Three continents. Dozens of civilizations built across millennia of war, trade, and uneasy peace. What an educated traveler in Mazariim would know about the powers that shape the world.
Three thousand miles wide and two thousand deep. Humans, dwarves, and gnomes have built their civilizations here across four millennia, divided by the Dragon Spine mountains that split the continent into western and eastern halves. Steam-powered trains run through the Inner Kingdoms in the northwest. Bronze Age priests read the stars in the Ancient South. The distance between them is measured in centuries as much as miles.
The Madronian Peninsula, northwest Nigal. Five nations bound together by the Federation of Man, the most technologically advanced and militarily powerful human government on the continent. Well-patrolled roads, steam-powered infrastructure, standardized law, and a near-total absence of roving monsters. The people are Madronians, speaking the flowing dialect of Madra. Technology rivals 17th and 18th-century Europe.
The most technologically advanced nation in all of Mazariim, and the moral anchor of the Federation. House Thoman has held the throne since the War to End All Wars, governing eleven noble houses that administer cities and territories across rolling farmland, ancient forests, and a dramatic Crescent Sea coastline. The gap between wealthy and poor is smaller here than in most nations, and the traditional Beneshiri pride themselves on charity and public service. Printing presses, indoor plumbing, bi-focal eyeglasses, and limited steam-engine technology are commonplace.
Independent and free-thinking, the people of Saerrus pride themselves on open-mindedness and intellectual ambition. This is the only true democracy in the Inner Kingdoms, governed by elected councils with layered checks and balances. The University of Saerrus in Laussenne stands as the most prestigious institution of higher learning on the Madronian Peninsula, and the city's publishing houses produce more printed material per year than any other settlement on Nigal. Art, music, and philosophy carry real cultural weight here; a sculptor or poet may hold more public influence than a general.
Hard country breeds hard workers, and the Arogrorians embody a nationalism closer to dwarven clan pride than anything else in the Inner Kingdoms. The nation occupies rising hill country and forested valleys climbing toward the Dragon Spine, and its substantial dwarven population has shaped Arogrorian craftsmanship in weapons, armor, and raw materials for generations. A blade forged in Arogror carries weight across the continent. The cultural ties between human and dwarf run deeper here than in any other Federation nation.
Gold determines power in Xeque. The Merchant Council distributes voting weight in proportion to assessed wealth, and six great houses hold permanent seats: Tessaro in glassworks, Mondavi in shipping, Valori in perfumes, Corsini in banking, Pellacani in entertainment, and Strezza in textiles. The cities are vibrant, cosmopolitan, and hedonistic by Federation standards, smelling of saffron and canal water and freshly dyed silk. The worship of Xannith, entity of greed, is tolerated openly here, a situation that other Federation nations find appalling but Xequan merchants consider practical.
Thirteen states, each governed by a powerful mage, bound together in a confederacy that produces more minor magical items than any nation on Nigal. The cities of Pragos are advanced and bustling, their streets lit by permanent arcane lights, their markets stocked with enchanted goods for export. The wealth generated by this industry is immense, and it concentrates at the top; many Pragosi live in abject poverty performing menial labor while the mage-rulers and their merchant allies prosper. The Dark Whispers, Pragos's intelligence organization, is feared across the Inner Kingdoms, and for good reason.
South of the Inner Kingdoms, a sprawl of independent city-states and nations long since fallen away from the Federation. No unified government holds here. Control follows gold, and traders protect their own goods or lose them. Monsters are more common, roads less safe, and the law bends toward whoever can afford it. The people are Sabonaar, speaking the phonetic Sabo dialect. Technology mirrors the 15th and 16th centuries.
The largest port city in the Merchant Nations and the dominant trade hub on the western coast of the Sabon Peninsula. Three generations of the Bastien family have built Amara into a prosperous, well-defended city where the Merchant's Guild wields power rivaling the Baron himself. The docks smell of tar and foreign spice. The dwarven quarter is one of the largest outside the Dwarven Empire, and on any given day the flags of a dozen nations fly above the harbor. Commerce is king here, and Amara bows to no other throne.
