Australia & Oceania

Sunken Islands. Many of the small islands in the Pacific have become submerged. Their inhabitants fled to surrounding islands, sometimes causing problems in the process. Their tales of homes now drowned beneath the sea have sometimes sparked myths and legends.

The Dreaming. The new tribes in Australia have become part of the web of songlines that the old tribes first discovered. Every journey across the land tells a story about the ancestors and how the land came into being. Taken together, they form a grand, criss-crossing epic across the continent. In some parts, the songs remember a time when the lush jungles stood barren, like a desert. Different tribes and family lines own different parts of the story. Many of the old tribes perished in ancient days, or became so small that they merged into other tribes. The people from across the ocean formed new tribes; they learned their part in the Dreaming, and came to own songs and stories of their own. In walking across the land, in telling the land's stories, they renew the world. They say that the last world ended because the people from across the sea killed or exiled too many of the old tribes, or wiped away their memories of the songlines. Creation itself nearly fell apart in those days. Now, a new people walk the songlines and sing their stories.

Visit the forums for Australia & Oceania in the Fifth World

Click on one of the continents for some of the major changes that took place there.