Most of the action of the ZEITGEIST adventure path occurs in Risur, a subtropical nation with ancient ties to the magic of its land, struggling to adapt to a recent revolution of technology and industry. While the nation’s historic capital lies in Slate with its antique castle manors and elite gated villas, the fulcrum of its power is slowly shifting to Flint, an industrial powerhouse benefiting greatly from the nation’s need these past few decades for more and more advanced weapons and warships.

It was Risur’s traditional enemy Danor—bereft of magic after a cataclysm five centuries past—which began the industrial revolution. Their steam-powered ships and deadly cannon fusillades won them many battles, but the artificers of Flint are combining magic and industry in ways impossible for their enemies, and the tiefling nobility of Danor seems content with the land it has acquired. Many of the other great nations, however, fear what Risur can achieve with the marriage of magic and technology, and King Aodhan of Risur worries they might try to disrupt his nation’s safety and prosperity.

Elsewhere, the dwarven homeland Drakr preaches of a nihilist doomsday and sells technomantic arms and war machines to warlords and mercenaries across the land. The Clergy of theocratic Crisillyir loathe Danor and its tiefling nobility, and they wield piety as a lash to inflame distrust of what they claim is a godless abomination.

Just across a mountain border to Risur’s south, the warlike clans of Ber have formed an alliance, which might signal a coming invasion. Even in distant Elfaivar, where a small Risuri colony struggles against settlers from other nations to claim the broken empire’s bounty, the natives lash out at these interlopers, unable to forgive a centuries-old grievance still fresh in their long-lived hearts.