The City of Mages. Instar sits in the Jinook Valley, its towers visible for miles, every street illuminated by permanent arcane light that never flickers and never fades. The Thaumaturgic Council governs under co-rulers Yelinda Featherstep and Yigba, and the entire economy revolves around magical research and education. In 715 AW, Instar deliberately closed most of its trade ports and redirected commercial traffic to Amara, choosing scholarship over commerce. The decision shaped both cities for the next century and a half.
What remains of the ancient empire of Sabonaa lives on in Naarlam, a nation built from a few of the oldest cities the empire left behind. Seven noble houses claim lineages stretching back over two thousand years, and the salt air that blows through their halls carries the weight of that history. Queen Neven Konovara rules with one eye on the past and one on the sea lanes, seeking to restore some measure of the glory her ancestors once held. Naarlam's seafaring traditions and mercantile heritage make it a natural trade partner for both the Federation and the coastal cities to the south.
Cecaasta broke from Naarlam in 412 BW and fought for centuries to secure full independence, finally achieved in 99 AW. The struggle shaped the national character. Cecaastans distrust centralized authority with a ferocity that borders on religious conviction, and their culture revolves around horse breeding, open grasslands, and the principle that no one tells a Cecaastan what to do. The horses they raise are prized across the Merchant Nations, and the riders who break them are just as formidable.
The Holy Theocracy of Tentigo worships Tiovin, but their interpretation of the faith would be unrecognizable in the Inner Kingdoms, where Tiovinin churches emphasize charity, healing, and community service. Tentigo demands aggressive conversion, military expansion, and the destruction of heretical faiths. Three crusades have marched out of Tentigo's gates into the Horselands, the Ancient South, and the Lands of Chaos. Each earned the nation new enemies across the continent. The priests of Tentigo consider this proof of righteousness.
King Byrne Simir commands one of the few remaining slave trades on the Sabon Peninsula from deep within the fortified city of Asim. The city and its sister settlement Moamon are known for hostility toward non-humans. Simir's ambitions reach beyond the slave pens; the machinations of his court revolve around new sources of labor and the eventual retaking of the fallen Empire of Simir, which places the leadership of both Amara and Instar squarely in the enemy camp.
Moamon smells of coal smoke and something worse. The worship of Zebulba, the Lord of Entropy, has grown steadily in the dark industrial streets, and intelligent undead loyal to the Lord's cause are seen more openly with each passing year. Baron Helfast Simir rules the city, though how much of that rule is his own and how much belongs to the Zebulban cultists remains a question few dare ask aloud. The suspicious burning of a large dwarven refugee camp outside the walls in 759 AW deepened anti-non-human sentiment and strengthened the cultists' hand considerably.
The southwestern Lavantine Peninsula. Lawless, monster-filled, and unforgiving. Corrupt governments war with each other, vast stretches of land have no major settlements at all, and the strong survive because the alternative is permanent. Many who are wanted elsewhere come here, because the Lavantine asks no questions. The people are Laveri, speaking harsh Laveran. Technology ranges from early to late Middle Ages. Taovan's philosophy that power is the only truth finds its most honest expression in these lands.
The oldest and most powerful nation on the Lavantine Peninsula, founded around 2,650 BW by surviving wizard-lords who fled the collapse of the Yrugas mageocracy and mixed with native Laveri populations. The Krutan Overlords are powerful spellcasters who rule through an oppressive form of militarized feudalism, and slavery of non-humans is an open institution. Their enigmatic leader, Giaganzalt, is a spellcaster of unknown race who has ruled for centuries. No one in Kruta asks how, and no one outside Kruta has found out.
The closest thing the Lands of Chaos has to a functional government. Founded around 120 AW by mixed Laveri refugees who survived the War to End All Wars, Medan operates on a single principle: competence determines worth. The Council of the Capable consists of individuals who have demonstrated exceptional ability in domains essential to survival, and the selection process is brutally practical. A good administrator is valued as highly as a good fighter; both keep people alive. In a region where weakness is a death sentence, Medan has elevated practical skill into a governing philosophy.
