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Gar og Nadrak are rocky and tend to be backed by rolling steppes
only sparsely covered by rough grasses. The eastern foothills are but
lightly timbered with the exception of the vast forest of Nadrak in
the north.
In the central part of the continent, the mountains divide at the
Vale of Aldur and the division between them widens out into the
plains of Algaria, a vast grassland five hundred leagues square and
watered by the Aldur River which runs for eight hundred leagues
north to empty into the Gulf of Cherek through the marshes, known
as Aldurfens, at its mouth.
North of the Algarian plains, the Mrin river runs westward out of
the Drasnian hills to join with the River Atun to the west of Boktor.
Across the Gulf of Cherek from Drasnia lies the Cherek peninsula,
hereditary home of the Alorn people. With the exception of a fertile,
though hilly, basin south of Val Alorn, the peninsula is largely
mountainous, being an extension of the western range which lies to
the south of the Gulf of Cherek.
One distinctive feature of the Gulf of Cherek is the tidal bore
between the southern tip of Cherek and the northern-most tip of
Sendaria. This narrow place in the straits of Sendaria is known as the
Cherek Bore. Currents through the bore are so fierce that only the
most experienced navigators will attempt passage.
Westward, a hundred leagues off the coast lies the Isle of the
Winds, a rocky, inhospitable island beaten by endless gales from the
vast open ocean beyond and approachable only at the port of Riva.
The island is perhaps a hundred leagues wide by three hundred
leagues long. It is a tribute to the human spirit that this most
inhospitable place in all the world is in fact inhabited, however sparsely.
THE EMPIRE OF TOLNEDRA
TO THE IMPERIAL STUDENT*:
* The University of Tol Honeth supposedly exists for the sole purpose of
educating the
crown prince. Also, we decided to distinguish between 'your Highness' and 'your
Majesty'. ('Highness' for a prince or princess; 'Majesty' for a king or queen.)
This is not
consistently followed in the royal courts of this world.
Since this, your Highness, is likely to be your first exposure to the plain
truth about your country, it might be well to explain our motives in
presenting what is - at times - so unflattering a picture. Our study of
history has proved that he rules best who rules without illusions, and it
is the desire of the entire faculty to make your Highness the best ruler
possible. In the next several years YOUR Highness will study statecraft,
diplomacy politics, foreign relations and economic theory. As YOUR
education proceeds, your Highness will routinely receive copies Of all
but the most sensitive reports presented to your father, the Emperor.
Your Highness will, in the classroom, make Imperial decisions which
will then be compared with the actual decisions of the Emperor
himself, and extensive critiques will be conducted to evaluate those
decisions. It is therefore essential that now, at the very beginning of your
studies, you receive the clearest possible understanding of the genuine
realities which obtain in Tolnedra as well as in other kingdoms. This
survey, which is periodically updated, is designed to provide those
realities.