Inland Sea

A map of the Lands of the Inland Sea

The Inland Sea is the setting of one published Fighting Fantasy gamebook, Seas of Blood, one unpublished Fighting Fantasy gamebook, Deathlord, an unpublished non-Fighting Fantasy novel, Darksoul, and a published non-Fighting Fantasy novel, Ashkar the Magnificent, all of which were written or co-authored by Andrew Chapman.

The Inland Sea is one of the most significant centres of civilisation in Khul, the "Dark Continent".

History

The Inland Sea is a sea formed many centuries ago when a massive earthquake, a long delayed after affect of the Splitting of Irritaria, dropped the land by several hundred metres and the sea rushed in to fill the hollow. The area around the sea is quite fertile and a number of city-states have established themselves. Beginning life as fishing villages they grew rapidly at the turn of the seventeenth century OT.

History:

• Origins (Irritaria and the massive earthquake)
• Early fishing villages
• Growth of the city-states
• Kabesh and Khan Gyorgir
• The Spawning of Chaos
• The Inland Sea and the Wastes of Chaos
• Relations between the city-states
• Deathlord

Geography

The North-West of the Inland Sea is the coast of the vast Scythera Desert. North of the city of Marad, on the Inland Sea's eastern coast, lie the burning, crimson sands of the desert called the Sea of Fire. The Sea of Fire's main inhabitants are nomadic groups of Desert Goblins. To the west of the town of Kirkuk lies a highland region, topped by the peak Mount Martu-Amurru. South lies the Kish Isthmus‚ a wide peninsula of land defended by sheer, unbroken cliffs. Over the tops of the cliffs, the wide plains are dotted with fields, settlements, and woodlands. Further south is the Kish Delta, a group of shallow, slow-flowing rivers dotted with sandbanks.

East of the cities of Marad and Shurrupak, stretching to the borders of Hachiman, are impenetrable jungles inhabited by cannibal Pygmy Lizard Men and other creatures. Then the wall of the Shios'ii Mountains loom up shutting all off to the east, although these mountains have no such name in the Inland Sea area where they are simple referred to as "the Barrier".

Places in and around the Inland Sea include:

• Assur
• Calah
• Channel of Goth
• Dead City
• Eastern Rim
• Enraki
• Isle of Volcanoes
• Kazallu
• Kirkuk
• Kish
• Kish Delta
• Kish Isthmus
• Lagash
• Marad
• Mount Martu-Amurru
• Nippur
• Parine River
• Rivers of the Dead
• Scythera Desert
• Sea of Fire
• Shoals of Trysta
• Shurrupak
• Southern Sea
• Tak
• The Roc
• The Three Sisters
• Trysta

Politics

Competition between them is very fierce. The rulers of the various cities relish their positions and set up and dissolve alliance after alliance. The waters of the sea swarm with pirates and privateers and trade ships will normally only sail under the protection of a flotilla of warships.

Economy

Each city of the Inland Sea makes its own distinct coinage for trade.

Further Information

• Although the Inland Sea was placed in Khul in Titan - The Fighting Fantasy World, this was not the original intention of the author of Seas of Blood, Andrew Chapman. Chapman revealed on the Rebuilding Titan Yahoo! group that he"had created a more extensive geography and history for that world which I used later in two other books, and also in the unpublished FF Deathlord". One of these other two books was Ashkar the Magnificent, which contains the same map as Seas of Blood. The other is the unpublished Darksoul.