PKMNregionBendena

Bendena is a region with a long, troubled and in some ways, storied history. For the past hundred years Bendena made its name as one of the greatest industrial pioneers of the world. A massive industrial zone dominated the southern stretch, factories churning out products of all kinds that were shipped across the pokemon world. While up North, it fully embraced software and rising computer trends, hosting massive server systems and lots of tech start ups and software firms. Wealth began to flow rather swiftly, the region growing, industrializing and its cities beginning to spread and merge into one massive metropolis. This growth seemed without end, and things were booming.

That was, until the inevitable disaster happened. Pollution was already spreading, seeping its way across Bendena without pause, hastened by the reckless industry and the relentless excess brought by their wealth. Ultimately this led to a meltdown, literally, a factory exploding, chaining several others and pouring a mass of poison across the land. The scars of it are still seen to this day in the great, deadwood forest, the haunted woods to the South that the main bike path goes through.

After this, the region and its leaders...panicked. Realizations came in and desperate attempts were made to stem the tide, to reverse the damage. In another place perhaps it would have been too late, but rapid thinking, and the help of the one who later became the Champion, managed to stem the tide. Many call the halting of the pollution and the subsequent cleanup of the region as downright miraculous. Old religious folk liked to claim it was the work of something else...but few listened to them.

Either way Bendena managed to get its second chance, seemingly out of nowhere, and it worked it hard. Bendena is still a pioneer of industry, but also a pioneer of clean energies, a place where electric pokemon are some of the most important pokemon in the place. A place where they have dedicated huge swathes of space to massive national parks, situating the entire League challenge around them, as both a testament to their industry and ability, and their dedication to not repeating the mistakes of the past, and keeping the world safe and renewable.

The Regional Parks(Numbered 1-8 on the map)
The Regional Parks are the work of a great deal activism, building, population shuffling and just plain environmental conservationism. Each one covers 2,500 square miles and has a completely different environment, with its own group of rangers to watch over it. The eight gyms are all in these parks, and most of the pokemon of the region are found here.

1. Tropical Fern Park
1a. Grass type gym
1b. Grass, water, flying, bug
One of the first parks most trainers go to when they start on the gym challenge, Tropical Fern is a great sprawl of jungle ferns and trees, clustered thickly. Around the edges the jungle is cultivated with deliberate paths and even benches, turning the outer edge into kind of a public city park, but deeper in it grows wilder, with no man made paths. Towards the center the only breaks in the thick foliage come from rivers or lakes.

2. Shifting Dunes Park
1a. Ground type gym
1b. Steel, Ground, Flying, Normal
Situated just north of the Deadwood that surrounds Torment Town, Shifting Dunes is averaged out as the ‘third’ park that most trainers wind up traveling through on their gym challenge. The relatively clear area makes it easier to navigate, but travel times are still bogged down by large dunes of shifting sand that make footing difficult. Occasionally one will find patches of ‘wasteland’ just hard baked rock with little sand, relatively flat and hard. There is the occasional oasis scattered about the park, but one shouldn’t rely on that for water.

3. Towering Oak Park
1a. Bug type gym
1b. Bug, flying, electric, Dark
A dense forest of a far more ‘standard’ type than the jungle in Tropical Fern, Towering Oak is well named. The trees can reach dozens of meters in the air, providing ample room for treehouses or the nests of the many pokemon living within it. There’s actually a fair bit of space between the trees in most places, making travel fairly easy, although there’s not many landmarks to get one’s bearings, so navigation is very important to trainers looking to get through at any reasonable time. The thick canopy can sometimes make it hard to tell what time of day it is.

4. Fire Mouth Park
1a. Fire type gym
1b. Fire, fighting, poison, Ground
A cracked, stony landscape that sometimes ‘snows’ ash Fire Mouth Park has a clear landmark to make navigation easy...the large volcano in the middle of it. There are a couple other hills verging on mountains in the park, but the Fire Mouth itself is a clear indicator of where one is at all times. Other than that trainers are just advised to be careful, and make sure they bring plenty of water.

