Map 40 - Ondeet
From The Guildworld Almanac of Geographical Trivia and Vital Knowledge, e.c.1405 edition
Several centuries ago when people from the south and east traveled here, they would ask "what do you call this place?" The locals spoke a language with very uncommon orthography - written letters and combinations sounded a lot different than much of the rest of the continent. Too, the place names were many-syllable constructs. So a typical answer might be "one says Pond'TAR-lay-chicz-ah-noscz-IE-lay-tor, even though you see it spelled like it is Pehntor Leigncika Nozeleeghtur". This would be rattled off quickly and would make little sense to a non-native, and the bulk of the utterance would seem unpronounceable. But the phrase always started "One says..." so the term for the whole region became just that (mercifully short and pronounceable) -- "Ondeet". Today's Ondeetien people speak a greatly different tongue, so the old mistake doesn't even seem unusual to the locals.
The old tongue was sort of like our French... SORT OF, so don't think my labeling wrong. It's part Old Ondeet, and Latter Ondeet and Middle Ondeet are each different as well. Meanings may not be at all what they seem. But if you speak a little French, you will be able to pronounce places here. *I* certainly am not going to correct you!
As for the land itself - when the lot was cast I received this territory #40 that's a red tint below. Wanting to see clearly what lay across the modest ocean to the west I split and rejoined the world map to be centered on Ondeet, and I sketched in some climate clues. The orange tint bands would likely be drier than average, and the green ones wetter. Super-generalized prevailing winds are the arrows. This is half the width of the Standard Guildworld World Map, since 8000x4000 tends to make my laptop balk.
Ondeet-GuildworldWindAndWetness.jpg
Ondeet stretches from maybe 25 to 70 degrees latitude - well longer than Chile. Our northern cape is similar to the northern edge of Iceland or Norway. Indeed - here's an overlay of Guildworld with Earth, showing biomes.
Ondeet-GuildworldBiomeComparison.jpg
Not that ANY of us are bound to take notice of the similarities - the comparison is merely to spark ideas. For instance a lot of grain would figure into one cultural idea I have for Ondeet, and it looks perfectly plausible for my central area to be decently well watered, trailing off to maybe grasslands at the south. I wouldn't put desert on my east border unless Amonite wanted 37 to be dry along there too. It would make sense for there to be a warm current like Earth's Gulf Stream pushing mild climate further up my east coast than otherwise might be expected - maybe the coastal areas are more like the UK and Ireland than Canada's Newfoundland. The winds make it look like a triangle trade route for sailing ships would work, southerly along [What Shall We Call This Continent?!?], west toward Shireland or Kettlelea, then up past Khagramor to home.
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Glad I could be of some inspiration, can't wait to see what you come up with! And your Ondeet dwarves sound really interesting too, looking forward to some lore.
Keep up the good work!
