World · traveller's index of Bosana
Explore Bosana through an interactive map and a traveller's index of its settlements, landmarks, forests, fortresses, and roads.
Mosabarkh
Mosabarkh is a great city where every street leads to the centre, especially if you ask someone who lives on that street. Within its walls live all the peoples of Bosana, clerks, merchants, craftsmen, and people who came for two days and, thirty years later, still explain that they are not from here. The city runs on…
The Gateway
Vratnice stand high above Mosabarkh, where the mountain road ceases to be certain that it belongs to this world. Guards watch the approach, travellers leave their names in a ledger, and every winter the ledger returns with several names that no one entered. Locals do not argue about where the gates lead. It is enough…
Vrelo
Vrelo is a village beneath the forest, gathered around a spring that has never run dry and an argument over who deserves the credit. Its houses are wooden, its workshops full of patched tools, and a guest is first given water, then coffee, and only then asked who sent them. Work here is finished by communal labour…
Kamenica
Kamenica was raised where soil is scarce, stone is plentiful, and the people saw no reason to leave on that account. Houses lean against one another like relatives at a wedding, with narrow passages that preserve shade and other people's conversations. The stonemasons of Kamenica repair everything except the…
Mlinište
Mlinište lies among fields and river branches, close enough to the water to live by it and close enough to the neighbours to quarrel over it. The mills follow an order that is written down, certified, and interpreted differently every spring. When the water rises, the whole village comes out to save the embankments…
Fountain Square
Fountain Square is the only place in Mosabarkh where water, news, and queues arrive from the same direction. Porters come in the morning, merchants at noon, and by evening people who are not thirsty but merely wish to check what is being said. The city administration has repeatedly tried to regulate movement around…
The Rainproof Ember
In a stone basin before the old administrative house burns an ember that rain has never managed to put out. City stokers tend it, although each insists it would burn without them. Travellers light their lamps there, important notices are read beside it, and people who came to complain about the heating warm their…
The Ol' Hump
The Ol' Hump joins two old quarters of Mosabarkh and several grudges just as old. It arches just enough that neither bank can see the other. Tourists think it's architecture. Locals know it's diplomacy. The nickname is an affectionate one; nobody remembers the official name, because then they'd have to agree whose…
The Hilltop Messenger
On the hill above the city stands an old transmission tower assembled from copper, patches, and parts whose original purpose no one remembers. It carries warnings, weather reports, and the occasional piece of advice nobody requested. When the signal weakens, Mosabarkh sends craftsmen. When it grows stronger, the city…
The Stone Ring
On the plateau above Kamenica stands a circle of stone figures facing one another. No one knows whether they were carved as people, whether people later recognised themselves in them, or whether the stones merely waited for an interpreter with enough spare time. Travellers leave small coins for a safe journey. The…
The Greensmith Inn
The Greensmith Inn was once the sort of tavern where no recommendation, banner or explanation of one's origins was required. People came for food and drink, stayed for the company, and left only when the conversation became serious enough to be better continued tomorrow.
Sojenik
Sojenik is a harbour raised on posts above a quiet branch of the river. Its houses are joined by planks, footbridges, and agreements about who was supposed to repair them last. The inhabitants know water by its colour, wind by its smell, and every stranger by how uncertainly they step onto the first board. Goods…
The Mute Temple
The Mute Temple has long ceased to be a temple in anything but name. Its roof has collapsed, its walls are overgrown, and rain, roots and the occasional traveler who ignored advice to stay away now pass through what was once its main hall. Yet from time to time, someone clears the ashes from an old hearth, moves a…
The Axeless Grove
On a small river island grows a grove where no tree has been cut for longer than the surrounding villages can remember. This is not due to a ban, but to an ownership dispute older than every surviving ledger. Until the grove's owner is established, nobody has the right to take timber. Thus bureaucracy, entirely by…
Žutibor
Žutibor je stara šuma u kojoj put nije uvijek pouzdan dokaz pravca. Staze nestaju, raskrsnice se pojave tamo gdje ih juče nije bilo, a poznato drvo ponekad čovjeka sačeka s pogrešne strane brda. Mještani se zbog toga ne smatraju izgubljenima. Kažu samo da ih je šuma odvela dužim putem, što je lakše podnijeti nego…
The Stopover
The Stopover is a Rohni camp on the eastern bank, by the little bridge: two wagons, a few horses, a barrel and a fire that keeps burning even when everyone has gone. The Rohni don't have villages, they have stopovers, and this is just one of many. The wagons never stand in the same spot twice, yet they always come…