5. Stone Fist Park
1a. Fighting type gym
1b. Fighting, Rock, Steel, Normal
A sprawling artificial mountain range, it’s one of the contenders for the park that took the most manpower to make. A series of cliffs, mountains, shallow valleys, and one great mountain in the very center, overlooking the entire place, Stone Fist is a treacherous, dangerous place to navigate and move. Experienced trainers are best recommended, as a less experienced trainer with weaker pokemon might not be able to hack the mountain passes.

6. Subzero Cliff Park
1a. Ice type gym
1b. Ice, Water, Rock, Steel
A park that seems much more pleasant, at least at first. Subzero Cliff really only lives up to its name as one approaches the center of the park. Before that it’s relatively safe snowy fields, sweeping tundry and...great sweeping snow drifts that can be surprisingly treacherous to navigate. As one gets to the center though, the ground lifts and rises, turning into cliffs that require proper rock climbing to get past. The fact that the gym is up on those cliffs is more than enough reason to justify the focus in the name.

7. Soarin’ Heights Park
1a. Flying type gym
1b. Flying, Dragon, Normal, Electric
If one wants to really talk about cliffs though, Soarin’ Heights is nothing but cliffs, plateaus and great chasms going all the way down. Surprisingly the park is kept relatively free of rock and ground types, the sweeping piles of stone dominated by other types instead. Vines and scraggly trees grow from the sides, and pokemon live in the canyons between the plateaus enjoying the lush growth down below.

8. Rushing Rapids Park
1a. Water type gym
1b. Water, Rock, fighting, poison
Often tied with Soarin’ Heights for the ‘end game’ for trainers seeking to complete the League Challenge. It’s winding rivers, rushing over rocks and between spires of stone and rushing down shallow canyons can make it hectic to get through. There’s little solid ground, and even less that’s permanent. It’s basically impossible to get anywhere without traversing the rivers, a prospect that can be very dangerous for an unprepared trainer.

Metropolis Cities. In a region like Bendena, it's pretty much just one or two giant cities. These might as well be considered districts than cities in their own right, but the people have always referred to them as cities, and they'll be damned if they're going to stop now.

9. Smog City
This city used to be name for the thick smog and smoke that was generated by the blocks upon blocks of industrial factories. When the great disaster hit, this was where it started, there are still remnants, and in the Winter there’s a haze visible over the city still. Most of the factories have been refurbished to be environmentally safe and friendly, but there are still sizable sections of the city where factories lay abandoned, forming tantalizing places to live or hideout for criminals, homeless, and other such elements.

10. Sharpen City
One of the ‘Residential Cities’ of Bendena, Sharpen City is composed mostly of long apartment blocks and bunkhouses. Places that were rented out to the factory workers in Smog City, and largely still are. It’s also got a sizable population of rangers, or at least houses owned/rented by them. Those houses are often empty, due to rangers traveling all across the region and staying days at a time in the parks they’re stationed to watch over. It has the essentials in terms of businesses and supplies, but if one’s seeking entertainment, taking an hour ride on the Regional trains is generally the way to go, to somewhere with more entertaining establishments.

11. Rest City
Every metropolis needs residential areas. Sharpen City is one, although it’s largely dominated by a specific class of person. Rest City is similarly dominated. Although it’s only half a residential area. Many of the people who live here commute to Soak City or Avalanche City, but it’s also well known for its care centers. Retirement homes or health clinics. Other than that there’s nothing much to remark about Rest City.

12. Avalanche City
Set in the mountains of Bendena, the place has long been stripped and settled into a community that has been slowly winding down. There are numerous mines dotting the location, but the pokemon population is poor despite how popular those usually are. Something that can be traced back to very overzealous mining practices before they were reigned in. While the mining prospects aren’t as high as they used to be, it still provides a regular source of work, the materials often shipped to Smog for refinement and use.

