Aster's expedition: Difference between revisions

[[Crona]] and the [[Occidental world]] had mutual knowledge of eachother only by intermediaries as of the 14th century. It is a commonly held misconception that Aster's expedition "discovered" Crona for Occidentals, but by the medieval period the Occidental world knew of Crona from two different sources, with most considering the differently sourced locations to be entirely separate landmasses. Occidentals learned of a land east of [[Alshar]] from [[Audonia|Audonian]] traders in antiquity, and references to such a far eastern land are made in [[Great Levantia|Great Levantine]] sources as early as the 2nd century. The second source was through people living on [[Vallos]], who knew of a large land to the far northwest of Vallos. On both sides of the [[Odoneru Ocean]], {{wp|flotsam}} washed up on the shores of [[Levantia]] and [[Crona]], although due to prevailing winds and tides, large Levantine artifacts are known to have been found and taken by Cronans in antiquity whereas only small scraps of vessels and other manmade objects landed in [[Levantia]]. Most Occidentals anticipated these lands, which they believed to be two separate locations, to be analogous in size to [[Vithinja]]. Aster, however, correctly deduced from the size of world that a large region existed between Vallos and Alshar, and that the lands referenced by both must be the same location. Due to its size, he supposed that it was the source of most gold and wealth on earth, believing in what can best be described as a popular proto-economic legend of the medieval period, that all wealth flowed east to west, ending in [[Levantia]] and [[Sarpedon]]. The prospect of finding the source of all wealth was appealing for the rulers of [[Ardmore]], who decided to fund an expedition proposed by Aster.