Mediterranea

Mediterranea spans an enormous variety of land, weather and people: the dry deserts of the Turanian subcontinent, the wooded river valleys of Vir, the rough hills and groves of Palasgea and Saturnia, and the high Galecean plateau. Most of it is wild country held by primitive tribes and dangerous beasts. Refined cultures appear only around its edges, in places such as Sheba, Tharshesh and Ys, while a few elf, dwarf and other friendly strongholds hide in remote wilderness.

The continent resists neat division, but scholars commonly recognize five zones. The Turanian subcontinent, largely desert apart from a coastal strip on the Turanian peninsula, is usually treated almost as a separate land. Scythia, a bleak but fertile sweep of rolling grassland that feeds wild herds and a fair number of people, is often counted on its own, as is the Galecean Peninsula in the west, whose coasts are well settled but whose inland plateau is cool, dry and unwelcoming. Between Galecea and Scythia lie the Northern District, mostly plains broken by rougher ground and some large forests, and the Mediterranean District, where the sea softens the climate into a warm, fertile land of mountains ringing settled valleys and thin coastal strips.

Mediterranea is not rich. Some areas yield small amounts of tin, copper, gold, silver, iron and a few gems, nothing to match Gondwana, though this may reflect how little its mostly primitive inhabitants have explored and mined. People are scattered thinly across most regions; only Tharshesh and parts of the Turanian subcontinent support advanced, dense populations.