Irgattu Straits

The Irgattu Straits, also known as the Throat of the World in Haedrasia, is the body of water that divides the mainland of Allornus from the sub-continent of Nardaan. When the sundering shook the world, and the killer waves the sinking of the Isle of Men wrought tore pieces from the coast of Allornus and dragged them to the depths, Nardaan was rent from the mainland, and the seas rushed in to form a once-vast northern bay into a frigid, frothing divide.

Today the Irgattu Straits are brutal waters, the deep sea-floor littered with broken remains of collapsed and sunken continent creates deep rifts, phantom eddies, and unpredictable currents. Ice bergs, broken from the glaciers of Nardaan's mountainous coastline drift in the dark waters, and whales and massive squid dominate the depths, where they do battle for territory. Even elusive sea-zmaj have been reliably sighted surfacing out in the bay.

A few fragments of land, defying the rage of the sea, just from the surging chill to form an island chain bridging the mainland and its icy child. The Cosarian Islands are territory of Haedrasia, and they are some of the strangest lands to be found, even in the northlands of the Imperatry Plains, where the touch of the sundring was as often mutating as destructive. Isles laden with ash, of others belching smoke, and others of outlandish and alien hues, even one known for disappearing for years on end! Meanwhile in the west the waters feed sullenly into the Black Ice Bay and the Gulf of Adebowale, penetrating to the heart of Haedrasia, and draining the salt marshes at the foot of the Still Peaks. To the west the waters become eerily calm as they join the currents of the Dawnless Ocean that spans the north-west of the continent. Here, where once there were plains, the trenches are said to reach to the underside of the world, and the waters out at sea are so dark they are inky black.

Of course, no landsmen can ply these seas, save for where the Cosarian Islands mark a clear trail. But out where the sea stretches from horizon to horizon Kardesian roundships ply the waters, whaling and fishing and raiding the Haedrasian coastal territories. Here atop the strait, the reaver-giants rule supreme, and there is a striking peace in the unending, surging, Stygian threat of violence that pervades these open waters.