Geography

The hyperboresperic steppe is set apart from the world by the mountains of the Girēḡōtana and the Diona. In the northwest, the tall mountains of the Girēḡōtana come from the east and then dip southwest, passing under the older and lower range of the Diona.

The mountains touch at the bend, forming a narrow gap that further separates the north from the south. East of the meeting point, the Diona mountains go on, coiling over the Girēḡōtana to form a high plateau with a steep rise and waterfalls at the eastern mouth. This pocket valley is called Tiblēna in Pre-Kaddesol . It is two hundred and thirty miles long and is the ancestral homeland of the Gaēgatō people, who brought the language into the north.

Mountains

Geologically, the Diona mountains are the older of the two ranges.

These mountains formed when the arctic and boresperic plates pushed up against each other during the early development of the world. They pressed together for a long time and raised very tall mountains. Then, they split apart and opened a rift valley that grew into a sea. The mountains that rose on the arctic plate form the Diona mountain range. The mountains that rose from the boresperic plate form the southwestern foothills of the Girēḡōtana mountains.

Following their separation, the boresperic and arctic plates shifted significantly in relative position so that when they again pushed together it was over a much wider area. This second contact raised the more recent mountains of Girēḡōtana range, which are now subsequently much broader and taller than their older counterparts in the Diona.

These two ranges effectively separate the hyperboresperic steppe to their north from much of the more southerly continents. This isolation allowed human and animal populations to develop and flourish for millennia without significant influence from the south.

Gaps of Tiblēna

The Girēḡōtana mountains are extremely difficult to traverse and safe passage is only possible at a few points where the gaps have an altitude low enough to allow occasional safe passage during the summer months. While people can traverse the mountains, they typically don’t.

The Diona mountains are much lower and more weathered. It is difficult but not impossible to summit these from the southern slope, even in the winter. However, going past the summit is much more difficult. Long periods of glaciation in the north have flattened the foothills of the northslope of the Diona, leaving steep cliff-faces that proved sufficiently problematic as to discourage further migration from Tiblēna down into the river country and the hyperboresperic steppe.

There are three gaps or passes in Tiblēna: the Kiēgatōhru, the Kihrutlē, and the Tibwikahru.

Kiēgatōhru

Kiēgatōhru, as its name implies, is the gap through which the Gaēgatō people came when they first settled in Tiblēna. Cultural memory preserves Kiēgatōhru as a point of origin for the Gaēgatō, but provides no knowledge of the nature of the lands on the other side of the mountains. The gap is narrow and winds up from the southern vales, through the Girēḡōtana mountains and then comes down near the southeastern edge of Tiblēna.

Cultural and archaeological evidence would seem to indicate that during a particularly warm period for the climate, a single population came through the gap. When the climate normalized, human traffic between the southern vales and Tiblēna abruptly ceased and has not begun again since.

Kihrutlē

The least accessible gap into Tiblēna is Kihrutlē or more poetically the dusk-gap, which lies at the northwestern end of the valley. It was formed by the meeting of the Diona and Girēḡōtana mountains. The gap is narrow, much narrower than that of Kiēgatōhru. Knowledge of its existence and whither to look for its entrance is not very extensive and few people outside of those who dwell on the western rim of Tiblēna are ware of its existence.

The western side of Kihrutlē descends into a broad stretch three hundred miles wide that runs between the Diona mountains to the north and the much lower southwestern stretch of the Girēḡōtana mountains.

To date, none of the Gaēgatō people have attempted western migration.

Tibwikahru

The most accessible gap into Tiblēna is Tibwikahru in the northeast, where the valley widens and opens onto the hyperboresperic steppe. The word tibwikahru itself is the generic term in Pre-Kaddesol for the mouth of a valley. While there are a number of small valleys and dales in Tiblēna, this is the one they think of as the ideal valley-mouth, the one by which one might measure the others.

That said, it is not an easy passage from Tiblēna through the Tibwikahru.

Lakes of Tiblēna

There are two major lakes in Tiblēna: Kibrila and Kiplaḡebrila.

Kibrila

In the north of the region where Tiblēna begins its decline into the valley-mouth of Tibwikahru, there is a lake carved out by glaciers pushing down from the Diona mountains. This is the larger of the two lakes in Tiblēna and while it is not so wide that one cannot see the mountains on the other side, it is wide enough to obscure the farther shore.

Due to the geological history of a rift valley, Kibrila preserves a number of freshwater fish, in particular fish more common in saltwater who have since evolved to survive in the declining salinity of mountain lakes and streams. Settlements of the Gaēgatō along the shores of Kibrila subsist on trout, rock crab, and grayling in addition to the usual meat and forage.

The eastern shore of Kibrila slopes up from long shallows as this part of the lake was formed by a ridgeline stretching into the adjacent mountains of the Diona ranges. Part of this ridge has breached and the famous waterfalls of Tibwikahru are fed from Kibrila.

Kiplaḡebrila

In the northwest of Tiblēna, well south of the Kihrutlē, lies the smaller of the two lakes: Kiplaḡebrila. Like Kibrila, Kiplaḡebrila was also formed by a period of glaciation though the glaciers that formed it were pushing down from the Girēḡōtana mountains rather than the Diona.

While the initial shape of the lake was much larger than that of the Kibrila, there was less build up of land around the mouth of Kiplaḡebrila, which resulted in its draining to its present size. The region to the west of the lake was originally under water and subsequently has much younger growth of trees and the land is much flatter leading up to the steep northeastern slopes of the Girēḡōtana mountains.

The eastern shore of Kiplaḡebrila is hill country for a couple dozen miles before the land falls off into the lower plateau and the northern mouth of Kiēgatōhru.

Rivers of Tiblēna

Tiblēna divides into an upper vale in the west and a lower vale in the east, which is itself not much more than a couple hundred feet in elevation above the hyperboresperic steppe.

The upper vale centers on lake Kiplaḡebrila. The river Ngaotla flows from the northeastern corner of the vale and twists a winding course south, back north and then around against southeast to issue into the lake. At its southern reach, it is met by the river Taotlaēga which begins in the southwest and curves round the steep ridges of a southern dale. The river Maotlaḡak begins in the southeast of the the upper vale and flows north into the lake. The river Kaotladir issues from lake Kiplaḡebrila and flows down into the lower vale.

The lower vale centers on the lake Kibrila. Most of the rivers in the lower vale are tributaries of the river Taotlahal which begins in the southwest and winds through the vale to flow into lake Kibrila. The river Kaotladir runs along a narrow dale until it meets the Taotlahal midvale. The rivers Kanḡabal and Nanḡaēga meet it on the northerbank while the rivers Maotladi, Kaotlabal, and Tanḡahwu meet it from the southern bank. The river Kaotlahwētuli flows from the lake Kibrila over a waterfall north into the hyperboresperic steppe.