A loose confederation of swamp-dwelling tribes in the dense wetlands of the southern peninsula, descended from a wave of Varkonan migration around 1,500 BW. The connection to that Varkonan heritage has been almost entirely lost. What has not been lost is the Ubyra's extraordinary herbal pharmacopoeia, a body of knowledge in medicines, poisons, hallucinogens, and preservatives unmatched anywhere in western Nigal. The swamp keeps its own, and the Ubyra have learned to keep what the swamp provides.
A frigid northern territory in the cold mountains where the Lavantine Peninsula meets the mainland. Around 180 BW, dragons claimed the territory and gave the human population a simple choice. Serve or leave. The arrangement is feudal in the most literal sense, with dragons at the apex providing protection in exchange for tribute, labor, and absolute obedience. The humans of Zzan do not discuss the arrangement with outsiders, and outsiders who visit Zzan tend to leave quickly, if the dragons allow them to leave at all.
An anomaly on the Lavantine Peninsula. Founded around 180 AW by idealist explorers and scholars, Soractian is a democratic city-state dedicated to discovery, knowledge, and the stubbornly optimistic belief that understanding can bring order to chaos. The population is the most diverse in the Lands of Chaos, drawn from across the region by the promise of libraries and laboratories rather than the promise of plunder. The maps, scholarly works, and trained guides Soractian produces are valued across the peninsula, even by those who consider the city's idealism naive.
A vast dry region surrounding the Lake of Tears, the largest freshwater lake in Nigal. Barter is more common than coinage. The horse is the most prized commodity, and the riders who master them are studied by military commanders across the world. The people are Chak'ti, speaking the guttural Chak'atan, a language of harsh consonants and carrying sounds built for shouting between riders across open steppe. Technology mirrors the Middle Ages, with resources perpetually scarce.
The most sacred site in Chak'ti culture, a complex of burial mounds, standing stones, and ritual grounds on the western shore of the Lake of Tears. This is not a city. It is a place of pilgrimage and seasonal gathering where the boundary between the living and the spirit world is believed to be thinnest. The wind off the lake carries the smell of old grass and cold stone, and the silence between the mounds has a quality that visitors describe as attentive. Violence is forbidden on sacred ground, making Khonayn the only truly neutral territory in the Horselands.
The closest thing the Chak'ti have to a capital, and it moves. Sharma-Ad is a massive tent-city that follows the seasons around the Lake of Tears. At summer peak it holds ten thousand or more, making it temporarily one of the largest human settlements on Nigal; by winter it contracts to perhaps a thousand, huddled against the wind with their horses close. The Great Khan leads, but the title carries less authority than outsiders expect. The Khan convenes councils, arbitrates disputes, and coordinates collective defense. The steppe itself governs everything else.
Separated from the rest of Nigal by barren deserts and rocky steppes. Great pyramids that can be seen for miles have stood for thousands of years along the banks of a single river. Scorching days, freezing nights, fertile valleys surrounded by merciless wasteland. The people are Varkonan, unknowing descendants of the lost Akovarian civilization, speaking a language that began as pictograms and grew into its own alphabet. Technology is largely Bronze Age, with remarkable exceptions in engineering, astronomy, and mathematics.
The oldest continuous human civilization on Mazariim, founded approximately 6,500 BW along the banks of the River of Life. A divine Pharaoh claims descent from the god-kings of legend and rules a rigidly stratified society where the Ra-Priests control religious life, education, and much of the economy. The great pyramids are the largest structures built by human hands on Nigal, their sand-scoured surfaces catching the light at dawn like polished bone. Scholars now realize that these structures sit on ley-line convergence points, built according to principles inherited from Akovarian tradition that the Varkonans themselves no longer remember understanding.
A city of wonders and excess at the mouth of the River of Life, founded approximately 5,800 BW. Where Nepherites is ancient and austere, Uadjit is sensual, cosmopolitan, and morally flexible. The streets smell of incense, cardamom, and the faintly metallic tang of bound elemental energy. The city's wealth derives from its position as the primary port connecting the Ancient South to maritime trade and from its mastery of genie-binding magic, the art of summoning, bargaining with, and compelling elemental spirits. The Council of Binders governs, and the most powerful binders live in towers that hum with contained djinn.
