Life on the supercontinent.

The main landmass of Terra Serpentis formed during the Event, when two continents were **** into each other by great tectonic shifts. This collision unified the continents, but it also isolated them from each other by creating a mountain range that stretches all the way from its frozen northern coast to its south, where it extends out into the ocean in the form of jagged cliffs and rocky islands. It is uninterrupted except for a few traversable passes.

The true nature of the Event has been lost to the fog of myth, but what is known is that it was foretold. The common ancestors of the Children of the Water and the Drylanders lived on the continental shelves then, in a thriving civilization of technology and magic. They came on land only to play on the beaches, and outright avoided the deeper water of the open sea as their bodies could not withstand the pressure. But they new this must change, because all their predictions pointed to the same thing: the continental shelves were going to collapse. In the greatest cooperative effort of history, all the channeled magic available to the Shelf Civilization was used to power one spell, a spell that would change their species forever.

To hedge their bets, the spell had two effects. In half the species, it created a stronger skeleton and a thicker skin, allowing them to stand upright on land and stay there without drying out. In the other, it streamlined their forms and induced the growth of gills, allowing them to flee into the abyss. It was a trade-off for both sides. What would come to be known as the Drylanders gave up their fins and hydrodynamic shapes, they sink like rocks when immersed in water. While the Children of the Water lost the ability to absorb oxygen from the air, using their lungs exclusively as swim bladders.

The spell came with another great cost. All the crystals used in its casting were shattered by the immense energy involved. The people of Terra Serpentis had lost their magic, and even centuries later could only grasp at the shadows of its former glory using crystal fragments dredged from the muck or dirty gems ripped out of the ground. And yet this sacrifice is what allowed them to survive their cities, which were turned into rubble and buried beneath millions of tons of sand and debris when the shelves collapsed.

The Children of the Water descended into the depths, where they struggled to rebuild their cities only to be thwarted by the shifting currents and the destructive leviathans of the benthic zone. They soon learned their only hope of survival was to follow the currents and stay away from the abyssal monsters, though as time passed they adapted and learned to hunt the smaller of the giants.

The Drylanders heaved themselves onto shore and went inland for the first time, where they found vastly different lands on each side of the mountains. To the west are the dry lands, a name chosen by its early aquatic settlers. In truth a strong wind carriers evaporating ocean water in from the west, allowing forests to cover much of its surface, only interrupted by the salty lakes created when the merging of the two continents left the sea between them nowhere else to go.

No, if you want to see a truly dry land you must look east of the mountains, where the arid outback reigns supreme. Sun-baked plains, shifting sands, and dusty rocks stretch from horizon to horizon. A scraggly bush may be the only sign of life for miles around, but even here the land is not dead. There are streams of fresh water beneath the ground, rising just high enough in places to be reached by the roots of hardy plants and burrowing creatures. They even break the surface to form rare oases teeming with life.

Like their ocean-dwelling cousins whose lives were dictated by the currents, the Drywalkers to the east and the west adopted a nomadic lifestyle. As they explored deeper into their new homes they encountered many forms of life. Some made easy prey, others preyed on them. A few were destined for more interesting roles, like the massive land crabs that were domesticated into mounts and beasts of burden. Or the humans, strange creatures that for many years were only witnessed from afar, as the skittish things hid from any animal larger than themselves. But witnessed they were, and the Drywalkers learned much through observation. Like them the humans produced tools, but only primitive stone spears they used to hunt small animals. Clearly this was not a sapient species, but merely a clever type of animal. An assumption that was confirmed when captured specimens proved incapable of learning more than a handful of clumsily mimicked words. When trained properly they could become affectionate pets and were useful enough for some tasks that some Drywalkers liked to keep them around, but they were under no illusion that the bipeds were their equal.

And so the nomadic snakes and humans lived for many years, until the first Drywalkers dared to venture into the mountains. There were many reasons to do so: some had nowhere else to go after being exiled by their tribes, others sought to hunt there in times of famine, or were driven by the same exploratory spirit that had made their ancestors leave the water in the first place. They all recieved the same inhospitable welcome. Frigid winds howled between the peaks, freezing the rain as it fell and rendering the Drywalkers unable to move. The lucky ones fled back to the warmer foothills, the rest made easy pickings for mountain predators in their sluggish states. It was the humans that made the mountains accessable. They had long protected their fragile bodies by covering them with leaves or the hides of other animals, and the Drywalkers learned quickly that such clothes would provide some protection against the cold.

Not enough to stay in the mountains indefinitely, but enough for small excursions. Excursions that were well worth the risk for the Drylanders of the west, for in the mountains they found metal. Copper that could be turned into tools far superior to those made of wood and rock, then tin that made them stronger still by alloying with the copper to make bronze. To mine these resources, they started building walls to block the icy winds, roofs to keep out the snow that fell on them from above. These shelters also allowed them to store food without guarding it against scavengers, and to more easily defend against predators. Seeing the value in this, the people of the dry lands began to construct similar shelters. At first they rebuilt them wherever they stopped to rest, but over time more and more Drylanders decided to stay where they were and formed permanent settlements, which grew into towns and cities of wood and stone.

But the Drylanders of the east had little incentive to brave the heights, for the rocky outcroppings of the outback were already rich with such metals. The same outcroppings provided them with gems which they used to focus their magic. What they lacked was wood, and there was little of that in the snow-swept mountains. The little they had was used in fires to keep the cold of the night at bay, the only shelters they built were portable tents and tepees. But as the metal reserves of the mountains ran dry, their western brothers came further and further east until they finally descended from the mountains, and not long after that the first trade routes were established. The western traders brought home metals as well as the gems that had been almost unobtainable in the dry lands, allowing them to make use of the magic they had allowed to stagnate in the previous centuries. The outback recieved wood in return. Some used this to imitate the sedentary lifestyle that was so popular in the west, but the outback simply didn't have the resources for this to scale. Most of the population remained nomadic, moving from one oasis to another or following the migration patterns of their preferred prey. Only the tribes rich enough to trade with their neighbors for food could afford to stay in one place for long.

The metal tools of the Drylanders were valuable to the Children of the Water as well, because though they could shape metals with their magic they had no way to alloy them without getting dangerously close to thermal vents or active volcanos. So further outposts were established on the coasts, where metal tools were traded for raw ore pulled from the mineral deposits on the ocean floors, which in turn lead to more tools being produced. Medical substances derived from plants or algae were traded in both directions, and when the surface was hit by famines the Children of the Water would offer their excess fish. The Drylanders would also trade for crystal shards, which could form more powerful magic focuses than the low-quality gems of the surface, but the Children of the Water would not give these up cheaply.

The western Drylanders had the advantage here as the flat beaches of the dry lands meant the Children of the Water could set up their stands in the path of the waves, where the Drylanders could approach with minimal fear of drowning. The shores of the outback on the other hand were lined with crumbling rock shelves that made just getting to them hazardous. Only isolated pocket beaches and coves, reachable via treacherous paths down the cliffs, could be used to meet the way it was done in the west. Everywhere else, the only way to trade was for particularly brave - or foolish - Drylanders to descended with rope harnesses until they were suspended over the turbulent waves, which is no way to conduct business.