Enter the Civilization Age

300 Million Years Post-Establishment + 40,000 years

This map shows minimum extent of summer ice, and would be covered in snow except at equatorial regions in winter. A yellow filter applied over the center of the map indicates where solar radiation is most intense and dangerous along the equator, making passage by day difficult for sapient species, and where only the most specialized people can survive year-round. The atmosphere has thinned as the magnetic field of Serina has disappeared, and now provides much less protection from the sun's rays. 

40,000 years after the turn of 300 million years marks a major milestone in Serina, as for the first time several independent civilizations rise concurrently across the world and advance out of the stone age. A vast, interconnected world of people and cultures now stretches across Serinarcta, but by this time an empire that once spanned the southern continent has already fallen, its legacy left in ruin. 

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Notable Locations

Sanctuary Crater: Home of the settled valley leucrocotta and many whisperwings. Highly productive farmland, less severe winters and no scarcity of water are its most important assets and have made it a coveted territory since time immemorial.

North and South Valley: Smaller crater states under the reign of United Sanctuary Crater.

Solitary Crater: A highly disputed land territory.

Dreadwater Pass: A vast, sterile salt lake and a hazard to southwards travel. Other notable saline lakes include the equally dead lone lake, the vibrant Crimson Sea which abounds with life, and the Serpent Sea, which blocks north-south ground travel above North Valley.

Fortune River Valley: The most productive continental region outside the crater valleys. Abundant freshwater mainly produced by glacial run-off supports a very large agricultural economy. This land is a nation historically governed exclusively by leucrocottas, the Kir, who are culturally distinct from the craterland leucrocottas. They lease farmland to coastal whisperwings living in the adjacent allied territory along Crater Bay, but this relationship is more independent than that in Sanctuary Crater.

The Greenbelt: A steppe characterized by its mild summers but very harsh winters, which supports central nomad leucrocotta's agriculture and a range of wildlife, though much has been overhunted in recent history. Links Sanctuary Crater to eastern settled regions and the tundra to the north.

Cradle Bay: This is the site of the first whisperwing colonies in the north and today the coastal whisperwings have built their largest cities are built along its shore, which abounds with marine life and support an economy built on fishing. Today, the civilization which has arisen along this coast, called the Zenith, is among the most powerful in the world.

Stormwall Peninsula: shelters Cradle Bay from severe winter storms.

Teeming Sea: The most productive northern ocean with a large marine fishery.

Northfork Peninsula: a sparsely inhabited but livable stretch of boreal land with a few settlements, limited farming, and some trade with southern regions. There is some nomadic pastoralism, though often with different livestock than in warmer areas. Boreal Leucrocotta here meet the northernmost steppe leucrocotta. Locally, whisperwings are mostly season migrant workers which leave in the autumn.

Farnorth Tundra: a scarcely explored stretch of wilderness land. Boreal leucrocotta still live here, and most are uncontacted by civilization, and they are joined by whisperaptors like the Scree, the largest of all whisperwing species.

Polar Basin: though documented on its east shore as a freshwater sea, its size and extent remains unknown, though it harbors one of the largest land carnivores known to exist. The basin has never been seen by settled whisperwings outside the brief summer season when only the southern edge thaws, but is more important to local boreal leucrocotta as a source of food.

Unknown North: this region is unexplored by civilization and does not appear accurate on maps; its size, shape, and resident wildlife is still unknown. The salt sea blocks entry on its eastern edge.

Salt Sea: an enormous salt plain, the remnant of evaporated upperglades wetlands. Though known to civilization and occasionally traversed by nomad leucrocotta, it has no settlements outside southerly salt-mining towns gathering the resource for sale. Very sparse native wildlife and not hospitable for sophont colonization.

Nexus Peninsula: Homeland of the littoral leucrocotta and mostly under their sovereign control. Arid desert climate historically makes it inhospitable to other Leucrocotta, which is why the littorals survived here. There is a reasonable fishery along the coastline, enough to sustain their small, densely clustered population.

Barrier Peninsula: a land form which is ecologically similar to the Nexus peninsula, but under control of defensive whisperwing governments...

Vilelands: Inhospitably hot, radiated island region dominated by tall growth cactaiga and strange semi-aquatic plants, known for its extremely hostile wildlife and the smallest and most elusive of leucrocotta known to outsiders, the Vilelands leucrocotta.

Ravine Forest: Landscape based on deep chasms, ravines and other landmarks formed from eroded sky island remnants set among collapsed hothouse caves. Supports a wide range of plant and animal life, but forms a barrier to ground travel (a good thing, the littoral leucrocotta think.). Also known for its extremely hostile wildlife.

Wastelands: most of Serinarcta is this barren desert landscape and its largest biome, subject to extremes of temperature and high solar radiation. The wastelands support a lot of wildlife, but it is thin on the ground and sparsely distributed. Much of it remains undiscovered by civilization, but steppe leucrocotta survive across this biome almost from one edge of the continent to the other living in primitive ways as they have for millions of years. Some are uncontacted, many avoid civilization and others fight against it, but those nearest to settled regions may integrate, or at least develop trade.

West Ridge: a frontier near-coastal region which has been determined suitable for colonization by whisperwings, but which is only in the infancy of settlement due to its isolated location.

Zarre Peninsula: a hot and barren desert land considered useless to most, it supports its own endemic biodiversity adapted to the extreme heat. The local desert leucrocotta have never been seen by eastern civilization.

Far Reach: the most southerly part of Serinaustra documented by northeners, which no longer has any native sapient species inhabiting it, but many traces of former civilizations.

Hidden Cove: This bay, cut off from the ocean by polar ice, once supported a fishery and a large whisperwing civilization. It was destroyed as the ice cap grew, burying it under ice 7 months a year. No whisperwings remain there today, and much knowledge has been lost.

Cape of Calamity: a storm-prone peninsular region which is dangerous to sail and difficult to access due to severe weather patterns.

Southern Steppe: Once under the dominion of an enemy empire, its collapse brought relief to northerners who found its inhabitant threatening. Now thought to be the last inhabited territory of remnant population of tentacle-bird savages, not far from the stairway islands, and still entirely too close for the comfort of the whisperwings. With the discovery of others further to the east, there is some new worry that they may not be as close to extinction as long assumed...