13. Judgement City
The final and most important destination for pokemon trainers from across and out of the region. Judgement City is where the shining, Silver Tower of the Elite 4 sounds, Victory Road not being a cave or mountain, but a gauntlet through multiple floors of trainers all there for the same thing, to take on the Elite Four waiting on the top floors of the skyscraper. It is also home to multiple battle clubs, and a great stadium where tournaments and competitions are held, and numerous other things. Even trainers who aren’t yet ready to take on the Elite 4 will sometimes still stop by to explore the other offerings.

14. Soak City
Often referred to as the ‘face’ of Bendena, Soak City is a popular tourist destination, and what most people see when they come to the region. Characterized by large, sprawling resorts, wonderful, clean beaches, and tons of fun activities for everyone to enjoy, Soak City is seemingly entirely devoted to providing entertainment for the people coming to take a break from the worries of the world and their lives. Often trainers from outside will stop here first, brought by the cruise ships to their next League Challenge, or even their first.

15. Sky High City
A smaller, not as pleasant city of the region. Sky High nonetheless fills a very important purpose. It holds the regional airport, although no one travels by plane in the pokemon world, the planes are the main method of importing and exporting goods. In terms of imports it’s largely food and various other rural based goods that are hard to get in so industrialized a region. Small, but still useful, it’s a place that tends to be often overlooked by visitors to the region.

16. Transform City
Another small location that is mostly overlooked by outsiders, Transform City is a small, clustered location of labs and a prominent college. A great deal of research happens within the city, as well as the studies and education of the next generation of scientists and Aides. Professor Magnolia herself graduated from Transform University, and many of her aides come from there as well.

17. Fissure Town
One of the few truly ‘rural’ areas left in Bendena. Fissure Town is a small collection of houses, and the small handful of farms the region still boasts. It is also home to the Chasm, or the Fissure. A great, gaping hole into the depths of the Earth that opened during the great disaster. So far, no one’s explored the full winding network of caves found within it, or even been to the proper bottom. Trainers wanting to explore the Chasm are very carefully warned, it is a dangerous place, and most trainers aren’t allowed without a full Eight Badges to boast, the variety of pokemon down there is startling, and Professor Magnolia’s lab sits right on the edge of the chasm.

18. Barrier City
Far and away from the worries of the rest of the Region, Barrier City is a proper suburb, full of white picket fences, clean schools and middle class or higher families getting to live in gated communities and enjoy themselves. Without much else there to entice people, trainers and visitors usually pass it up, while those living in the region consider it to be pretty much the nicest part of the region.

19. Bounce City
Another thing Bounce City is known for is its tech firms, software companies and more. This is where Bounce City comes into play. All those software firms, companies with unmarked buildings providing server space for internet access to trainers the world over, it all starts in Bounce, marking it as an important place for the region. A great deal of the region’s income comes from these firms, and thus it’s one of the better protected from the criminal elements that are far more rife in other places, like the abandoned sections of Smog City.

20. Charge City
Called by some the beating heart of Bendena. Charge City has numerous, powerful power generators, carefully designed for environmental friendliness and making the best use of solar energies, and very well treated pokemon. Charge City is always interested in taking in unwanted electric types, but most trainers just pass right through it, if they don’t inadvertently go around.

21. Torment Town
Situated in the middle of the ‘Deadwood’ Torment Town is...the town next to the region’s graveyard. With a small population and surrounded by a wood that is just fully haunted by ghosts, with only dark types and vermin breaking that up, Torment Town is a dingy place, where most young folk try to move out quickly, and one of the last places where Bendena’s old religious practices from decades ago still hold some amount of sway. Nonetheless, thanks to the Deadwood having pokemon not found in the parks, and the fact that it’s right next to the Bike Path that can cut across half the region, trainers often find themselves stopping by at one point or another in their journey.