ÄRAM: Wake of Fallen Empire
GEOGRAPHY
Äram: Seats of Power and Wild Lands (Outlands)
Nagorno Plain
North of Csorna and west of Lipik, beyond the old frontiers of the Teulan Empire, sit the vast dusty tablelands of the Nagorno Plain. A forbidding land of fierce nomads, wild magic and wandering horrors, the Nagorno has never been tamed, and its limit is not known. Giant squat towers dot the otherwise featureless terrain, the last evidence of the forgotten civilizations who failed to dominate this wasteland. The tribes of the Plain are the best horsemen in the world. Other warlords seek these mounted bowmen for their uncanny accuracy, but such service is always short-lived. The horsemen were the first to employ the cord stirrup, which gave their cavalry a decided advantage against invaders, and the technology has only found its way through the rest of the Continent in the last century. The normally reticent Nagornan mercenaries have shared stories of hags who meander through the rolling plains, befouling the land with dark magic and serving as cult objects for entire tribes who fall prey to their whims.
Western Isles
Absent from many mariner's charts, the Western Isles sit far out in the Somnatic Sea, well over a week's sail from the shores of Csorna and Arta. This cluster of kingdoms seems to be the source of the novel spices, perfumes and textiles which the Csornan merchant houses have introduced to the Continent in the last century. Little is known of their people outside of the Csornan cartel, but they claim their ancestral home lies farther west. They worship strange monstrous gods and are fiercely secretive of their world beyond the ports of call. Their language is difficult to speak, and its script is nearly impenetrable. But some Csornan academics have spotted words shared with the nomadic tribes of the Nagorno, and some mages who have seen the script cannot dispute the similarities to the flowing hand in their own spell books. The islanders seem to have a superior grasp of metallurgy and alchemy, and they are aware of the ancient works of Artan philosophers and mathematicians. Naval battles between Csornan privateers and Artan vessels in the mid-2nd century cemented the Csornan merchant houses' unchallenged trading rights with the island kingdoms, and today the merchant forces will attack other Continental ships in the area immediately and with grim intent.
Mornite Kingdoms
While this mysterious people are believed to be inhabitants of the legendary western landmass of Vesta, the absence of contact with the Mornites indicates that this may be a people who live only in the minds of storytellers. Regardless, the bizarre stories of this nation have led some Csornan aristocrats to develop their own hedonistic mystery cults secretly devoted to the weird Mornite pantheon. In Khovitsa, seat of the Csornan Crown, some supposedly Mornite rugs and tapestries brought back from the Western Isles depict a corpulent race standing eight feet tall, and nearly as wide, referred to as the Ulukzun. Indeed, one of Khovitsa's subterranean cults has displayed a sacrificial bowl (supposedly from Vesta) made from a cranium with a two-foot diameter. Whether the Ulukzun and Mornites are synonymous, discrete or imaginary remains open to conjecture. Csornan clerics of the Doma waste no time on the distinction, however, and some have launched a merciless campaign against the mystery cults as a refuge for foreign influence, evil and depravity.
Keya
Little is known of this empire on the southern continent of Asur, but most of the people of Äram foresee a savage conflict with this southern leviathan. A extremely well-armed but outnumbered Keyan force briefly occupied an island under the dominion of Terra Sulla, and Keyan vessels have been spotted farther north off the mainland and among the Avoca Islands. Envoys from the northern kingdoms are warily considering an alliance to deal with the Keyan threat. The Doma has just begun to take notice of the problem, and its authority may be the impetus needed to mobilize the armies of Äram in the future. It is believed that the head of state is an empress of unknown name, and that Keyan royal lineage is matrilineal, but this cannot be confirmed. Neither diplomatic relations nor trade have been achieved with the Keyans. The few attempts have led to bloody defeat dealt by disturbingly swift carracks with unfamiliar rigging. Only a handful of prisoners have ever escaped to tell of their experience. A few spoke of interminable straight canals and massive cities with waterways in place of streets. One remembers a group of arguing officers holding identical twirling metallic devices. Another saw a mound of earth obliterated by a shuddering tower of fire. And one dying fugitive found on a plank of Madratic flotsam spoke of a "wheel of the sky", lasting only long enough to say, "It is like nothing I have ever seen..."
Avoca Islands
It is common knowledge among the seafarers of Äram that salt spray rots the teeth, but west of Alfaad the mariners of the Avoca Islands have been spared this malady by a higher power. Indeed the small kingdoms of this island chain seem to have escaped much of the strife of the past centuries. Claimed by the Teulu Mawr, but never colonized, the Avocas are a subtropical haven of shallow banks, mangroves, sea cows and citrus trees. The inhabitants speak a plurality of languages distinct from the various regional patois of Teulan vernacular used on the Continent. Their pantheon is both complex and immense, with an array of gods, lesser deities and local spirits. Avocan clerics tend to have low limits on their power, and reports of divine visitation are not uncommon. This has led some to suspect that the beings of religious devotion in the Avocas are not in fact divine, but are instead highly magical mortal creatures. In early 205, a strange dual-hulled Keyan barge ran aground on the shallow Avoca Bank, arousing the wrath of an uncharacteristically powerful local warlord. Large numbers of Keyan troops were slain or taken prisoner, and the political fallout remains to be seen. In addition to the usual private merchants, official state vessels from Myphthra have visited islands on diplomatic missions, offering military protection from the Keyan menace, presumably in exchange for tribute. Whether or not these islands become a battleground, the Avoca Bank seems to be rife with wild magic, with divine visitations, deep pits that radiate magic, and tales of entire ships falling into holes in the sea.
Myphthra
Also called Mithstor on the Continent, the country of Myphthra was the southernmost province of the Teulan Empire, occupying the eastern edge of the continent of Asur. Secondary political boundaries within the former province have remained largely intact, and the imperial provincial assembly has survived the fall of the empire. The current ruling body chooses one of its own as an executive chieftain, and some district emissaries are even chosen by the district's landowning males by election. This is similar to political processes in some Artan city-states (which have no gender or property restrictions), but these processes seem to have evolved independently. The country is a major trading power on par with Ayr and Csorna, supplying gold, salt and spices to the northern kingdoms. It is widely understood and seldom spoken that Myphthra's access to such commodities is leveraged by unsavory conduct farther south, including wholesale piracy and human trafficking. While such conduct is anathema to the post-Teulan peoples of the north, the cargo ships continue to sail, and the merchant families grow more envious of each other's opulence. During the reign of the Teulan emperors, a large population of elves inhabited Myphthra's arid west, traversing the adjacent desert in long caravans. The elven community disappeared into the dunes since the fall of the empire, and their present situation is unknown. Some question their survival, some feel they moved south to the source of Myphthra's unsavory trade, and others wonder if they moved farther west, perhaps up rivers to the dark heart of Keya itself.