250. Remain in Plainsong

Rethi gives an unexpected and wide smile when you say you’ll continue to investigate in Plainsong.

If you do not have any Utaru in your party, other than Jupi and Adri, Rethi will provide a brief overview of the geography of Plainsong. A raised circular stonework near the stove comes up to hip-height, roughly as big around as one might make by circling their arms. It’s filled with a course, red and black sand, tamped down with indentations of kettle and pot bottoms. Rethi picks up a simple length of squared wood leaning against it and smooths the sand to a flat surface. With quick movements of a smaller stick, again conveniently accessible and worn from use, she draws a map of Plainsong and the borders with the surrounding lands.

You know Nora lands to the west, and you’ve already traveled much of our southern border along the Southtap. Had you continued to follow the river east, due south from here, you would have come across the ruins of a city of the Old Ones as large as any you have seen. If you kept following even farther, another two weeks to the east, and you would find Widerun. Almost all rivers in Plainsong empty into it, and I guarantee you have never seen a river so wide. A handful of Utaru have explored past it, those who enjoy the solitude, but Widerun is generally considered our easternmost border. There may be peoples beyond it, but if so they have kept to themselves for longer than living memory.

The Widerun is the name for the river the Old Ones called The Mississippi.

Drawing her stick up in forking patterns, she continues:

If you follow Widerun north, you must be careful. The land is pleasant, but the many branches of the Widerun, and the surrounding marshes, make it easy to become lost and to find yourself on the wrong side, forced to retrace your steps. Machine structures have harnessed the power of the river in numerous places, just as we do with our waterwheels at the source of the Great Rootwell. The machines defending those places are fierce, and roam wide, so you will want to give them a wide berth.

A dragged line left across the top completes the map:

The Northtap is a harder journey than its southern counterpart, especially in winter when the winds and storms can be deadly cold. If you follow it from the southeast, as the river bends to an east-west course, you will come to a fork. If you follow the broader fork to the north, you will enter Banuk lands through what they call The Sand’s Edge. It will take you through some harsh lands only a Banuk could love, eventually curving around to the north end of The Cut. The smaller fork to the west passes through a number of Utaru villages, with its source the mountains at of the south end of The Cut, with Nora lands below.

In the time of the Old Ones, the Northtap was the Niobrara and Sweetwater Rivers, which see significantly more flow than they used to.

Just as Southern Plainsong, our northern lands crossed by more than a dozen rivers large enough to sustain villages. Northerners tend to show more influence from the Oseram and Banuk, while Southerners take more from the Carja and Nora. In the north you’ll see more blues and yellows in paints and pigments, and less concern about using machine parts for labor. Parts of northern Plainsong get quite harsh in the winter, icing the veins of the people there as thick as any from Ban-Ur.

TODO