Waya

Waya is the oldest and largest of the Great Islands. Archaeological evidence indicates that the most ancient civilizations in Earena likely began here.

Land and Climate
Waya is characterized by a mountain range in the west, the Barsay Range, and the vast lowlands to the east, called the Fens. Between is a sloping plateau where rivers, forests, and expansive rolling fields.

Like most of the other islands in the archipelago, Waya experiences long winters with significant snowfall, and brilliant, warm summers.

The Iron Strike
About 200 years after the Great Collision, a massive iron strike was found in the Barsay Range, as well as significant amounts of copper. This led to a kind of metal rush, sending hundreds of miners and prospectors in the area, and running many of the locals clans out, or employing them in the mines. Factories built up for refining and production. As a result, much of the landscape is pitted; many people relocated to Mor and Fenlie, lesser islands with less pollution, as a result.

Culture and People
The peoples of the Great Islands in general tend to be fair or red-haired, with light skin, often freckled. They are taller and hardier than the Ardesi and Soderon, and are believed to be descended from even further North, where roving bands of men from the Archipelago of Nans still live.

Since the Iron Strike, the clans have been dissolved in Waya, but some still persist in the outlying islands.

Religion
In the last few decades before the Great Collision, oral tradition speaks of a revivial in religion and worship, shifting from an organized church to freer, individual worship; this coincides with the Age of Heroes--so called because of the extant manuscripts including bardic tales and poetry from that period, mostly telling of famed heroes like Alvalo and Ansa and her Knight.