This is an extremely rough sketch of Mars in 2450 AD, when the Guardians of the Twilight are fighting the War of the Blessed and the Damned.  I apologize for the crudity of it, but it was done on the Paint program which hasn’t been updated since Windows 94 came out, and I had to do it all in one night.

                The black looking city with the big skinny pyramid is Kit-Kearta (the City of Dreamers), and the pyramid is Du-ven-Ky (The Pyramid of Deception), and the red dot atop it is the Red Ruby of Valkor.  The wall surrounding the outskirts of the city is the wall of Du-Bockle-El (The Border of Hell). All of the land within the border is known as Il-Pae (The Oil Plains), and is where the Valkogs, the people who live in Kit-Kearta, draw most of their power. The towers in the north of Il-Pae are known as Du-Torne-Harloch (The Towers of the Horns). These towers were scaled up in order to stand out in the picture, but are in fact barely a fraction of the height of Du-ven-Ky. In fact, most all of the structures of Kit-Kearta are scaled up, since none of them would even come close to being as tall as any of the mountains to their west.

                The bold line that stretches from the western entrance of the City all the way around the north and down into the southwest is a road known as Reed-Canve (The Convoy Trail). The faint line that branches off of this road and keeps moving west into the mountains is the legendary footpath known as Reed-Hearde (the Road to Secrets).

                The large mountains just west of Kit-Kearta make up the range of active volcano-mountains known as Usubreas (the Unsurpassables). The two largest of these volcanoes are the northernmost and the southernmost ones, known as Nuor-Watte (the North Watcher) and Sut-Watte (the South Watcher), respectively. Sut-Watte is known, in legend, to be the home of Dunarchius, the Great Lieutenant, and the God of Mars. The dark spot on its southern side is his cave, a place which no man can reach without flight, and is sacred, since it is where the Mould, which shows the fate of Mars, is kept. In the west of Usubreas, where Reed-Hearde exits the mountains, there is a dark spot known as Du-Polte-Drek (the Dragon’s Chasm), and is where Dunarchius’ only son, Ordius, Lord of Courage, resides in his shame. In the east, if you look very closely, I tried to put in Cerbat-Mint, Diamondtop Mountain, formerly known as the Only Mountain, since it is the only peak in Usubreas without a crater. West of this, though I couldn’t fit it, is Nomad Valley.

                The lands north of Usubreas, between Nuor-Watte and the northern ice cap, are known as the Northern Waste. All of the land west of Usubreas is known as Des-El (Hell’s Desert). The large structure in the north of Des-El is the fortress of Korta-cues (Killer Point), and the large gun atop it is the fearful RE-59 Redeemer cannon.

                The smaller mountain range southwest of Usubreas, just below Des-El, is known as Dan-Minta (the Dune Mountains), and is where Dunarchius’ eldest daughter, Fiala, Goddess of Strength, once lived. The dark spot in the west of Dan-Minta is known to the Secret-Keepers as the Table of Endymion. It is actually a large mesa with four Dunes holding it up. The tallest of these mountains, in the north, was Artemis the strong; in the west was Diana of grace; in the south Selene the wise; and in the east Hecate the cunning. At the western edge of Dan-Minta was Mt. Latmus, which the Menae called home, and west of Latmus is the Pass of Eos, where Reed-Canve ends. Where Reed-Hearde exits the southern border of Dan-Minta is the mountain known as the fortress of Mint-ven-Wat (the Mountain of the Watch), where the second battle of the War of Fear and Panic was fought.

                South of the Dune Mountains lies the canyon known as Valles Marineris (the Mariner Valley). Between Dan-Minta and the Valles is the desert of Du-Fin-Des, which stretches from the farthest east of the region, between Dan-Minta and the canyon, past Sut-Watte, and curving up north to the southern wall of Du-Bockle-El. It is the hottest region on Mars, and life cannot exist there. There is, however, the Caltidreg (the Bottleneck): the very thin region between Mint-ven-Wat and the elevator into Valles Marineris. It is a small trench that is guarded from the heat of Du-Fin-Des by its depth, and an average human could survive within it. The Secret-Keepers use the Caltidreg to travel from the Valles to Dan-Minta.

Within the canyon of Valles Marineris lies the city of Kit-Hearde upon the waters of Lake Moonshine.  I’ll try to post a picture of the Secret-Keeper lands if I can. In the meantime I’ll tell you that the city is held up on stilts in the center of the lake, which is fed by a sacred waterfall northeast of the city whose water flows from Mars’ underground rivers (you can see the top of the falls in the picture. The lands in the north of the canyon are lands in which the Secret-Keepers raise their livestock, including cattle, birds, poultry, pigs, and other animals. This land is perfect for these animals because its soil is perfect for growing grass. The same goes for the southwestern portion of the canyon, which is used as farmland for food for the city. This is also where the Secret-Keepers conduct their experiments on plant life, in order to find what properties of what plants survive best in the Martian environment.

East of Lake Moonshine is a wasteland all the way out to the eastern edge of the Valles. However, moving out from the western edge of the lake is the river known as the Everwater, which leads into the Holy Mist, a region that takes up the entire western half of the Valles, and is covered in fog, which fills the canyon out to the far end and up over the cliff walls. The Secret-Keepers consider it holy ground, and do not travel there. They say that within the fog there is a second, larger, and more beautiful lake than Lake Moonshine, which they call the Everdise, or Martian Eden. It is also said that this lake has no bottom, but instead is the point at which all of the rivers which honeycomb Mars’ crust originate and end, hence the Secret Keepers nicknaming it the “Heart of Mars.”

All of these lands only take up a fourth of Mars’ surface. To the north of them is the ice cap, but all the other surrounding lands are known as the Black Hills. When the asteroid which reshaped Mars’ look crashed into the planet, it covered most of the world with huge amounts of molten lava drawn out from Mars’ mantle. The lands which were untouched, originally known as “the Appendix,” were spared because they are on the other side of the planet from where the asteroid struck. The Black Hills are made of continually erupting and cooling lava. The crater which the asteroid formed is now a giant ocean of lava on the backside of the planet.

Mars’ two moons are Phobos and Deimos, the former being the larger one. They were hollowed out and transformed into two giant sentinel fortresses, both equipped with RE-59 Redeemers, like Korta-cues. Phobos was renamed Korta-Fre (Point Fear), and Deimos was renamed Korta-Pec (Point Panic).

Again I apologize for the crudity of this sketch, but again, I had to use the age-old Paint program. I use to have a perfect sketch of Mars that I had spent a week on, but it was lost in the battle that was my high school years. I at least kept it long enough to memorize it, though.

Anyway, I hope this at least helps for when I’m updating my “Testament of Angels” excerpts. I’ll try to draw one freehand soon, so that I can label it and draw it to scale.