The Choir

A relatively new faction; being formed from various soldiers some forty years ago by the two warriors Aegea and Orion, and gaining a name for themselves once they conquered both Ville de la Saumure and it’s governing capitol, Tour de Rouge, twenty five years ago. Aegea and Orion have done much to advance the country, pursuing an understanding of both magic and technology as The Choir attempts to unite the island under it’s banner, having since integrated the neighboring nation of the Twilight Fields and currently waging war against Loyalitat. Their armies are respected and feared for their prowess, though their relatively young age and aggressive expansionism has gained them a reputation as upstarts amongst those with a safe distance from them. Though Orion has exiled himself decades ago, The Choir has gone through a worrying loss in stability with Aegea’s recent assassination by an unknown group, with her former Lieutenant, Blanc Noir, serving to fill the power vacuum.

Tour de Rouge

Before The Choir took power, the nation of Tour de Rouge had already boasted a rich history and culture as both inventors and hunters. Once plagued by gargoyles, beasts, and other monsters, the people of the land decided that gathering together to hunt their foes was a far superior course of action to cowering in fear. Adolescents are taught to craft their own beast-hunting weapons from scratch by the elders, while killing a beast with a weapon that one has created themselves is considered a rite of passage. Dueling against a hunter’s unconventional weaponry and fighting style is an extreme challenge, though this same pride in individuality has led to a poor military record before The Choir’s reforms. While most of the old threats have long since been hunted to extinction, the predators that come down from the mountains during winter provide a relished chance to relive the old traditions of the hunt.

Twilight Fields

Formerly an independent nation that sat to the east of the Horizon River, they elected to surrender and peacefully integrate into The Choir. Their people make good use of magic, with weather-controlling and earth magic being used to produce bountiful harvests, and golems being created in large numbers to defend the lands. Though there is a formal system of government, their influence pales in comparison to that of The Order of the Crescent Sun, a group of mages that uses magic channeling the energies of the sun, moon, and stars to hunt demons.

Loyalitat, The Lake of Reflection, and the Royal Family

A monarchy led by the Falke family since the nation was founded, Loyalitat’s capitol is a great walled city near the coastline, resting at foot of the mountain range that separates the two halves of the continent, with the rest of the country’s borders extending all the way to the Horizon River to the east and the Whispering Wilds to the South. Like the Twilight Fields, The Lake of Reflection (known to them as Reine See) holds a high place in their culture: The dead are given the utmost respect, and Loyalitat’s spiritualists use the shimmering waters in many of their purification rituals in order to sanctify corpses and ensure their eternal rest.

Loyalitat’s people are noted to be fiercely loyal to one another, and the sacrifices that their higher-ranking soldiers have made in pursuit of victory have allowed them to push Choral forces back long enough to burn down the bridge linking the two factions. King Adler’s son, Prince Reiner, went missing shortly after the battle for the bridge concluded, leading to a sense of worry and unease amongst Loyalitat’s nobility. The land outside of Falke is quite rural in comparison to the great walled capitol, with the towns dotting the countryside featuring characteristically grand mausoleums and graves for their sanctified dead. The country’s people have gained a reputation as unnecessarily superstitious, but their sheer dedication to their homeland alone makes them formidable if provoked.

The North, and The Cherinok

When compared to the rolling plains and lush forests of Southern Abbaden, the vast mountain ranges of the North have little to offer in the way of hospitality. The weather can change in an instant, very little vegetation grows, and predators stalk between the mountains in constant search of food. Here, the tribes of the Cherinok roam, living as nomads among the massive stone spires. This choice of lifestyle is based in faith, their ancestors believing the mountain tops would allow them to be close to their deities which dwell beyond the reach of man. Faithful to their homeland and distrustful to most outsiders the Cherinok peoples themselves are ancient, with their ruins and forgotten temples scattered throughout the unforgiving terrain.

The Grand Temple

Carved directly into the face of Mount Helva, Deu Teulum, also known as the Grand Temple, can be seen overlooking the entirety of the southern plains and forests. Ages have passed since its construction, and for centuries a dedicated order of monks and priests have cared for the ancient stone corridors that sink deep into the mountain. The temple houses the accumulated knowledge of the Cherinok peoples and their religion, room after room filled with artifacts and ancient scrolls that have been uncovered over the years. When found, such relics are brought to Deu Teulum to be studied and kept safe, the monks and priests collaborating to try and uncover the history of their people so they may bring that knowledge through to the future.

Nethergate Island

Once a tranquil new land dotted with small villages, this island just off the Southeast coast was host to a cataclysmic merging of worlds that left it scarred and corrupted beyond return. Over half the island is now considered uninhabitable, the fabric between dimensions there made weak allowing monstrosities known by many as ‘demons’ to invade and inhabit the forsaken land. What was once lush forests are now endless fields of blackened trunks and shattered earth, with demons lurking in every shadow hunting each other or anyone foolish enough to brave such terrain. Not all of the island belongs to the beasts, though considering the state of how feared the creatures are it may as well.

Nethren Port

The only long standing settlement on the island of Nethergate, the city rests on the northmost point of the island as far from the corruption as geography will allow. A moderately sized city, its buildings are constructed mostly from scavenged ruins of old villages, and the decommissioned ships of those who first chose to settle on the practically barren island. As large as the city itself is the port it was built around, the expansive set up of docks and piers designed to host all sizes of ships. Day after day foreign trade ships come and go, the port constantly buzzing with activity as the locals try to sell the butchered pieces of what had been caught the day before. While the majority of the locals are demon hunters or in some way involved in the business, the remainder of the population consists of criminals, pirates, cutthroats, and anyone looking to avoid most forms of government. This hardly makes the city a safe place to visit, but being the nation's largest trading hub keeps it bustling with merchants, and anyone looking to procure goods native to The Forno.

