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« on: June 29, 2019, 12:36:55 AM »
This is an unfinished draft of a thing I wrote a while ago, it was meant to be part of a brief history of a world I work on from time to time (and actually attempted to run a mafia game in here once).
Isla Venarta is the island upon which the mighty Venartan Empire was constructed. The anchoring stone and perpetual safe haven throughout centuries of war and politics, a small island off the coast of Alatra gave refuge to a group of boats that would change the course of history.
The fall
Old Venarta as it is now known is the true ancestral home of the Venartan people. During the Cataclysm, this home was shaken to the ground and swept away, as the world changed form with unprecedented speed.
A small group of survivors sailed aimlessly across the vast ocean, and at their lowest ebb were washed ashore on a small island. The island was a lone mountain, standing bravely against the lashing waves of the sea.
Making shelter and safeguarding their last reserves of food, the survivors made a desperate attempt to make this place their home. Exploration revealed that the far side of the island, which was no more than 5 miles across at its widest point, was less windswept and had a coastline with calmer seas than the ferocious northern shore. Here, in the light forests at the foot of the mountain the survivors built their new homes.
A new home
The seas provided adequate fishing, and the forests held a good amount of wildlife, and the survivors' camp took on the look of a frontier settlement from their homeland. Wooden huts roofed with grass, leaves, or occasionally tile made from the abundant clay found by the river to the east set in a rough circle about a central meeting plaza, which here was simply a rough grassy patch with a permanent fireplace.
Tracks lead away from the settlement the short distance south to the coast, east to the river, and crept northward into the forests on the mountainside. At the shore a space was set aside for the construction of small boats to replace the ships the survivors arrived in, which were damaged beyond hope of repair. These boats were used for catching the more numerous offshore fish, to sustain the town. The boats were launched and landed on a simple sandy beach, sheltered by promontories of land on either side.
The tracks to the north were used by folk heading to the woods to hunt and forage, and by woodcutters bringing fresh timber from the forest back to town, or down to the boat-building efforts at the beach. There were some huts further up the mountainside for these kinds of people to use for shelter and rest whilst away from town.
With being away from town came danger, as the local wildlife was not all placid deer. Large, fearless eagles had been rumoured to attack folk who wandered too far up the mountain, and a number of wolves had been known to like the taste of human flesh as much as deer in the early days of the camp. Stone weaponry and organised defence had been enough to teach the wolves that the camp wasn't a good place to find food, but they were still brave enough to attack a lone hunter on occasion.
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