The Yugr'am River and Eastern Thanalan

[Elladie]

This is causing me problems

At first I thought that it was a straightforward problem; either I have Eastern Thanalan too far to the west or Roddard Ironheart's map was more interpretative than accurate and the Yugr'am river actually rises much further east than he shows it.

However when I went to check in-game, I discovered that the Yugr'am River is actually FLOWING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION. That is, in Eastern Thanalan it's flowing east to west, falling over a small waterfall where it enters the map and then down over a much larger fall into the ravine under the Highbridge.

Does anyone have an explanation for this? I can come up with speculation - landscape changes due to the Calamity for example - but I wondered if there is anything in the lore. And if it's changed its flow/position so radically, where does it empty into the ocean now? Does it still manage to head back to Northern Palgth'an and the Sea of Jade?

Many thanks

[Anonymoose]

Mentions of the Yugr'am are few and far between, and most relate to the salmon, not the river proper.

Highbridge was built immediately after the Calamity in order to span the newly-created cavern through which the Yugr'am now flows, thus reconnecting the Royal Allagan Sunway to the Lumberline that goes on to the Black Shroud. As a whole, the Yugr'am runs west-to-east, from the continent proper emptying into the area between the Sea of Ash and the Sea of Jade, near the Pearl and Mazlaya. In eastern Thanalan, the bulk of the river flows through that aforementioned new cavern. However, the small part of the Yugr'am you can stand in runs east-to-west, coming from Burgundy Falls. Likewise, if you go to the Burning Wall, you can see more water coming east-to-west down that tributary to the larger Yugr'am.

Seeing as the river runs south and east through eastern Thanalan, my guess is that - while the whole of the river still flows west-to-east and empties into (what I think is technically) the Jade - some of the Yugr'am's tributary sections flow southwest from the South Shroud (perhaps due to the land itself sloping west-to-east as the water table flows downhill in that area) before plunging into the cavern and joining the east-to-west flow. It looks like if it weren't for the cliffs everything had to flow down, the pools near the Burning Wall would instead flow directly east into the river's new chasm.


Fun Fact: The fishing log says that the Yugr'am Salmon matures in the Bloodbrine Sea before swimming up the Yugr'am to spawn. Do you think it takes the west route around all of Aldenard, the east route around the entirety of the other two continents, or that there's an unseen system of rivers used as a shortcut to the Sea of Jade before then swimming up the Yugr'am? ... Seems kind of out of their way. (Only French has changed Bloodbrine Sea to the Sea of Jade, so far).