New update, and likely the last; giving the legend and lower map border space some of that ornamentation I considered previously. This has been pretty interesting to do as a learning experience, though I think the next map I do I'll probably be going back to a hand-drawn style for the map itself.
### Latest WIP ###
prymeMapJan2018-final.png
And of course, a final lore post, this time covering the mentioned Stone Forests in Grimpati.
Notes: The Grimpati Stone Forests
In northern Pryme, bordering the coastline of the Great Silt Sea, is a region called Grimpati, filled with great forests of large stone trees. More remarkable than their mere existence is the fact that they seem to grow, and new stone trees sprout, despite showing no sign of being actual plants or being comprised of anything but gray stone. Fragments broken off of existing trees seem to be the source of the new sprouts, but whatever mechanism allows this is unknown to any scholars in Pryme at the present. Ordinary plants and trees coexist with the stone flora, but struggle in the region somewhat. Grimpati receives frequent and often heavy rainfall, but coming off the Great Silt Sea this rain is laden with said body of water’s silt, leaving gritty gray-black trails behind wherever drops land. The silt present in the rainfall is significant enough to hamper but not prevent the growth of normal plants and agriculture (having proven quite unable to eat stone, the locals persist in the latter anyways); the stone trees don’t seem to mind it at all and thus tend to comprise a majority of large ‘plant’ growth in Grimpati, should an onlooker include them in the category.
Although the difficulties in agriculture have resulted in the region becoming rather peripheral to much of Pryme’s politics and trade, it is nonetheless of relevance due to its local gemstones. Grimpati is a plentiful source of both diamonds and topaz, and though not the sole major source of the former is of the latter. Western Grimpati, bordering the coastline of the Great Silt Sea, is part of a kingdom known as Glamis, a monarchy with its capital at the inland city of Glamerand, on the banks of the River Korse. Glamis culturally inherits much from the Sethuli of generations past, having originally been a smaller dependent tributary of the Sethuli civilization before said state was destroyed by the Black Fleet. Being comprised of much more inland infrastructure than Sethuli proper, Glamis had more left with which to rise from the ashes, enjoying greater prominence than they had ever had before. Despite this, however, the kingdom is often looked at as backwards by wealthier and more developed polities such as the Emerald Islands or the Korod Kingdoms - the stony rainfall hampers Glamisian attempts towards greater prosperity. Nonetheless, as a prime source of diamonds they are integrated tightly into numerous major trade networks, sufficiently so that they are still very much considered part of modern society. This is distinction is particularly relevant considering the Krontian dominions to their immediate east, the other major state of the stone forests.
The Krontian dominions are a loose federation of states and clans nominally sworn to a single ruler in the Stone King, though in practice most Stone Kings must struggle for every inch of real political control. Unlike Glamis, they are not cultural descendants of the Sethuli, and their ways and norms are native to the stone forests. However, they are also comparatively primitive in terms of their technology and society, and attempts by some Krontians to modernize or develop new ways of their own are often stymied by the decentralized political structure and opposition from a myriad of competing traditionalists (who also of course squabble with one another over said traditions). Until the invention of the Dual-Stone Compass, the Krontian dominions were of relatively little relevance to the rest of Pryme, but the discovery in the Compass of a massively more useful working of topaz than any known before has changed that in recent times with an enormous surge in demand for the stones, as Krontian land holds almost all of the continent’s topaz supply. It remains to be seen for certain whether the sudden foreign interest will be the catalyst for real, lasting long-term changes in the Krontian dominions, but it seems more likely by the day.
