abstract
| - But the truth is much different to those who live in the Land of Water. In fact, there are very few alternatives; the environment kills those who do not actively fight to survive, and a single scrap of bread is often all it takes to doom or save a family. Food is scarce in most areas and the inhabitants are usually far too poor to get by. This results in high crime rates, and civil wars, where the aggressors and defenders are typically ordinary people from different neighbourhoods who either want to reclaim lost food, or take it from others. Usually by force. These aforementioned events earned the Land of Water a new name, a name more often used by its ordinary residents; the Land of Tears. As most know, the land of water is composed of dozens of different islands, each of which often have radically different climates and ecosystems - in some places, the difference between one island and the next are so great so as to make people believe that they've entered another nation altogether. Its not uncommon to see an arid desert island as little as one or two nautical miles from an island with arctic temperatures. Islands like these, which typically have high mountainous regions are believed to contribute much to the fact that the land of water finds itself plagued by violent hurricanes quite often. Usually at least once each week, the casualties vary, but its not uncommon for especially violent storms to take several dozen lives in a single day.
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