Vantowyn

The world of Vantowyn is much like ours on a geographical scale. The oceans take up much of the world, with the monotony of its surface broken by the occasional island chain and a few larger continents. One key way in which the geography of Vantowyn is unique lies in the fact that only one side of the world faces toward its sun. This means that Lempo, the largest continental landmass, is bathed completely in constant sunlight. The other side of the world is cast in constant shadow, and covered by grand glaciers. If there are landmasses underneath the mountains of ice on the night side, no mortal has set foot on them. Most of the world's population dwells in a ring of perpetual twilight about the middle of the world, where vegetation can grow easily. This populated ring is where much of the world's liquid water can be found, in oceans, rivers, lakes, and streams. The north and south magnetic poles of the world can be found in this temperate habitable ring, around which the world turns slowly. For every year that passes, Vantowyn turns on its magnetic axis precisely once, which results in the peculiar geography of the world, and causes the habitable ring of land about the middle of the planet to be in a constant state of twilight.

As Vantowyn moves around its sun, it shares its orbit with a world shrouded in darkness and mystery. The shrouded world has many names, but is commonly referred to as Dakovar. As Vantowyn and Dakovar travel together, they spin around each other, resulting in a regular eclipse for Vantowyn, which takes place every 26 hours for approximately one hour. This eclipse casts even Lempo in darkness for that brief period, as Dakovar passed completely between the Vantowyn and the sun. Almost universally, the inhabitants of Vantowyn mark the passage of time by the occurrence of the eclipse, with each eclipse marking the end or beginning of a Calendar day.

Geography


Due to the particular geography of the world, maps of the surface of Vantowyn have traditionally been drawn with Lempo at the bottom, and the frozen wastes along the top. This means that the locations of the magnetic poles of the planet tend to be visible on the map. At each of the northern and southern poles, The Great Spires can be found. Crotan, one of Vantowyn's largest and most culturally significant cities, is built near the site of the magnetic north pole, around the Northern Spire. With the sun's relatively fixed position in the sky as seen from anywhere on Vantowyn, the directions of East and West are considered to have 'poles' as well, even if there is no magnetic pole for either direction. West always refers to a sunward direction, while east is always into the darker side of the planet. The west pole is defined as the point on the surface of Vantowyn where the sun would be perceived as directly overhead, while the east pole would be the farthest point on the planet's surface away from the sun's light. Vantowyn is tilted about four degrees on its rotational axis, so the locations of those directional poles is approximate.