[ Planes of Cordance > Pangaea > Gelasian Steppe ]
Gelasian Steppe
Containing the Realms of the Sabretooth and Mammoth Lords
Beyond the Inner Sea of Pangaea lies the Gelesian Steppe. This a frozen wasteland of tundra, snow and ice-capped mountains that gets colder and more deadly the further into it you travel. Chant goes this glaciated region shrinks and grows regularly, and rapidly too, scouring valleys into smooth shapes, depositing enormous rocks in vast boulder fields, and flooding the land with ice-cold lakes of the purest meltwater. The glaciers travel and change far more quickly here on Pangaea than on the Prime, causing frequent migrations of the strange prehistoric beasts each time.
The least uninhabitable land here is a steppe tundra, which means there are a scant few forests and pockets of edible plants are rare. This is certainly not a place for the unprepared; it’s an order of magnitude more dangerous in the Gelasian Steppe than the rest of Pangaea. In the deepest of Winter, the glaciers even spill over into the Hinterlands, and the Tundra Lords roam across planar borders here with their kin too. Perhaps they’re scouting out the place as they’ll end up here one day? When one of the frequent storms blows in, it’s possible to accidentally walk through a gate in the swirling snowstorm—perhaps to a Prime Material glaciated region, or perhaps to Elemental Ice or even Stygia.
The Gelasian Steppe is where the Ice Age megafauna are making their last stands—here you’ll find woolly mammoths, cave bears, and other creatures adapted to glacial conditions that haven’t existed on most prime worlds for millennia. Monsters of cold can also be found out there on the steppes—bestial wendigos, zombie mammoths, and xor-yost energons.
The Red Rime
Realm of the Sabretooth Lord
On the frigid edge of the Gelasian Steppe is wind-scoured belt of permafrost, where frozen spindrift glitters, and spilled blood steams briefly in the air then freezes on whiskers before it can drip off. Every slope here conceals a potential ambush, the soft snow muffles steps, and the ever-low sun throws long, blade-like shadows across the firn. This is the Red Rime, a particularly deadly part of the land, and not just because of the cold. These blood-splattered snowfields are the hunting ground of the Sabretooth Lord and her vicious hunting packs.
The Sabretooth Lord’s Cave lurks in the mountainside here, surrounded by more prowling dagger-mouthed hunters than a berk would want to meet in a lifetime, let alone at once. The Sabretooth Lord herself is the best-known high-up of the Gelasian Steppe, partly because she’s the most dangerous, but mainly because she acts like she rules the place. They say she’s quicker than a quinkana and meaner than a megalania too. Like the Moa Lord, she also despises humankind, and for similar reasons. Her realm is a place that any sensible blood would want to avoid though, whether or not they have human blood in their veins, especially if they don’t want to see it pumping out and freezing in the snow.
The Thundering Quiet
Realm of the Mammoth Lord
Sabretooths aren’t the only creature that you’ll find in these parts though. The Mammoth Lord also roams the steppes here with his herd, and they are perhaps the real reason for the presence of the sabretooths in the first place—for while they are difficult to take down, a single mammoth will feed a whole pack of sabretooths. They tromp through the snow here, compressing it smooth, and then they dig it up again with their trunks, foraging for frozen treats. Like Indrik, the Mammoth Lord leads a large herd of his kind across the land; safety in numbers after all. But because of their numbers they never cease moving, always hunting for new sources of food.
Although they’re unlikely to ever meet, it’s known that Mammoth is fond of the Elephant Lord. He considers Elephant to be like a son, and the rightful inheritor of his herd once he’s gone.
Source: SGreen, Jon Winter-Holt and Margarita, based on an idea by Greg Jensen. Canonwatch: Everything here is homebrew.