Yeah, plains are the blank space. I assume the bushes (because a bushel is a unit of measurement) you're talking about are actually the little tree, which means forest.
Also, since you seem to have forgotten already, Neoclidia is a nation with a few ties to R'lyeh but more to the Cthulhu Mythos (which Honeybadger is also working with, and which R'lyeh is partially based upon). The Great Old Ones are, well, powerful and old beings. Cthulhu, for example, lives (or rather sleeps) under the sea in R'lyeh (an underwater city, duh). A lot of Lovecraft's work is based around the idea that there are forces much more powerful than humanity which simply don't care about humans; forces which are not good or evil, but simply have completely different thought processes than humans. What Wikipedia tells me is that then August Derleth came along and messed it all up with his 'good' and his 'evil' and his 'elemental forces'.
