GEOGRAPHY
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GEOGRAPHY |
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This page is divided into the following sections, in order of increasing distance from Moscow:
Click on the section names to return to the top of the page. History | Society | People | Powers | Other Things MOSCOWThe City of Moscow is built on the northern shore of the Moscow River, which here flows roughly north-east to south-west. All houses in Moscow, even those of peasants, are separate from one another and have their own fenced-off gardens, even if small. Only the very, very poorest live in single rooms in a larger building. Streets are wide and paved with logs and boards, although the state of repair of these obviously varies greatly depending on where in the city they happen to be. Only in a very few areas have the street layouts grown up organically rather than having been planned in advance, so in most places it is not too hard to find ones way about. Moscow is hot and humid in the summer, with frequent heat-waves in Abgust (August). This time of year is culturally slack, but politically heated. In mid-S'ept'abr there is usually a warm Grannies Summer before winter sets in. The temperature is usually below zero from Okt'abr to Mart', with crisp and cold winters. The last of the snow finally melts in Apr'el; death by falling icicle is not uncommon during this time. Fogs from the River are common in spring and winter. Moscow has a very good sewerage system - much better than the level of technology in the rest of the city might indicate. This is as a result of the long ago War of Filth with the Underwater Realm.
THE UNDERWATER REALM (PODVODNO)In the Moscow River by which the Kremlin sits is found the Underwater Realm, ruled by the Water Tsarina [the equivalent of Moire and Rebma]. The Underwater Realm is older than the Forest, and so also older than the Muscovite Rus as it currently exists. Because the rivers freeze over in the winter, the Underwater Realm can only be visited in the summer months. It is inhabited by Vodyanye and Rusalka, male and female water spirits, and extends out along many of the rivers that run through the Forest, although not all of the waters of the Rus form part of the Underwater Realm. The Underwater Realm has a strange economy based on the lives of surface-dwellers who are taken by - killed by - the Rusalki in the spring. Their lives feed the powers of the Underwater Realm, while the bodies of those taken automatically become zalozhniy, the Unhallowed Dead, and act under the control of the Vodyanye as slaves of the Realm. Among other things the zalozhniy tend the vast underwater herds of the Water Tsarina. Because of their 'harvesting' of life, there have been conflicts between the Underwater Realm and the Muscovite Rus over this. Although these have been largely inconclusive, Ivan II was able to reach an agreement with the Water Tsarina, perhaps aided by his seduction of her, that restricts her to the taking of the lives only of condemned criminals and people far away from the heart of the Rus. As a powerful entity in her own right, it is speculated that the Water Tsarina is like the Firebird, and can grant the power to work Miracles to her subjects, along with, perhaps, other less well understood powers. At the very least the Water Tsarina seems to have power over the waters she rules, and can make them rough, or calm them, as she wishes. Those who serve her often have lesser versions of such powers. The Water Tsarina can also grant people the power to survive underwater. In addition to this it is rumoured that the Underwater Realm is well-defended by an extensive system of underwater fortifications.
THE FOREST (POOSHCHA)Dense woodland where the normal rules of distance and location do not apply, the Forest is an extreme version of the 'normal' forests one might find within a given Clearing. The trees of the Forest are older and thicker than those of a 'normal' Forest, and the light there is dimmer, even is the brightest sunshine. At night it is utterly dark. In the winter the snow is always deeper in the Forest than outside it. Clearings within the Forest are effectively separate worlds, each isolated from the next by the largely impenetrable Forest itself, but also linked together by the Forest. There are ponds and lakes within the Forest, which are also Clearings in their own right. Clearings - worlds - can be expanded and changed, but there will still, generally, be woods separating them from other clearings. The laws of nature, rules of Magic and so on vary from Clearing to Clearing too. There are numerous animals that live within the Forest, of both normal and empowered types. The normal animals that live there are all ones that can live with the trackless nature of the Forest, that is, things that do not rely on burrows or other fixed homes. As such the Forest and the Clearings within it as a whole are equivalent to the shadows cast by the Pattern of Amber. The Forest itself, separating the various Clearings, is the equivalent of shadow veils, but shadow veils which are an environment in their own right, rather than something one simply passes through to get from place to place. Non-Muscovites can go into the Forest a little way without getting lost, and also follow the banks of any rivers from Clearing to Clearing, but if they lose sight of the Clearing or the River, and there are no Marks to guide them, then they will wander until they die, or are led out. It is possible to cut wood in the Forest; the trees do grow back. However, the Forest and its creatures do react negatively to people cutting too much wood. Compasses and other such navigational devices do not work in the Forest. The foliage of the trees blocks out direct sight of the sun and the stars, and the trees are very hard to climb. Even if one does climb them and manage to get a look at what is there, the featureless Forest canopy is hard to use to navigate. Regardless of how close one may be to a clearing, one cannot see anything other than trees. The same applies to flight over the Forest. If one loses sight of a Clearing then it is gone, and you are lost, unless one has navigated the Maze of Trees. Far from Moscow the Forest changes, becoming colder, or hotter, or wetter, or dryer, with strange trees and stranger people, but all still part of the Forest as a whole. They also do not all speak Russian, with their languages becoming more and more incomprehensible the further from Moscow one goes. Also, the way things work varies more and more the further one goes from Moscow, with more strange devices and so on becoming possible the further out one goes. Time, however, always flows at the same rate regardless of where one is. There is also no graduation of Reality as there is in the Amber universe. Everywhere is as Real as everywhere else. Perhaps this derives from Ivan I putting his life into everything. Sometimes, usually in the summer, fires sweep through the Forest, burning for weeks and incinerating Clearings while forcing Forest creatures out into them at the same time.
