and Beylik.
Arnerians on the Causeway have more interactions with Allemagnians and other foreigners. This worldly influence is distinguishes them from anyone from a Küzmek caravanserai or a barangay deep in the forest.
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