Book 1 Geography
Geography of the Islands
The Crescent
The Crescent is the primary bridge between the Islands and the continent to the to the west. A series of interlinking roads is laid over the Crescent, forming dozens of small diamond shapes on most merchant maps. These roads connect the ports, businesses, lands to the west, and the Citadel of the Heart.
Citadel of the Heart
The Citadel was built by man and deity inside the arch of the mountain range. The church itself is roughly 35 storeys tall and 100 yards in diameter. From the floor, the congregation can see all the way to the chruch’s pointed peaks. Folklore and legend still tell of secret passages and rooms which exist in the church’s dizzying heights. The Citadel of the Heart is the first and last word on the region’s religions.
The Mountains
The mountain range which gives the Citadel its shape range in height from smaller peaks of only 400 yards tall to the center mountains, which reach as far as 1,000 yards into the sky.
The Planet Archipelago
The southern chain of islands is divided into three major, planet-shaped islands with a handful of smaller satellite landmasses surrounding them.
Goldensoil
Goldensoil is the westernmost island of the set. The soil itself is known for being fed a near endless supply of nutrients from the currents which pass by it. To this end, crops are very high quality in normal foods, and the region is home to many specialized delicacies.
To this end, old money rules the island with all of its trappings. The few thieves who survive illicitly on the island are loathe to show their faces in the daytime. Even they contend that the true seat of crime lies behind the contracts, sanctions, and decorum of their civilization.
Most landowning families may agree. The bulk of the shore is owned by noble families and farmed by their workers. Workers, in turn, work for an amount of food and lodging provided by their lords. Their rewards are based on need, tenure, and accomplishment.
Noble houses also employ personal guards. The military life is a quicker means to financial safety, but offers less chance for advancement in the long term. Just the same, many young boys (and some girls) pick up the sword in hopes of achieving a career as a noble’s guardsman. Scribes and entertainers are also hired by nobles, and the competition for these careers can be more fierce than the fighting between houses.
Stores are typically owned and operated by the ruling families of the island. However, the rare working man who has proven himself through years of toil has been able to establish his own small business. He is frequently tied contractually to his former Lord, but is otherwise a free man and possibly even the patriarch of a future noble family.
A small and rocky center of the island has recently been found to contain trace quantities of rare metals and gems. These findings have caused the ordinary levels of squabbling and anguish to rise to new heights. Families with a keen eye for opportunism or those facing economic desperation have recently taken to heated feuds over these lands. Smaller races from other lands have also moved in, assuming the work of mining these lands. The growing feuds and digging of new caverns makes the work extremely risky, but the nobles are so far willing to pay well.
Deershine’s Tear
Deershine’s Tear is the easternmost satellite island of Goldensoil. Most of the inhabitants of this island are refugees from Goldensoil itself, although small clans of criminals and revolutionaries have also made a home in this location. To some extent, the the groups have recreated the turmoil of Goldensoil with their own conflicts over property and ideology.
Lawlessness is the overriding rule of Deershine’s trail, independent of the various good or evil ideologies who have set up residence here.
Stærling
Stærling is the northwestern satellite of Goldensoil. This is a land for tinkerers, inventors, and engineers to seek out their passions. Small cities powered by numerous strange clockwork machinations have cropped up on this island. Society is typically a lawful with a focus on capitalism and innovation as currency. By and large, most engineers are too enthralled in their work to cause much intentional trouble. Not every new machine will work as planned, however.
An element of magic practitioners also finds work in Stærling, offering their services to the engineers to help build even more creative or bizarre devices.
Dewhaven
The large island east of Goldensoil is typically covered in rain and drizzle. Society in Dewhaven is fractured almost cleanly into two. At the top, again, are ruling lords and ladies who own most large estates and natural resources. The lower caste of people work these lands to produce rice or mine for riches. The similarities end there.
