The Floating Continent

The Floating Continent is exactly what it sounds like - a continent, roughly circular, floating over a league in the air.  It is cold and desolate, with windswept plains, and frigid rivers and lakes.

The Floating Continent flies erratically throughout the sky, though it tends to remain at least somewhat close to the axis of the world.  It is believed to be over 200 leagues in diameter, judging by its shadow - few people have attempted to map the continent from end to end, and none of them have returned.

Civilization on the Floating Continent barely exists.  Aside from the difficulty of actually reaching the floating continent, due to the erratic motion of the continent, supplying a colony on a regular basis is difficult, let alone gaining anything from trade.  Other difficulties also exist: The erratic motion occasionally leads to cold nights for weeks on end, or long, blazing days that wither the crops as much as they burn the skin.

To make matters worse, most mortal races suffer from a lingering curse on the Floating Continent - nausea and vomiting are not uncommon upon reaching the Floating Continent, and even after a recovery from that, most colonists find themselves beset by a constant lethargy.

Despite all of this, some colonies have persisted in surviving, mostly by being entirely self-sufficient.  These include a number of monasteries and religious retreats, and a few colonies that cling to life, some outlasting the states that spawned them.  Much more numerous, however, are the ruins of failed settlements, wiped out decades ago with no-one at all the wiser.

Of those explorers who do survive and spend word back to the surface, there are stories of mythical monsters and colossal bones littering the landscape.  Rumors that the gods live upon the floating continent in a golden city have, however, remained just that.

Scholars have a pretty good idea of where the Floating Continent was before it lifted into the sky - on one side of the isthmus between the two main continents, the coasts of both continents describe arcs that match closely with the Floating Continent, to the point that some scholars wish to rename the Sea of Tranquility to something related to the Floating Continent.

To most people, the main effect of the Floating Continent is that it occasionally blocks the light of the sun for about a day or so as it passes overhead.