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commemorate - but no reputable scholar has ever been able to obtain
verifiable information about the event from Alorn priests or storytellers.
* This date is not a coincidence. Garion was born in 5354, so he is fourteen at
this point
(and so is Ce'Nedra). This is the year when the quest begins with Garion,
Polgara and
Belgarath leaving Faldor's farm to join Silk and Barak.
I GENERAL BACKGROUND AND GEOGRAPHY
. This brief section is really no more than a verbalization of the map cast in
the
fictionalized voice of the scholars at the University of Tol Honeth. Note that
we describe only half
a continent at this stage.
The western kingdoms comprise a large, rather heavily mountained
area lying between the Great Western Sea and the Sea of the East and
extending from the tropical jungles south of the Kingdom of Nyissa
northward all the way to the polar ice in the northern-most reaches
of Cherek, Drasnia and Gar og Nadrak. The area is roughly two
thousand leagues from north to south and perhaps fifteen hundred
leagues from east to west.
* We used the 'league' (three miles) fairly consistently.
Competent geographers generally agree that the mountains
which form the central spine of the continent are one chain running
from south to north and dividing at the headwaters of the Aldur
River to embrace the high Algarian plains and further to the north
the steppes of Drasnia. The contending view that the mountains are
two ranges running north to south and intersecting at the
headwaters of the Aldur is generally discredited.
* This is an absurdity, of course. Fun, though.
The western coastline of the continent is a moist, fertile plain
extending inland for varying distances ranging from one hundred
leagues in Sendaria to three hundred at the widest point in Arendia.
The average, however, would be closer to two hundred leagues.
From this plain rise quite gradually the western foothills to the
mountain range which bisects the continent. Portions of this coastal
plain are heavily forested - for example, the great forest in the north
of Arendia, the Forest of Vordue in northern Tolnedra, the
`romantically named Wood of the Dryads in southern Tolnedra and the
extensive forests - more properly jungles - in Nyissa.
To the south the mountains dominate the entire land mass.
ranging perhaps thirteen hundred leagues from the eastern coastline of
southern Cthol Murgos westward to the headwaters of the river of
the Serpent in Nyissa.
Lying in the mountains of southern Tolnedra is a large, fertile
basin roughly one hundred and fifty leagues by forty leagues. This
basin is dotted by the ruins of the Marag culture, and is,
unfortunately, totally uninhabitable.
Another interesting feature of the southern mountains is the
wasteland of Murgos, a vast and plain which appears to be a dry
lake bed or sea bottom.
The eastern coast of the continent is significantly less fertile than
is the west. The coastlines of Cthol Murgos, Mishrak ac Thull and