Lost Land of Mêm

Another archive file, I posted on on odd74 forum

Mêm is a land of grass hills, battled by warm winds coming from the southern jungles. It’s a wilderness, with a scarce human and orcish settlement. The wild hills and grasslands are the realms of many animal species: baboons, black bears, giant beetles, wild boars (and warthogs), bulls, wild camels, wild cattle, wild dogs, elephants, flightless birds, herd animals, hyenas, jackals, mammoths, mastodons, giant rats, rhinoceros (including its wooly cousin, in the colder north), common stags and wolves are common, as well as numerous dinosaurs species like anatosaurus, iguanodon, monoclonius, pentacerops, plateosaurus, stegosaurus (in the south, near the jungles), styracosaurus and triceratops. 

The chalky subsoil has been dig from millions of years by the rivers. Their large valleys have turned to swamp and marshes. Sudden changes in the river flow created islands and lakes. Theses swamps are a dangerous place, due to the abundance of crocodiles, giant toads and giant water spiders. But the main troubles are dinosaurs like apatasaurus, camaraurus, diplodocus and lambeosaurus. Some islands and rives are covered by small woods and forests, where bombardiers and boring giant beetles and strangle weed are another danger. 

All these rivers converge to a dead inner sea, curiously called the Sea of Horses. Giant sea horses, sharks, sting rays and whales are common undersea fauna, as well as dinosaurs like dinichtys, and plesiosaurus. Pteranodons living in the surrounding cliffs and islands predates from fishes. This makes boating hazardous on the inner sea. 

These valleys are surrounded by cliffs, pierced everywhere by caves in this karstic landscape. Due to the massive presence of dinosaurs, even if most of them are plant-eaters and other giant creatures, most thinking species settle rather in the subterranean caves than in the underground. Clans of dwarves, orcs and troglodytes, as well as band of ogres and hill giants, fight endlessly for the control of these subterranean networks of caves. Forests of giant mushrooms, including shriekers, provide food for underground inhabitants. 

As their physiology doesn’t fit to underground life, human live in cities surrounded by a small farmland, fighting hard to protect them from dinosaurs and other animals, among them the feared giant stag beetle. Out of the cities, only heavily armed merchant caravans, using draft horses and mules – as well as bands of bandits and brigands – travels in the wilderness from city to city. 

In these cities, people worship death and devils, as way to protect themselves from these surnatural beings. Temples are rumoured to be protected by ferasome things as lemures and larvaes.

All the creatures cited here are quoted as being “common” in the AD&D Monster Manual. All common creatures have been used, and no other frequency category. So this is the most common world…