Cinder

A small, ramshackle settlement near the channel between Abbaden and Nethergate Island. A scaled down Nethren Port at a glance, ships here return to port day by day, stocking the markets with rare ingredients, materials, and relics straight from Nethergate Island. The small city marks itself on the map as a place of gathering for demon hunters before they head off to the island. As such a profession requires high degrees of strength, cunning, or insanity, it has led to the settlement becoming cutthroat in nature, thieves especially being a local concern.

The Foji

Once fractured by petty squabbling amongst its nobility, Foji’s unification has shifted the focus of its people towards the destabilized world to the west. As an isolated island nation, Foji tends to keep itself as detached as possible from outside politics, though their emperor has lifted many former restrictions on trade despite the general distrust of foreigners. This distrust is mutual, however, and the people of Foji have gained a reputation as untrustworthy merchants and heartless sellswords with respect for nothing but coin. Aegea has historically preferred recruiting wandering and exiled warriors from the island, however, first as soldiers, and then as her personal guard. The use of magic is outlawed in Foji, except for the royal family and the religious clergy. To them, magic is divine, and such things cannot be tainted by the common rabble.

Iron Sap Woods- An old growth forest dominated by giant Iron Sap trees, a type of fir that normally grow up to about 200 feet in height. About 50 feet overhead their branches grow dense enough to form a canopy that blocks out the brunt of any sunshine, streams of light trickling down to the forest floor where they can. The forest floor isn’t very overgrown as a result, most of the other vegetation being large patches of grass, ferns, moss beds, and fungi.

The Hollow Forest- Once an old growth forest like the Iron Sap Woods, The Hollow Forest is a shell of its past self after being constantly flooded by the Lake of Reflection’s overflow. Now an expansive and overgrown marsh, whole sections of forest have been turned into swampland. The Iron Sap trees remain, but only serve as a frame for the abundance of fungi and creepers that dominate the muddy, rotting earth now.

Whispering Wilds- A far younger and still developing forest, the Whispering Wilds are primarily overgrown shrublands with small, fast growing trees taking hold anywhere they can. Fauna local to the area tend to be far smaller than what is found elsewhere on the island, and the openness of the terrain makes it easy to navigate compared to the mainlands other forests.

Horizon River- A swift moving, and impressively wide river that cuts through the middle of the mainland, originating in the north from far deeper in the Cherinok Mountains. On the surface the river looks fairly calm, flowing at a moderate pace with rocks or debris breaking the surface here and there. Powerful and unpredictable undertow makes the river dangerous to navigate though, and anything the river claims is often sucked under until it can be spat out into the Lake of Reflection.

Lake of Reflection- Named for the way it so clearly reflects the sun, moon, and stars on its surface, the crystal-clear Lake of Reflection is important to the cultures of both Loyalitat and Twilight Fields. Loyalitat’s people use its water in their sanctifying rituals, while mages of The Order of the Crescent Sun often reflect and meditate on the lake’s shore, in order to more closely attune themselves to their celestial magic. When the Twilight Fields were first annexed, Aegea infamously declared that a sample of the lake’s waters be tested for poisons, but nothing was found, suggesting that the lake’s clarity is gained through less mundane means.

Cherinok Mountains- Named after the indigenous people's who call the mountain range home, the great Cherinok Mountains are a massive expanse of largely uncharted land that makes up the northern half of the nation's mainland. Most of its jagged mountains have no records of ever being scaled, and every map of the area is different from the last making the region hard to navigate for anyone that hasn't lived there their whole life. Between the mountains rest a multitude of stone valleys, tough grasses and hardy roots being the only flora that grow here naturally aside from the odd tree. Herds of wild Muskox roam between the valleys in search of food, and serve as the primary prey animal for the regions multitude of predators.

Forest of Thorns- The only surviving forest on Nethergate Island, it's multitude of trees are protected by a network of massive, blackened brambles that entangle the entire woodland and it's surrounding areas. Whether by magic, or simply nature's wrath, the brambles keep the influence of the Forno at bay, and create a choke point between the wastelands and Nethren Port.

Nethergate Wastes- East of the Forest of Thorns lay the Nethergate Wastelands, a barren expanse of dead forests and abandoned villages where demons of the Forno roam, and those foolish enough to do so hunt for them. A gigantic spire of blood red stone marks the edge of what most hunters consider ‘safe’, as beyond that point the land feels almost alien, and the creatures that lurk that far out are best left unprovoked. Further out still, a massive ridge of craggy spines mark no man's land for even the best of demon hunters. Some speculate the ridge is where the demons come from, as there seems to be an endless supply of the creatures despite the years of trapping and hunting. Few who venture that far ever return, and those who do never speak of what they saw.

Piñura- To the South of the Obivec Isles rests the continent of Piñura, it’s northern regions composed of expansive deserts, large mesas, and warped badlands. Rich veins of iron run through the stone here which has attracted the attention of more developed empires farther south. Any larger settlements in the region are primarily industrial and under foreign control, expansive operations set in place to mine and export iron and masonry. A large portion of the native population has embraced these settlers and the comforts their lifestyles bring, many now working in the mines and quarries in exchange for housing and imported goods. A few villages and tribes still remain independent of these factory cities, but they represent only a fraction of the tribes that used to roam the desert.