What would you do if you were on a Vanishing Land?

How did nagas evolve? Nothing in the real world happens because some kind of author arbitrated it, everything has a history, and if Felarya was part of the real world it would be no different. What kind of environment and niche caused nagas to become what they are today? Why do they have two completely different types of skin that are separated at the waist? Why are they so similar in appearance to hominids at all, much less homo sapiens in particular? Are they descended from humans? Which humans? Where and when did those humans leave Earth, and when and how did the snake part enter the equation? Why does a tropical jungle species of hominid feature so many white people, when that goes directly against what we've observed here on earth? That last question could be answered by Elvish/Ur-Sagolian interbreeding during the times when those empires were dominant, since a couple thousand years is no time at all as far as evolution is concerned, especially for a massive, presumably slow-breeding species, so if the Felaryan giants had light skin bred into them during those times there wouldn't be enough time for natural selection to reinforce dark skin colors again. But that just raises more questions! Where did the Elves come from, where did the Ur-Sagolians come from, and why are they white? How do two species with such radically different morphologies have compatible DNA, and how does the offspring wind up being fully one species or the other and not some non-viable amalgam of the two? That last one was a question we were already asking with the Harpies, mind you, which brings up the fact that every question we asked about Nagas above can be asked again for every species that is a hybrid of human and something else.

How do fairies change size? Where does that extra mass come from/go? How do Felaryan giants survive the weight that the square-cube law gives them? Show a scientist Crisis existing happily in the real world, and they will not declare it impossible; clearly the evidence that it is possible is right in front of them, the only viable answer is that there is something at work we do not yet understand. In the real world there is no magic, there is simply insufficiently analyzed physics. What will we discover when we analyze those physics? What will it mean for our understanding of how the universe is structured, how everything around us works?

Those are all questions I've asked myself on lazy days, and the answer is always "it's only a comic, I should just relax". But a vanishing land happens and suddenly it's not a comic anymore. It's very real, and you can bet that hundreds of thousands would dedicate their careers to answering those questions and a billion more.

Lathan Yarblek was the first to categorize the different patterns in which Felarya connects to other worlds.

Stable connections: These are the most common, and most traditional types of dimensional connections, occurring naturally when two dimensional currents in Lydus link up. On the physical world, they appear as a swirling vortex-like aperture marking the entrance/exit. They appear very rarely on normal worlds, as the currents of those worlds in Lydus are far too short to connect to another, but they are quite a common occurrence on Felarya. They can last a few minutes or a few hours. Stable connections are also the main type of connection generated by artificial means, be it by a portal mage, or a portal generation device. Many groups of explorers around the universe peek into these portals, to try and study the worlds on the other side before the portal disappears. Enter at your own risk! One of the first rule of the MURCOWIH encyclopedia is to never take a portal if you don't know where it leads.

Whiplash connections: These types of connections are a good deal less common than stable ones in Felarya. A whiplash connection is a sudden, violent connection between two currents in Lydus. These can be thought of as the inter-dimensional equivalent of a riptide. When they appear, anything within a certain proximity (some are bigger or smaller than others) gets sucked in as that point in space violently shifts. Their near-instantaneous nature also means that the exit usually closes behind you. It's basically the ultimate case of being in the wrong place in the wrong time. They are thankfully rare across the universe, although the proximity of an Astral storm make them more likely.

Vanishing lands: These are arguably the most extreme type of dimensional connection. In a vanishing land situation, an entire region of another world becomes displaced, and transported to Felarya. Vanishing lands come in several varieties :

Rebound connections: Where the land automatically returns back to its original location, along with anyone in it, after a certain amount of time. These are the most common types. Just don't panic and stay where you are, and you should be fine. Most of the time, people in Vanishing lands actually never notice the shift. If they do, it often gives birth to legends or tales of a an ancient, sacred vanishing forest. The amount of land that is transported can vary widely...from a few yards, to whole cities in some extreme cases.

Exchange connections: In this situation, a piece of land from one world is completely exchanged with a piece of another. In these cases, the displaced lands do not return home, and become a permanent part of Felarya. These tend to be very rare though, and affect smaller areas than rebound connections. The Jungle Bowl is a perfect example of an exchange connection. Still, these places can theoretically return to their original state at any moment, much like how a volcano could awaken, and so vanish suddenly. In practice, it happens extremely rarely though.r other lands and permanently stay there. It cane be found