Map B.05 - Lower Yenisey

Sub-arctic region spanning from 77.22°N south to 62.96°N, encompassing the lower valley of the Yenisey River and it's mouth upon the Yenisey Gulf, part of Biyetia, lower Lungos Nad and the western edge of Nissi An, featuring the Tunguska Plateau.

Hexes are 20 miles in diameter. Total area depicted equals 403,095 sq.m.

Features

This sub-arctic expanse stretches across vast boreal forests, tundra and river valleys, shaped by permafrost and the extremes of the seasons. The lower Yenisey flows steadily to the gulf, a great, ice-bound channel in winter and a passage for trade and migration in the warmer months. Here dwell nomadic and semi-nomadic non-human peoples, moving with the herds, fishing the rivers, and setting traps for fur-bearing beasts. Reindeer are their lifeblood, providing food, transport, and trade, while the river serves as their highway to distant lands. Settlements remain few, their denizens hardened by the cold, bound to cycles of hunting, herding and barter with those who come north. The land offers little but what can be taken from it, and those who survive do so by wit, endurance and an understanding of its unyielding ways.

Tunguska Plateau

Rising in the heart of the sub-arctic wilderness, this vast and untamed land consists of rolling highlands, deep river valleys and dense boreal forests. Its surface is a rugged expanse of frost-shattered rock, permafrost-laden soil, and vast stretches of larch, pine and spruce, where trees grow twisted and stunted by the brutal cold. In some places, the land is broken by deep ravines and fissures carved by ancient rivers, while elsewhere, broad expanses of bog and muskeg stretch toward the horizon, their shifting ground treacherous for those unfamiliar with its ways.

Through this forbidding landscape, the rivers carve winding paths, most notably the Lower Tunguska and its tributaries, their waters swelling in summer with melt from the highlands and freezing solid in the depths of winter. The region’s climate is one of extremes—long, sunless winters of deep, wind-driven cold, where the land is locked beneath ice and snow, followed by short, riotous summers when the thaw releases the rivers, and the air fills with the hum of insects and the cries of birds returning to breed.

Wildlife here is hardy and well-adapted. Reindeer move in great herds across the plateau, their migrations a lifeline to the nomadic peoples who follow them. Wolves, wolverines and lynxes stalk the forests, while bears emerge from their dens as the ice recedes. The rivers teem with fish, and in the brief summer, waterfowl gather in vast numbers on the marshes and lakes, making the plateau a place of sudden abundance before the cold closes in once more.

Few settlements mark the land, for it is a place of passage, where bands of Evenki, the old bugbear tribe, and other reindeer herders range across the tundra, setting camps in the shelter of wooded valleys. Trade routes run along the rivers, connecting distant lands to the south and west, but beyond these watery roads, the plateau remains a place of solitude, vast and silent, where the land and sky meet in a great and unbroken emptiness.

Yenisey Basin

This consists of a sparsely populated sub-arctic wilderness where the river dominates the landscape. The Lower Yenisey carves a path through a a landscape of hills, highlands and river valleys flanking on either side as the river flows toward the Kara Sea. The terrain on both sides is uneven, shaped by ancient geological activity, permafrost processes, and erosion from the river itself.

To the east of the Yenisey, the Tunguska Plateau dominates; to the west, a series of low hills and highlands rise above the floodplain, forming a transition zone between the Yenisey and the interior regions. These hills are heavily forested and interspersed with glacial moraines, rocky outcrops, and muskegs. The valleys between them channel water from smaller rivers and streams, many of which remain frozen for much of the year.

The Yenisey River itself widens as it moves northward, its banks cut by erosion and shaped by the seasonal freeze-thaw cycle. Ice breakup in the spring can cause significant flooding, with ice floes scouring the surrounding terrain. The climate is subarctic, with long, harsh winters and short summers, during which the permafrost layer thaws just enough to allow for a burst of vegetation and wildlife activity.