Oulen

Oulen is a continent located wholly in the southern and western hemispheres, situated between the Imogen Ocean, the Chenla Ocean, and the Antarctic Ocean. It is the smallest of the five traditional continents in the Amplectorian conception. The Black Isles are not a part of Oulen, but of the separate, submerged continent of NuShebia.

=History=

Pre-Chengian
(settlement by peoples from Zhao by means of a Beringea-type land bridge and the development of vastly differing cultures)

Cheng Yihua's Voyage
The "Lost Continent" was re-discovered by the outside world in 1692 by a sea convoy led by the Cycuiian merchant captain Cheng Yihua. Bound from eastern Cyprum Xecuii to the islands of Sri Tschow with stores of silk and food, they were caught in a cyclone in the Chenla Ocean. Two of the three ships sank, killing most of the crew of each, and the third ship, the Shinkichon, was severely damaged and was without navigation equipment. The skies remained cloudy for days and Cheng and her crew were running short of provisions. The sighting of land after six days of being lost at sea was a welcome sight to the tired, cold, and hungry sailors and they made for the unknown shores, assuming it to be somewhere in Promethia or Zhao.

Cheng's party landed on the western coast of the Kathlamet Nation in southwest Oulen. The Kathlamet were curious to see these strange, dark-skinned, almond-eyed travelers in their great boat, as were the sailors to behold the primitive people with their long, flat foreheads. Initial contact was cordial; the Kathlamet gave the Cycuiians food and furs and allowed them to stay in their longhouses while the Cycuiians gave them silk and spices.

Soon, though, as the Cycuiians were already beginning to outstay their welcome (repairs on their ship had been put off due to the bitter cold of the southern Oulish winter), the Kathlamet people began to fall ill from smallpox and the measles and the Kathlamet people began to believe that their strange new visitors were cursed, or were agents sent from the Third World to corrupt them. One day, Cheng and her surviving crew were exiled from Kathlamet territory (one man, a cook, determined by the Kathlamet shaman to be the "greatest source of evil amongst them," was first burned at the stake after having his heart cut out and his testicles removed) and put off in canoes; their ship was retained by Chief Tumthul as compensation.

Cheng and her crew, again lost and starving, made their way northeast along the Kathlamach Islands that lead across the treacherous Kathlamach Channel until finally landing again in Sosoni Daigwape territory. The warlike Sosoni Daigwape were much less friendly upon first meeting them, but still extended an apprehensive hand in friendship. It was not long before the easily-offended Daigwape chief found reason to justify his apprehension: one of Cheng's crew was caught (to use her words) "having relations with the Chief's daughter." The chief declared that all of the outlanders be killed outright, but Cheng and five others managed to escape, pursued by angry Daigwape warriors until they lost them in the mountains to the northeast.

Making their way through the mountains, Cheng lost two more men: one to hypothermia and the other fell down a steep mountainside. Finally, they came across a village of Nuwuvi people. Seeing no one around, they helped themselves to some salted deer meat they came across. They were discovered by a trio of Nuwuvi women, back from gathering firewood, inside a teepee, where they were sleeping off their full bellies. The women fetched some of the warriors, who apprehended and imprisoned the sailors. Knowing that their neighbors to the southeast, the Sosoni Daigwape, practiced slavery, they planned to sell their prisoners to them. When the Sosoni Daigwape tradesmen arrived at the Nuwuvi camp, one of them recognized the sailors and flew into a rage -- Cheng chose that time to make her escape along with the rest of her crew, whose bindings she had loosened before that. They fled, but two of the men were recaptured and were never seen again. She and her only remaining crew member, a deckhand named Yang Jiayin, made for the coast, stole a small boat, and escaped into the open ocean, where the Nuwuvi would not chase them for fear of sea monsters.

Yang died of dehydration while at sea and Cheng arrived on the southern shore of Cyprum Xecuii four years after she left her home, alone, starving, sunburned, dehydrated, and clutching the mummified skull of the last man of her crew to die and babbling almost incoherently. It was not until the April of 1697 that Cycuiian doctors could get a coherent statement from her for the authorities, but few believed her claims, for they were too fantastic. The following August, a wealthy and curious landowner named Wu Huateng decided to investigate her claims and departed by direction of a crude map she had made, bearing with him a hold full of treasure to offer the "people of the Lost Coninent," but he was never heard from again. Another, more official expedition was mounted by the Cycuiian government on 1 February, 1699 with a similar "peace offering" of treasure. The ship returned after visiting the Nuwuvi tribe on 19 December, 1699, listing badly to the port side, its sails in tatters, with half of its crew, including its captain, either missing or killed. The acting captain, Ma Yongxing declared that the "People of Oulen [as he had termed them] are a savage people. They have little value for life or for the treasures of the civilized world and prefer to live in squalor. They likewise have little of any value, for they otherwise would have been able to develop the technology to contact the outside world, and are best left alone, especially when considering the fierce hostility that would meet any visitors to their land by people whose numbers and strength are unknown, but presumed to be strong, despite their primitiveness."

Post-Chengian
(increasing relations with the "civilized world" and the establishment of the United States of Columbia)

=Culture= (Reference: Comparison Table)

=Geography and Climate= (under construction -- compare to United States/southern Canada, except upside-down)