As we know it, the Basin of Life is the only known area where life exists in the Prime Material Plane. It is surrounded by mountains hence why it looks like a basin.

Now the question is, is there life beyond the mountains? Are there undiscovered races and ancient ruins? What about the Skarch Desert, why can't we go beyond and discover what's there? Why are we just limited within the basin and just expanding other planes of existence, why can't we expand the Prime Material Plane more?

Also, another thing that boggles me is that why is it we call the large body of water surrounded by land a sea? Isn't it suppose to be called the Inner Lake and the Lake of Despair? How did the salinity levels raise high enough to make it support sea creatures? Won't the rains, melting of snow caps and the rivers that supply directly into the 'sea' cause the water levels to raise flooding the Basin? I doubt the sun is hot enough to cause that much evaporation to keep the water levels check (unless aquamancers have something to do with it?).

Sorry for the questions but I've been thinking in a realistic way on how all of these are possible.

There is life beyond the mountains, which we know because it keeps wandering in somehow. We can't leave because, uhhhh, those areas aren't done yet, largely. Also, there's some really nasty winds that prevent you just flying off the side of the mountains and most ground passages tend to be collapsed tunnels that get excavated when we find new areas and stuff like that. You're not really supposed to question that part too much I imagine.

For the sea question, I don't know if this helps but they are probably meant to be way bigger than you would think from just walking across them IG.

On the roads and seas, I like to think of rooms as being about a mile apart from each other. It fits the scale.

The snow caps on the mountains are formed from the evaporation from the seas. That's the natural cycle of water. Plus, there are most likely undersea vents that allow water to trickle out and/or gas to filter up.

hmm, that's a good explaination, but still I'm not convinced the body of water to be called a sea because it's surrounded by land (unless they've changed the meaning of lake and sea in the past few years).

Also, can anyone also explain the saltiness of either seas?

I don't believe the definition of sea is quite that strict. The Caspian Sea is called such even though it's enclosed.

Playing a game like this is like watching a play. The audience - or gamer, in this case - must be able to suspend his or her disbelief. Asking why is good, of course, but you also have to realize that this isn't the real world and that the rules of our world may not apply to Lusternia.

Yeah, for distances and ecology related stuff, a great many allowances have to be made. Some rooms are obivously bigger than others, or have much larger distances involved between them, just from the room descriptions.

As for what is outside the basin, Gaudiguch and the skarch are the closest thing we have to something outside the ring of mountains that borders the basin proper. I remember when I first started, I went down to the Skarch looking to see how far I could go, and I imagine most of the bard/scholar foot traffic probably comes in through the Great Pass.

Of course, I'd have to hope that the Skarch isn't indicative of the state of things beyond the basin, and given what we've seen in the Elder gods histories, there's a more specific explination of what caused the Skarch to be what it is.

It does, however, help to give Gaudi just a little more "mysteries of the east southwest" feel.

On the topic though, I'd love to see one of the more artistically inclined make a new, updated graphical map!

For a size reference, I seem to remember one of the recent Books mentioning that the Basin covered about a third of Lusternia. That's ... pretty big.

Here it is. From the Book of Elfenehoala:


And I'm fairly sure various events have pretty firmly hinted at there being established life outside the Basin - the introduction of the four knighthood specs, for instance, and I think Tracking as well? Plus, Jojobo is out there, and it's presumed to be the counterpart to Ackleberry.

Earth processes make a lot of things that really.. really don't make sense to us. Toss in a little magic ala Elders/Dynara.. and voila! Basin of Life!

I always treated each room as 'a separate place worth noticing for its uniqueness.' So in a fairly boring kind of environment (eg roads), a room can correspond to a huge area, whereas in a temple a room can be much smaller.

Also, you have to wonder, is the prime material plane flat or spherical? If the Basin only covers a third of it and magics are woven into it, does that mean the magic is only woven to a small layer on top, or does it funnel downwards into the ground? What's below the Basin (/below the Undervault)?

The closest thing I can think of to a canonical answer is that the moon's phases suggest a circular Lusternia. However, there is no way to reconcile those phases with the times of moonrise and moonset, so that explanation doesn't work: you can't argue that the occlusion of the face of the moon is a shadow of Lusternia.

We also can't use the argument about ship's masts going down after the ship's bodies because squinting seems to work as it would on a flat world with a lot of scattering of light, but again, who can explain why you can't see two rooms away on a flat grassy valley?

One can try to invent science in Lusternia but there are always so many things that can't be explained other than by OOC mechanics that it almost always proves too arbitrary to really call science. Saying "it's magic!" is all well and good, but it means you can never answer a question like this until an answer is given to you.

I believe the Dead Sea is salty. It also doesn't support very much in the way of living things, but salty seas surrounded by land are clearly possible in the real world.

Evidence is sketchy at best. Some say it could be caramel, others, nougat.

Though, the lowest room is probably the bottom of the prison. Whether below that there is some sort of core, or an empty void, or the Hampster God, who knows?

Absent a core of some sort though, it would be interesting to know where volcanic activity comes from (among many other things)

You should also remember the Inner Sea is much larger than the Sea of Despair - and much deeper. It has life ranging from tropical coral reefs down to the bathypelagic regions (granted I was raised in the school of thought that the abyssopelagic region isn't really a region but an extention of the bathypelagic) what with angler fish, dragonfish and lantern fish.

Which means we're talking somewhere between 1 and 4,000 feet in depth, just shy of a mile down - or right around a kilometer for you british folk.

Pretty deep!

And these are all really great questions for Ask Estarra (I just enjoy seeing them, they make me laugh - that, and I always enjoy hearing people's reactions when they find out some of the nifty stuff that I don't get to talk about).

And, re a core to the planet, I believe the Book of Orlachmar answers that question.

And yet the pressure at the depths doesn't hurt any more than swimming on the surface of a lake. Wonder if that means Lusternia actually is shaped like a concave hyperbolic curve?

This is a good point. I wonder if I can convince Estarra to let us make it so if you move between layers too quickly you'll be instakilled by DysbaricPressure....

"You dive into the depths of the ocean and get the bends"
Bubbles form beneath within the inside of your body and you wince in agony.
-500 hp
You are now afflicted with BLACKOUT.
You are now afflicted with BLINDNESS.
You are now dead. Pray for salvation?

Oh noes!