Nysdra Sea
The Nysdra Sea, sometimes called the Sea of Nysdra or Nysdra's Doom, is a body of water set between Crona Proper and Cusinaut. It is separated from the titanic Ocean of Cathay by means of a straight called the Northern Approaches.
History
Formation
It appears likely to most geologists that the Nysdra was initially an inland sea, allowing for peoples to cross easily between modern New Veltorina into Cusinaut and vice versa. At some point, rising oceans and poor soil support and quality lead to the sea being opened up to the ocean, the land bridge eroded, and the inland sea salinized, leading to the extinction of much of the the original surrounding neolithic populations that relied on freshwater fish sources for food.
Prehistory
Environment
Coastal Countries and Settlements
Islands
Topology, Geology and Tectonics
Regular surveys of the sea in recent years (1960-present) have revealed that the rate of erosion along the Northern Approaches, particularly along the channel to the Cathay, is one of the fastest rates of erosion in a seabed in the world. The Approaches' depth increased by nearly two meters on average in the last sixty-five years, leading to a popular belief that a great deal of silt, sand, and small stone buildup from slower, cooler currents in the last ice age originally cut off the Nysdra from the sea, allowing it to become fresher from glacial runoff and isolating the species within for at least several thousand years. As global temperatures rose, the currents of the Cathay warmed, reigniting a strong current that winnowed the built-up material in a snowball effect, leading to the relatively rapid reopening of the sea to the greater oceans.
The Nysdra is particularly treacherous, featuring heavy ice flows throughout the year, with summer affording the only relatively safe time for shipping not accompanied by icebreakers or monitored in case of emergency. Its depth also varies rapidly, making near-coast approaches perilous without accurate mapping and careful guidance. Its storms are fairly weak but vary the temperature wildly, as they form in an atmospheric cell largely southwards of the sea and bring warmer air that mixes with the colder local temperatures.