The atmosphere of Dewhaven is tense, with nobles and peasants nearly constantly at odds with each other despite their symbiotic relationship. This in-fighting has caused wide-spread poverty among the poorest, and a constant struggle for survival among the richest. The poorer caste live in small villages scattered about the island. They build their own small homes out of whichever materials are on hand; commonly whitewashed mud brick. Each village is its own society, along with meagerly armed guards and shaman-like priests. The matriarchs and women of many households are often marginally able to perform some elemental magic with reverence to nature.
In contrast, the richest caste delights in controlling the elements through magic. The oldest son will inherit the household, learning the required aspects of business, negotiation, decorum, mathematics and sciences to perform his birthright. The oldest child remaining (sometimes a much older daughter) will assume the task of house magi. Both children are typically taught to control without reverence or empathy to toward their subjects.
Guards and soldiers are hired from trusted family lines or hired mercenaries from other lands. The highest ranks always ascend from noble families, in order to maintain their hold over the island. When the noble guards and peasant guards ever do cross paths, the peasant guard will always be less equipped and of lower rank regardless of his accomplishments in his own station.
Likewise, absolute subservience is expected from the peasant guard.
Xillorax
Xillorax is seldom traveled by men, outside of a few scholars and tradesmen. Xillorax is and has always been home to reptilian if not dragon-like races of men. A three-way civil war has flared and ground to stalemate regularly for as long as there has been a history of the island.
The greenish men most resemble lizards. These clans are among the most tactical of the land and attribute their philosophy to the rocks, soil, and plants around them. The red are fierce and warlike, regarding fire as though it were their own private totem. The blueish appear alien and nearly draconic. Their home is inside of a small rainy jungle to the southeast and whatever shores they can win from the other clans.
Telecrosis
Telecrosis is the island due west of Dewhaven. In centuries past, priests and highly enlightened mages had attuned the land into becoming a portal where one might speak to the dead. All who could travel to the land were welcome to pay their last respects to relatives or fiends before the deceased would truly pass into the next world. The dead would hear, and often answer by sending breezes across the delicate bells lined within the temples, or with a quick spark of an already lit candle.
Only in extremely rare cases could full two-way communication be made. This feat required the efforts of many experienced magic users, and seldom lasted longer than a few heartbeats. The difficulty involved meant that this form of communication with the deceased was extremely rare.
That was the past, however. Two centuries ago, the D’harmo family from Dewhaven gathered their forces to rule over the island of the dead. They sought both riches and power in their attempt, but ultimately sparked a war that destroyed the very island.
Telecrosis is now literally an island of the walking dead. A number of small and highly fortified civilizations belonging to the living have been established on the island by the Citadel, the Association of Mages, and the D’Harmo family themselves.
D’Harmo
D’Harmo is the southwestern satellite, named after the family who exiled themselves there after the war for Telecrosis. They own every inch of this island without question or challenge. Their cruelty is well known, causing even most nobles of Dewhaven to think twice about crossing them.
Lord’s Belt
The long, narrow island between Dewhaven and Aysyl has a very small population scattered in a half-dozen seaside villages. Dewhaven and Aysyl have both laid claim to this island, causing an escalated number of conflicts both on and around the island.
Aysyl
The easternmost large island in the Planet Archipelago is home to many races who feel they no longer belong in human society. What was once a chosen refuge has become a place where leaders cry of persecution. Political and religious leaders alike falsely claim that human society sent the people to their place in order to be rid of them. More and more of the common men and women are beginning let this belief take root in their own hearts.
The conflict against Dewhaven over ownership of Lord’s Belt has given the entire island cause to believe their leaders. The leaders, in turn, enjoy taking advantage of the peoples’ fears. Their invented cause has swelled the island’s army a with menagerie of eager and angry soldiers.
At the center of the island is a large, slightly active volcano. Steam and soot pour from it three days after each full moon. This volcano, once revered as a sign the fire gods, has instead the rallying point of the first to claim persecution