A large string of islands called the Yashaki, the "Warlord's Pearls," southeast of Nigal. Samurai serve as the paladins of these lands, where warlords, ninjas, and monks have shaped civilization for over three thousand years. The people are Ejiin, speaking the flowing Ejao dialect with its thousands of artistic pictograms. Technology mirrors 15th-century Asia, including gunpowder and advanced shipbuilding. Samurai, ninja, and wu-jen character classes find their home here.
The dominant nation of the Lands of Honor and one of the oldest continuous governments on Mazariim, founded around 3,200 BW by Ejiin migrants who had traveled east from the Ancient South. The Shogun rules as military dictator over the largest and most fertile islands, and society is rigidly stratified under the code of Bushido. Honor, courage, self-sacrifice. The entity Ashura, representing honor and justice, serves as patron deity, and the warrior's code is treated as both martial discipline and religious devotion. Steel and prayer are forged in the same fire here.
The other major power in the Lands of Honor, established around 2,800 BW by Ejiin who broke from the emerging Shogunate and built something radically different. Where the Miyasaki prize open honor, Veppankarai values pragmatic effectiveness. A complex network of ninja clans vie for power through politics, trade, espionage, and occasional warfare, all conducted with a sophistication that makes the shadow games of the Inner Kingdoms look amateurish. Power here moves quietly, and quietly is how the Veppankarai prefer it.
Southeastern Nigal, where the continent narrows into a broad peninsula thrust between warm seas. The jungle swallows everything here. Temple-pyramids rise above the canopy, representing an unbroken chain of pyramid architecture stretching from ancient Akovar through Nepherites to the present day. The people are Azala, descendants of Varkonan migrants, speaking the strange Zalato dialect. Bronze Age technology, but with sophistication in astronomy, agriculture, and pharmacology that rivals any civilization on Nigal.
Independent city-states, each centered on one or more temple-pyramids and governed by a priest-king whose authority derives from astronomical knowledge, divine mandate, and military strength. The city-state of Azala itself, the oldest and largest, was founded around 1,900 BW and exercises cultural and religious leadership without political dominion over the others. In the deep jungle between the cities, the Wyld-Bound druids of Gruhathyrir maintain a stronger presence than in almost any other region of Nigal. The air is thick with moisture and the smell of green growth and old stone, and the tension between civilized Azala religion and primal wilderness worship has shaped the peninsula for centuries.
Islands of bitter cold and iron-willed people far to the north of the Gnomish Lands. Evergreen forests, enormous rivers, tall mountains, and seas choked with ice floes in winter and battered by storms in summer. The people are Nond, descended from Madronian migrants who left the Inner Kingdoms around 2,000 BW, speaking the harsh and rhythmic Nondalhiem dialect. Their shipbuilding and weapon-making are among the finest on Nigal.
The oldest, largest, and most cosmopolitan settlement in the Frozen Isles, founded around 1,800 BW on a deep natural harbor that remains navigable year-round. The market district smells of salt fish, wet wool, and forge smoke, and on a busy day you can hear Nondalhiem, Madra, Rhundawi, and Rhungnom spoken within a single city block. Nond, dwarves, gnomes, and the occasional southern merchant rub shoulders here. The line between trading and raiding has always been blurry in Javalh, and the finest shipyards in the Frozen Isles ensure both enterprises remain viable.
The moral heart of the Nond people, founded around 1,200 BW on a principle that is simple to state and demanding to uphold. Honor is the foundation upon which all worthy life is built. Leadership in Brahjhin is earned through demonstrated excellence in martial skill, wisdom, and service to the community, and the warriors this settlement produces are among the finest individual fighters in the Nond world. Brahjhin also maintains a tradition of philosophical inquiry unique among its people, a seriousness about the examined life that visitors from the south find unexpected in warriors who can split a shield with a single stroke.