RIVERSMoscow is built on the northern bank of the wide, slow-flowing Moscow River, the largest river in the Forest. This rises as a multitude of un-navigable streams far away in the depths of the Forest, and is also fed from various ancient lakes that existed before the creation of the Forest. As they flow through the Forest the streams merge and become rivers, then the mighty Moscow itself. Far downstream from Moscow the river splits and divides again, more and more, until it is lost in un-navigable streams and lakes deep in the Forest. The navigable parts of the Moscow and its tributaries link the Rus, and indeed define it. [The Rivers through the Forest are effectively shadow paths.] There are many major tributaries of the Moscow. These include the Volga, Dniepr, Ob, Don, Yenisei and Lena, but there are many others. The Rivers are particularly significant because they are the only way that people who have not navigated the Maze of Trees can travel from Clearing to Clearing, sometimes along the riverbank, but generally by ship or boat. Because of this, Moscow has a fairly extensive river navy, as well as picket ships that guard the river approaches to Moscow and the Rus both up- and down-steam. This is commanded by Konstantin Ivanovitch Ferapont. Naval vessels tend to be up to forty metres long, with up to three masts and a hundred crew, and be armed with catapults and a battering ram [much like real world Cossack galleys]. Some are propelled by both sails and oars. Because of the threat posed by what can come up the Rivers, settlements of the Rus that lie on the banks of a River tend to be better defended than those entirely surrounded by the Forest. There are legends of powerful creatures living in far-off parts of the River. Strukis, the Great Pike [a Polish legend] is the best-known of these. It is possible that this is one of the Beast Tsars. It is known that other river systems exist in other parts of the Forest. These are similar to that of the Moscow but none are so extensive or so navigable. THE RUSA general name given to all of the lands around Moscow with which Moscow has trade and over which Moscow, to some extent, rules. [Equivalent to the Golden Circle, only with more central control being exerted.] Settlements in the Rus include Novgorod, Sergiev Possad, Suzdal, 'Tver and many others. Most cities in the Rus are centred on a Kremlin which, as well as being a fortress, houses the rulers and nobility of the city, and usually a church or cathedral. A section of the Muscovite Rus based on the former Mongol realm and ruled directly by Ivan rather than through the Boyars makes up the Oprichnina. Nowhere in the Forest has a level of technology higher than that which existed in the real world in about the year 1700, though certain types of Magic or Miracles can be used to give the effects of a higher level of technology. Gunpowder does exist and function in a few places in the Rus. It does not work in Moscow or anywhere close to it.
THE MISTY MARSHVery far away from Moscow the Forest gradually turns into the Misty Marsh. This is a featureless and treacherous swamp, in which it is very easy to become lost even for Muscovites who have navigated the Maze of Trees. It is permanently hazy there, varying from a light mist to a pea-soup fog, but never clearing up entirely.
THE SEAIt is rumoured that beyond the Misty Marsh lies the Sea, an inconceivably vast expanse of water [the equivalent of the Abyss]. PEKLOPeklo is the afterlife and land of the dead. Very far away, perhaps across the Sea, Peklo is a warm place where tired souls can forget the cold and unpleasantness of their lives and make happy afterlives for themselves, although it is alleged that they occasionally return to help relatives in need. The distance of Peklo from the land of the living is so far that only a dead and properly buried spirit can make it there, though there are legends of great heroes also making the trip. As far as is known, Peklo sits atop a huge crystal mountain. The dead are thus given amulets containing clippings of owl talons to help them climb to it into Peklo proper. Back to the Top |