saturnin55 said:
Elsewhere than in the CS: Ghelspad, is there a good source of information somewhere (on the net or in a book) about Darakeene ? This region seems so far away than where most of the 'action' is (vesh, mithril, calastia, durrover, hornsaw, ganjus)...
What would make Darakeene an interesting place to play a campaign ?
A good source? Not that I know of, no. However, the Player's Guide to Fighters and Barbarians goes into the war colleges of Darakeene, at least in part. Relics and Rituals II also describes the Sage of the Phylacteric Vault, which is based in Darakeene.
As for Darakeene's distance from other places, though, and what makes it an interesting place to play...
Darakeeene is, quite possibly, the most "self-sufficient" country for adventures when it comes to Ghelspad. Nearly regardless of what you want to do, you can probably fit it into Darakeene.
It has a relatively large metropolis in the city of Darakeene for those wishing to deal with intrigue and city adventures. You can play up to the schism between Klum and Tagani, possibly involving nobles who were connected with Tagani's family that still reside in Darakeene.
Darakeene is also neutral in regards to other nations; while it's rather out of the way, it still might serve as an impartial meeting place for ambassadors from a number of different nations. A Calastian, Dunahnaen and Hollowfaustian ambassador might be wary of all meeting together in any of the others native lands, but Darakeene, although distant, might not be so bad.
Conversely, the country is fairly sizable, with great, wide, open expanses of space. You could adventure in Darakeene with scarcely brushing across civilization. It has civilization, sure, but it also has roaming tribes of Keltai for those looking to do a more druidic or barbaric type of game. Heck, if you wanted, while Darakeene really isn't well situated for a war with another country, you could easily run a rebellion between Keltai and the more civilized parts of Darakeene.
It has a strong fey element within it that you could run with, and room enough to throw in orcs, orges and the like. A game set in Calastia, outside of Geleeda's Grove, isn't quite set up for adventures in the wild.
Furthermore, it's fairly class and alignment friendly. For the warrior types, there's a strong military tradition within the country in the form of the war colleges. Conversely, there's also a strong wizard/scholarly aspect to it from the Phylacteric Vault. Also, unlike Vesh or Mithril or the like, where there are religious leanings to Tanil or Corean or whomever, Darakeene has no official religion. So you could readily run a game involving Chardunites, Enkilites or whatever you want without some bias existing against their presence.
The place is also fairly environmentally diverse - the Ukrudan is just south of it, the cold reaches of the Titanshome just to the north, with forests in the east, ocean to the west and rolling hills and plains inbetween.
I don't know if that's quite what you're looking for, saturnin, but I personally find Darakeene rather adventure-friendly, more so then some of the other nations and city-states out there.