The youngest, smallest, and most remote of the major settlements, founded around 350 AW during a warming period that has since reversed. The name means "honor" in Nondalhiem, and the founders chose it deliberately. Establishing a foothold in the most extreme environment on Nigal was, to their thinking, the ultimate expression of their people's character. Winters are so severe the settlement shuts down for months, the population drawing inward behind snow-packed walls with nothing but stored food, firelight, and each other.
The Dragon Spine mountains run like a colossal spine across Nigal, and the dwarves have called them home for over four millennia. They control the passes between the western and eastern halves of the continent, giving them enormous strategic and economic leverage. Northern Gormdawi dwarves are traditionalists with dark hair and eyes. Southern Bryndawi dwarves are fiercely independent with lighter coloring. The northern holds run on steam power and 16th to 17th-century technology; the south operates a step behind but produces metalwork that is the envy of the world.
The most powerful dwarven political entity on Mazariim and one of the oldest continuous governments in the world. The Empire controls the northern half of the Dragon Spine, the tallest, most mineral-rich, and most heavily fortified section of the range. The capital at the Chambers of Slate is the largest dwarven settlement anywhere, its halls carved deep into living rock that still carries the faint warmth of the earth's interior. The Hammerpriests of Mordrion serve as spiritual guides, master crafters, and advisors at every level of society. An ambitious underground rail system linking the various holds is currently under construction, its tunnels echoing with the sound of picks and steam-driven drills.
Founded around 800 BW at the geographic center of the Dragon Spine, Graniteshield has grown into the largest trade hub in the dwarven world and one of the most important commercial centers on Nigal. Its value lies in its neutrality. Gormdawi and Bryndawi clans can trade, negotiate, and resolve disputes here on ground that belongs to neither faction. The city's policy of strict political neutrality is enforced with the same precision that dwarves bring to everything else, and the economic consequences of violating it are severe enough that no clan has tested the boundaries in living memory.
The largest dwarven settlement in the southern Dragon Spine and the closest thing the Bryndawi have to a capital, though calling it that in a Khubilai tavern would earn a swift and detailed correction. The settlement is famous for three things. Its ponies, bred for mountain terrain and valued across the region. Its tattoo-keepers, practitioners of the distinctive Bryndawi tradition of magical tattoo inscription, whose ink carries power earned through deeds. And its fierce, immovable independence from northern authority, which the Bryndawi consider a matter of identity rather than politics.
Far to the east of the Dragon Spine, the Yazawee Mountains are home to the gnomish people, collectively the Hin'grom. Divided into Durazgrom (Rock Gnomes) and Rothgrom (Forest Gnomes), they share these mountains with Bryndawi dwarves. Gnomish technology is the most advanced on Mazariim, including steam power, flying balloons, dirigibles, and clockwork automatons. Other races attempt to reproduce gnomish inventions. The results are invariably inferior. The patron deity of gnomekind is Rivoleen, the Liberator, who favors enlightenment, thought, creativity, and above all, freedom.
The oldest, largest, and most culturally significant gnomish settlement on Mazariim, founded around 2,100 BW in the heart of the Yazawee Mountains. Zhonhylite is the intellectual center of gnomish civilization, a city where the sound of ticking clockwork carries through every quarter and the air smells of polished brass and cut gemstone. The Library of Ten Thousand Questions is the largest repository of gnomish knowledge in the world, and the Gem Quarter, where the finest gnomish jewelers work, produces spell gems and gemscrolls of a precision that no other settlement can match.
Unique among gnomish settlements, Dammarth is a mageocracy governed by its most powerful elementalist spellcasters. Founded around 1,750 BW in a geologically active region, the city sits among hot springs, volcanic vents, and strong wind patterns that create natural concentrations of elemental energy. The steam that rises from the earth carries the faint sulfur tang of deep geology, and the elementalists who rule here draw power from it the way a smith draws heat from a forge. The Old Gods receive more formal worship in Dammarth than anywhere else in the Gnomish Realms, a tradition the rest of gnomish civilization regards with polite, faintly nervous respect.
