Horselands

Geography

The Horselands are a vast hill-strewn space of semiarid grassland. Traveling further to the north, northwest the Horselands abut the Sea Bastion mountains and their ice crowned peaks. Here the plains at the base of the Sea Bastions are between 5,000 and 6,000 feet above the sea level. This decreases to about 1,500 feet at their southwestern reaches and continues to decline till it meets the rocky shores of the Roiling Sea and the great cliffs that line it.

Much of it are golden hills that roll gently making travel both possible and even fairly pleasing. Roads slide in and around these gently rolling hills where they some times meet cool stream and small rivers that pour in from the feet of the Sea Bastions before tipping over the edge of the stone walls that guard the Horselands from the Roiling Sea. Unfortunately, the Roiling Sea does not drag much in the way of rain to the Horselands and their altitude leaves them fairly arid which in turn makes the soil poor for farming in most places.

History

The Horselands have had a very thin history since it was named. Populated mostly by early settlers from the Summerlands only to find that the entire region was patently awful for farming. Still it has seen waves of refugees and settlers who come down from Loch Bán, over the Washer's Shoal and across the Crescent Bay for various reasons or another. The Grass-Sea has always been rustic compared to most areas of the Inis and the population unaccustomed to war.

During the end of the Age of Summer, even, there was little that changed in the Horselands. Yes, many went north again to fight, but many still stayed. Something about the area was more home to them than the distant lands of the Ardruids. So, even as black clouds poured out over their hills, life carried on as normal in the Horselands.

The War of Spears did see some fighting rage along the roads and hills of the Grass-Sea. With a few token efforts by Lwyg-Rath and North-the-Lake sending warriors down around the western edge of the Sea Bastions to try and outflank Manannan Port during its battles with the Fwoarians. However, its a long journey and more than once they were delayed by the superior mobility of the Horselands riders until winter and starvation set in.

Tragedy was not yet done with the Horselands, however. Nearly four hundred years after the War of Spears came the aptly named Year of Invasions where a war host of Fomorii crashed into the southern shores of the Inisa. These cruel butchers rampaged across the southern holdings with the Horselands his especially hard. While the caern-raths survived, many people in the Horselands still resent the so-called Sea-Raiders and regularly commit to "hunting" parties who scour the hinterlands of the Sea Bastions for any Remnant Tribes.

To date, its gone back to the sleepy, windswept peace that its people adore. Quietly smoking their pipes on the porches and watching the charcoal clouds writhing in the sky before tending to their chores for the day.

Ecosystem

There is not much here in the way of natural predators. Most of the ecosystem rises and falls wit the natural cycle of the seasons with much of the plant and animal life disappearing in the winter. However, there are some few treacherous fey and packs of wolves do sometimes roam the northern areas.

Through out the Horselands freezing winters and cool summers prevail, with very little rain and humidity, strong winds and sudden changes in temperature. As expected very little rainfall occurs here and even then the majority of the rain comes with the autumn and the onset of winter, save for some places further to the northeast. In its more southernly reaches people will see an increase to these small rainstorms and there is even a brief growing season for the few subsistence farmers that gather around the Caern-Raths and Unknown there.

Flora & Fauna

Naturally, the Grass-Sea is home to various kinds of tall grasses, medium prairie grasses, short grasses and bunchgrass forming a diverse carpet of browns, golds and greens across the undulating hillsides. These grasses intermingle with forbs and even the few rare yucca plants that jut up in loose formations atop the hills.

The Horselands are home to sizeable herds of pronghorns, deer and even elks towards the Sea Bastions. These timid beasts sometimes graze along the shaggy brown bó that the farmers raise here. Then, there are of course, the horses that course out over the open plains in small herds. Stout and strong, though relatively diminutive, the Horselands horses are fairly rare and difficult to breed with entire generations of families learning how to tame and raise the beasts.

There are few predators, but those that are tend to come in the form of small wolf packs stalking the pronghorns and elks. Barghest creatures wait along roadsides to waylay the unwary traveler and other more puckish entities cavort at "fey raths" or hollow hills that they inhabit.

Localized Phenomena

Capall Gatherings - There are, as one would expect, menhir circles secreted away in some of the nooks between hills across the Horselands. Some of them are dedicated to Rhianni the Horse Mistress or Macha of the Red Roan. At or around the solstice of Bealltuinn Feis the wild horses of the land seem to congregate at these locations. No one is quite sure why. Perhaps they are called there by ancient magics or perhaps its some innate knowledge that these Ardruids protect their kind. Some scholars suspect it is a latent form of worship. Those that have witnessed it say that the horses simply stand in a circle around the stones, heads bowed, before wandering off one by one a few hours later.