Kalpa

The Kalpa (Kal. ‘road of the spirits’) is a major river in Elondor’s north, the traditional boundary between Geran and Aribel, and the homeland of the Kalparians.

Course

The river originates on the northern side of the Mountains of Dôr, half a day’s journey south of Katna. It exits the Lécaronian Reknaya at the Oshal Falls, receiving two tributaries, the Yula and Sikit rivers, before crossing the Geranian Heath westward before forming an estuary at Kalpattu, entering the Kalparian Sea.

Cultural Significance

The Kalpa is one of only two major freshwater bodies on the Geranian Heath, beside Lake Tapakya and is of great cultural significance from the beginning of human settlement in the area, the Geranians and Early Aribelians. At the latest with the arrival of the Kattasians and the subsequent dispersion of the Geranians in the mid-2nd millennium B.E.B., it becomes the homeland of the budding Kalparian people, who develop a connection with the river running so deep that they will eventually adopt its name as their own. For centuries, the Kalpa and the Kalpa Valley form the heartland of Kalparian territory, in Lécaronian times still dominated by the five Kalparian hillforts lining the river, Kalpattu, Tartassa, Nitespea, Varu, and Antanu. As, for much of their history, the Kalparians act as a buffer nation between the dominions of the Geranian Heath (successively, the Kingdom of Aeros, the Kingdoms of Yamenna, and the Wertian Kingdom) and those of the Oshale (the Celdic tribes, later the Aribelian Republic), the Kalpa itself is regarded the traditional boundary between Geran and Aribel, and indeed functions as the border between the Lécaronian Provinces II Geran and VIII Northwestern Colonies after the dissolution of Province VII Oshale following the First Kalparian Uprising of 614 L.R.