When I left it last time I had mapped out the topography of the Meniri Mountains as they exist on the campaign map of the Borderlands. For a refresher …
At some point in the future I’ll do a Climate of the Borderlands series but for the moment just assume that that there is going to be wet ocean air coming in from the east, over the campaign area and then it’ll get broken, for the Borderlands, on the High Meniri Mountains. That’s going to make for a wet region and that’s interesting for games. For the Koppen nerds out there, I love you all, its a Cfa region.
The winds in the Summer are going to be coming off the ocean and breaking on that N/S stretch of the Meniri’s creating rainfall on Borderlands side and leaving a rainshadow for the opposite side. It’s also going to mean a rainshadow for … this will be easier to show with a sketch
Areas in blue will have higher rainfall and areas in red will have less as those ocean winds shed their water on the eastern sides of the ranges. Now that doesn’t mean their going to get no rain in the red sections, just less than in the blue sections. So we’re going to find most of the trees and greenery in the blue areas and more less in the red with the exception of the river valleys.
A rough example of what if might look like in a Red area compared to ….
a blue area …
Vegetation
The vegetation of this region is going to be divided up based on that above rainfall and the elevation. Common trees are going to be the Atlas Cedar, Spanish Fir, Maritime Pine, Holly Oak, and the Cork Oak. The majority of trees are going to be in the 0m to 2000m (6561’) range, above that is going to be low thorny type vegetation. On the drier sections its likely to be purely low thorny vegetation except where there is abundant water such as the river valleys.
Here is what the 0m to 2000m (6561’) range bands, where the trees will be located, look like.
Upwards of 2000m (6561’) it just going to be low thorny type shrubs.
Mundane Wildlife
In Ecology of Aurepos the author talks about estimating creature population with historical data. I recommend subscribing to his Patreon for more details and a wide selection of articles in this vein. But I’ll quote from it for the following …
As of the year 2022, human beings have killed off 83% of all wildlife on planet Earth. Since vast tracts of Earth are still wilderness, with abundant fauna, the amount of wildlife in settled areas is much less than 17% of what it used to be. In fact, the actual amount of wildlife in nature is so great as to be almost inconceivable to the modern city-dweller.In the seminal book Lives of Game Animals, Earnest Thompson Seton extrapolated from horse and cattle densities on the Great Plans and compared that to the bison herd estimates of early observers in order to estimate the number of game animals on the Great Plains. He calculated that there were 60 million bison, 45 million antelope, 40 million white-tailed deer, 10 million mule deer, 10 million elk, 2 million bighorn sheep, and 1 million moose, for a total of 168 million big game animals.
The High Meniri Mountains are going to have a diverse selection of animals that live in them. I can draw directly from the Atlas mountain range for what kind of wildlife would settle here but I’ll change the names up a little bit to keep them in setting. Meniri Macaque, Borderland Leopards, Meniri Elk, Ammos Sheep, Azen, or Dwarven, Gazelle, Northern Bald Ibis, Meniri Mountain Viper. This is in addition, and to replace, the creatures that you’ll find on page 244 of the ACKS Core Book.
Also common, not so in out world since they were driven extinct, in the Meniri would be the Meniri Bear, Auran Elephant, Aurochs, Bubal Antelope, Meniri Wild Ass (Donkey) and the Khemesh Lion
In the next article I’ll get into the geology of the region, namely where the good stuff can be found to dig out of the ground.
Excellent!