The youngest of the Gnomish Realms' three major settlements and the one most recently scarred by crisis. Chumbawamba is a manufacturing and research center that was nearly torn apart in 838 AW by two simultaneous threats. Beneath the city, ley-line energy revived a necromancer's ghost in the sealed Gauntlight Ruins. Above, a political conflict between the traditionalist Clan Azure and the radical Children of Pyre escalated to the brink of civil war. Heroes contained both threats, but four years later the settlement is still rebuilding, and the factional tensions have cooled without fully resolving.
The elven continent. A vast crescent of land stretching four thousand miles from north to south, home to elven civilizations for over 100,000 years. Seven nations adapted to environments ranging from ancient forests to mountain strongholds to open grasslands, all sharing linguistic and spiritual roots. Minerva worship arrived in the Enlightening of 3,402 BW and transformed the continent's spiritual landscape. The War to End All Wars shattered elven isolationism when 30,000 warriors crossed the ocean to fight on Nigal, and only 60% came home. Eighty miles off the southern coast lies Shalazar, homeland of the Hin.
The cultural and spiritual heartland of elven civilization, eight hundred miles of temperate forests, rolling hills, and river valleys. The most populous elven nation, home to the Ya'sehrim, who have devoted themselves to scholarship, arcane magic, and the construction of cities that rival anything on Nigal in beauty if not in industrial output. Five great cities anchor the region. The oldest, Elwendor, has been continuously inhabited since approximately 14,200 BW, making it one of the oldest living settlements in the world. The Great Temple of Minerva, the Tower of Stars, and the Arcane Academy all stand within its walls.
520,000 square miles of pristine old-growth forest in central Vand'ardhon. The largest contiguous wilderness in the known world, and the Tawarim intend to keep it that way. They are the most traditional and isolationist of the elven peoples, living in treetop villages and practicing a "soft footprint" philosophy that leaves the canopy floor almost untouched. Religious life balances Minervan worship with the ancient veneration of Gruhathyrir, the Wyld Heart. The War devastated Tawarwaith's volunteers; only 43% returned. The losses reinforced isolationist tendencies that were already deep, and modern Tawarwaith has little interest in the affairs of the wider world.
The eastern peninsula of Vand'ardhon, a region of dramatic coastal cliffs, sheltered harbors, and fertile coastal plains where the salt wind carries the sound of rigging and hull timber creaking at anchor. The Gaear'rim built a maritime civilization unmatched in elven history, and their capital Thal'varin, "The Harbor of Ten Thousand Ships," is the most cosmopolitan elven city on the continent. Gaearman suffered devastating naval losses during the War and has not fully recovered its pre-War fleet strength. Eilistra'rae, the goddess of beauty, moonlight, and dance, holds her strongest following here among the elven nations.
The northern mountain ranges of Vand'ardhon, where jagged peaks reach 12,000 to 15,000 feet and the wind cuts like a whetted blade. The smallest elven nation by population, the Aeglirim wield outsized influence through a single asset: their monopoly on mithril production. Twelve major clan-holds carved into the mountainsides form fortress-cities organized around mining, metalworking, and survival in the harshest environment on the continent. Aeglirech sent 10% of its total population to the War, the highest proportional contribution of any elven nation, and suffered a 40% survival rate. The mountains do not forget, and neither do the Aeglirim.
Rolling grasslands, prairie, and steppe in western Vand'ardhon, where the horizon is unbroken and the sky is the only ceiling. Home to the Raladrim and their wemic allies, lion-centaurs who have shared these plains in symbiotic alliance for over 50,000 years. A fully nomadic culture with no permanent cities. The Thunder Grounds serve as seasonal gathering site and the closest thing to a capital, but even that is temporary, a place the clans converge upon and then leave. War losses devastated the warrior class, and modern Ra'Lad has never fully recovered its military strength.
The southern river valleys of Vand'ardhon, where the light filters through canopy in shades of amber and gold and the soil is dark and rich beneath the plow. The Yav'daerim produce much of the continent's agricultural surplus from a patchwork landscape of crop fields, orchards, vineyards, and managed woodlands anchored by seven major towns. They are the most pragmatic and adaptable of the elven cultures, willing to adopt foreign ideas, trade with non-elves, and experiment with new approaches that would scandalize the Tawarim. Since the War, human immigration has grown steadily, giving Yavaw'dae the highest non-elf population percentage of any major continental elven region.
