There is a place that serves as the interdimensional axis linking together Earth, the Dreamlands, and the myriad realms of Deep Dream and other Astral zones that make up the superstructure of Gaia. That axis manifests itself most often as both a storm and a trench where the world drops off into oblivion and rises up in chaos embodied. It is an infinite, fractal vortex--the Hebrew word is tehom. It is the place where lost things go. It is the pirate’s haven. It is Earth’s tie to the borderworld. It was here before Slid. It is the Super-Sargasso Sea.
Beyond the Super-Sargasso Sea lay a land where the veil between Dream and Wake is tattered to the point that even wildlife use it; the mammoths, ground sloths, sasquatches and sabretooths have inhabited this place since the fall of Atlantis. The men who sought it called it Ultraindia, while the men who hid there called it Turtle Island.
Columbus erroneously thought that the Indies were closer to Europe than geographically possible. It was once said that there were three Indias, but the country between the Hindus and Ganges was already known in the waking world while the good kingdom of Prester John lay in dream; Columbus was a powerful dreamer indeed to bring forth the India of Mandeville and place it at the edge of a continent he’d never see.
The Third Indian Confederacy is a coalition of Hindu realms, monkey kingdoms, horseback nomads, and honorable wildmen pitted against the savage monsters dreamed up by adventurers from eras long gone. Even with modern military equipment, blemmyes and giant ants seem to spring up as if from the soil itself. Taprobana remains the more powerful of the two nations, but its status as a mercantile power is limited by the off-map presence of the Mandevillian Archipelago and the thousand cannibal islands that make travel by sea impossible.
To the west off the coast of India is the isle of California, whose mediterranean climate make the country a terrestrial paradise compared with the mainland. Interestingly, the matriarchal society appears to be the last remnant of a proto-Australic group that preceded modern Native Americans. California’s insular status has granted it the position to be both a great power and a neutral power.
On the mainland is the Quiviran Empire, a Zuni-ruled nation considered to be on par with the greatest Empires of the Old World. Archaeological evidence on Earth has long supported theories of a robust civilization in the American Southwest existing at some point; Quivira is the living proof. Unlike their counterparts on Earth, Quivira had access to draft animals long before Columbian contact, facilitating their spread across the continent. Nearby to Quivira is Atzlan, whose position in the mountains has protected it from conquest. Atzlan remains the homeland of Uto-Aztecan peoples.
North of Quivira is the Anianese Confederation, an Athabaskan mercantile republic whose allies in the Far East helped secure its independence from Quivira. Anian controls all travel to the Pacific via the Northwest Passage; failure to comply with Anianese regulations would force any traveller to brave the cannibal islands to the far south.
Nearby Anian is Mandan, a kingdom of Welsh peoples and the first European colony we have discussed. Like Abya Yala to the south, Turtle Island is home to many European colonies but none are as strong as the native kingdoms. There is also Terra de Bacalao at the Atlantic mouth of the Northwest Passage, a Portuguese republic. These countries all benefit from the trade that goes on along the waterways linking the two oceans.
Both Anian and Quivira are dealing with a rebellion staged by the Si-Teh-Cah, a Giant tribe exiled from the waking world by Paiutes in the 19th century. The Si-Teh-Cah are supposedly the last descendants of the Giants that built the oldest of the mounds, the civilization that taught the Mississippians the secrets of the soil. The countryside east of Anian and Quivira attests to the loss of a great civilization. One often can spot the herds of mammoth crossing by an ancient castle or atop serpentine mounds when they traverse the plains.
In addition to the mountains formed by the collision with Ultraindia, there is an older range running along the continent’s east coast. At the southern tip lay the county of Beiminy, a country whose primary export is the ichors mined in the mountains. These ichors have healing and regenerative powers rivaling only the waters at Macrobia, but recently the mines have been drying up. Fracking is a promising technique, but there is an ancient fear of awakening the land itself should it be overworked to provide for its children.
In the mountains north of Beiminy live the Moon-Eyed People, a very old tribal confederation whose culture is singled out only because it is the best example of strange forgotten peoples and secretive tribes that dot the interior landscape. They were the people who the Quivirans sought to stamp out, but they will be here long after the other Men are gone, because they were the first to learn to hide.
Further north we come to the only English-speaking kingdom on Turtle Island: that of Roanoke, formed from a colony flung into dream by a rogue Super-Sargasso hurricane. Roanoke is a prosperous kingdom whose only threat remains the Damned State of Franklin, a people whose fervent devotion to a country that rejected them fuels their fanatical efforts in spreading democracy to their neighbors. As the Roanokans claim continued loyalty to the English Crown, they will hear no such thing.
If one travels further up the coast from Roanoke one comes across Pukwudgie kingdoms and the occasional boat of Phoenician make carrying Hebrew scrolls. The latter hints towards a country in the interior aligning with scripture from the Latter-Day Saints movement, but thus far no nation of lost Hebrews has been found.
There is only one country established by Vikings in Turtle Island and it is called Norumbega. Norumbega grew out of logging expeditions that took place on the mainland; it is a wealthy land, but more wealthy is Estotiland to the north. Estotiland is not actually Viking in origin; rather, it is the result of Christianized “skraelings” forming a nation in response to increased expeditions from Europe threatening to displace local peoples.
The far north of Turtle Island is a desolate place. There are fur trappers and bigfoot tribes that might be called hospitable, but the number of ruins from all eras of history seem to increase the further north one goes. The wildlife also becomes increasingly violent when presented with humans, a trait unfounded in southern populations. Reports of an enormous reptile’s maw thawing the ice with its breath are thus far unfounded. Eventually, the landmass merges with Hyberborea in the very far north. On the west coast there are Tartarian settlements in the land of Toloman, but it is yet a colonial effort on any scale. The constant threat of Wendigo attacks makes permanent human penetration in the north near-impossible. There is only one known nation beyond the glaciers and south of Hyperborea: that of Ye-Quor, the island realm of dwarves.
It is not currently recommended that dreamers or travellers visit any nation on Turtle Island save for California.