Now that the major races of Gal Hadre have been covered it is time to dive into some other subjects, starting with the major regions and nations of the continent. I will be working from the south-west and moving up and across.
First up in the very south-west of Gal Hadre is Sangad, a relatively isolated Kingdom. It only shares a border with Aclimdan, which it broke off from around 800 years ago. Because of this, Sangad has a rather powerful navy to secure trade routes to other lands and ensure access to the Sangadri settlements across the sea to the West, along the coastline of the wild lands. Dominated by the Royal family and the powerful noble houses, it can be crippled for years in the event of a disputed succession under their strange laws for noble title bequeathment. Many likely heirs pre-decease house heads, despite the chaos this system can cause, it is generally believed by the landed of the Kingdom to ensure that nobility remains strong. The thing that really produces confusion and outright mockery from outside Sangad in the Royal family’s claim to be directly descended from the ancient Aclimdan Imperial Family, which everyone knows died out centuries before Sangad broke from Aclimdan. Orona, the capital of Sangad, is on the western shores of Lake Naris, that despite being days inland, is accessible by oceangoing ships part of the year when spring melt raises the level of the Naris River. Slowly efforts to dredge the river are increasing the portions of the year that the river is navigable by ship.
Aclimdan was the first Kingdom to drag itself from the shambles of the dragonstorm. At it’s imperial height it controlled around half of Gal Hadre. The continent still uses the Aclimdan Calendar and dating system known as Aclimdan Reckoning (AR). It’s glory began to fade as the Imperial family died off and civil wars and other strife began. Now Acliman is a shadow of its former self, having shed much of its outlying lands and with a king who is little more than a figurehead. It is a land on the edge of another civil war. But Aclimdan is still a power to be reckoned with, especially if threatened by outsiders. It could crush any of its immediate neighbours if it could bring its might to bear, but the threat of other neighbours intervening and internal dysfunction prevent that from really being an option. The Capital, Alab, is a coastal imperial city without an empire to sustain it, though it is still among the largest and most impressive cities in Gal Hadre. The foreign quarter of Alab is home to enclaves of every major ethnicity and sentient species on the continent, many of their communities can trace their routes back hundreds of years. Alab is also home to one of the few centres of magical learning in Gal Hadre, the Thumaturgery, which may one day lead to a more centralized repository of magic to be taught to young mages. Because of this, Aclimdan has slightly more mages per capita than other lands, and many of the most powerful mages at some point or another have been to Alab. Titles in Aclimdan have little bearing on the actual power and amount of land a noble controls, with landless Grand Dukes jockeying for precedence with cash-poor Imperial counts and merchant lords who have purchased titles.
Moving north, we have the Princedom of Varth. Once a semi-independent Principality of Aclimdan, Varth has been independent in all but name for centuries, but only recently formally broke with the Kingdom to its south. Varth controls the only land connection with the wilds of the west, a largely uncivilized place that is not considered part of Gal Hadre, the mountain-wall that sits at the western end of the ismuth is frequently tested by raids. For centuries, Varth’s nobility have been Tund and the region boasts high numbers of Tund in both raw numbers and as a percentage of its population. Because of this, Varth tends to be very conservative, a major contributing factor to it not formally breaking with Aclimdan for centuries. Its nobility have many ties to the ruling strata of the shard cities, and several shard cities have long been allies of the Prince of Varth. Rumours claim that most of the shard cities have a direct connection to the material plane within the borders of the Princedom, but the actual locations are known to only a fraction of Tund. Overall Varth is a relatively sparsely populated land, protected more by the harshness of the terrain than numbers of soldiers. It’s capital, Varth City, is the only real city within the Princedom, anywhere else it would be a backwater.
Lastly for today we will look at the Undil wastes, which are to the east of Varth and northern Aclimdan. Rarely has the waste had any kind of organized central leadership except for a few years at the height of the Acliman Empire, and the brief periods where some particularly fierce warlord unites most of the tribes to attack a nearby kingdom. The Undil wastes are very diverse, and home to a majority of Gal Hadre’s Trollkin, but human tribes, and smaller collections of Tund, Werd and Peshtar can all be found. These tribes all generally exist in a constant state of low level conflict; raids are a fact of life within the waste. Occasionally things flair up and flow blown wars break out, these generally result in the effective destruction of one or both tribes as their neighbours descend on the weak like scavengers. The few surviving strong members of the tribe being absorbed by their foe or neighbours. While a harsh place, one should not take this description to imply that the Undil waste is practically uninhabitable, it has towns and villages aplenty, though all have walls and isolated farms are an unwise investment.
Which of these lands interests you the most? Is there a particular idea that seemed interesting that I only briefly touched upon?
Comments
Post a Comment