Not a territorial nation but a cultural identity. The Faron'rim are nomadic elves who travel freely across all of Vand'ardhon, their clans ranging from 20 to 200 individuals. They serve as messengers, scouts, guides, mediators, and traders, the connective tissue linking the Seven Nations into something resembling a whole. Five permanent Havens provide rest stops along the traditional routes, and the Messenger Guild provides the fastest communication network on the continent. The War destroyed several wanderer clans entirely and disrupted migration routes that had been walked for millennia. The paths are being relearned, slowly, by those who survived.
A large island eighty miles off Vand'ardhon's southern coast, home to the Hin for over 15,000 years. The Mediterranean climate supports extraordinary agricultural productivity, and the island smells of warm bread, turned earth, salt air, and whatever is simmering in the nearest kitchen, which is never far. Shalazar's identity is anchored in community, hospitality, culinary excellence, and practical wisdom. Six major towns serve a distributed population of farmers and artisans. Dual worship of Minerva and Hinterhin, the Father of the Hin, defines the island's uniquely syncretic religious life. The Hin save the world with soup, and they do not apologize for it.
Sealed for seven thousand years behind magical headwinds born from the catastrophic ley-line detonation of 6,830 BW. The barrier fell in 815 AW when the reawakening disrupted what the ancient war had set in motion. Akovar is where the most advanced human civilization in Mazariim's history once flourished, and where chromatic dragons destroyed it. What remains are the Drakhari, born from the merger of human and dragon blood, over a thousand dragons, wild magic zones, portals that open without warning, and the ruins of a people who built ley-line networks of a sophistication the modern world cannot yet comprehend. The most significant frontier in Mazariim.
A small island approximately sixty miles northwest of the main continent, serving as the primary gateway for all expeditions into Akovar. Naarlam established the outpost around 650 AW at the outer edge of the headwind barrier, where it sat forgotten for over a century and a half until the ley-line reawakening transformed it overnight into the most strategically significant posting in the Merchant Nations. The settlement is nominally a Naarlam colony but functionally an international camp where the flags of half a dozen nations fly above wooden buildings that smell of fresh lumber and ambition. The Astral Circle maintains a permanent research station. Amara, Instar, Saerrus, and the Federation of Man all maintain presences, watching each other as closely as they watch the horizon.
Approximately thirty tropical islands south of the main continent, established around 1,500 BW as a refuge by peoples unwelcome on the mainland. Drakhari outcasts, Elemari, Nethari, and others fleeing dominant dragon territories found safety here under a founding compact of three rules. No kings. No chains. No questions. Since the ley-line reawakening, Tortuganae has been transformed from a small, isolated refuge into a diverse multi-racial community as goblinoid refugees, lizardfolk, kobolds, kenku, and other marginalized peoples from the wider world have arrived. The Council of Captains governs through a loose democratic assembly, and the founding compact still holds.
The crescent-shaped main island is dominated by the Spine of Fire volcanic range along its inner curve, the peaks wreathed in sulfurous haze, the slopes streaked with obsidian and old lava flows. The more hospitable eastern coast supports the largest Drakhari populations and the ruins of the major Akovarian cities. The Drakhari themselves, tall, scaled, and capable of breath weapons, descended from the magical merger of human and dragon blood during the detonation, are organized into tribal confederations tied to draconic heritage. Dragon territories cover virtually every significant piece of land, with metallic and chromatic factions competing over ley-line convergence points that still pulse with energy after seven thousand years.
The ruined capital of Amaunet is claimed by a red dragon clan and haunted by the lich Thz'zar Ja'laao, the mad high priest who has endured for approximately 7,672 years in the deepest catacombs. The Shattered Coast in the south holds the highest concentration of wild magic zones and active portals, places where reality thins and other planes bleed through without warning. The Dragon's Horn peninsula in the north serves as the closest approach from New Sabonaa, and it is there that most expeditions make their first landfall, stepping onto soil that has not been walked by outsiders in seventy centuries.