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*In case you're stupid, the shading is mountains!: Feudal Confederacy
Capital: The Imperial Demesne
Climate: Ranging from Cold, Arid Steppes to Cold, Damp Mountains
Language: Fornoxi
State Religion: The Six Goddesses
"The Daughters of Dagon gave birth to a people who cannot know peace." -Elythrian Emperor Elyt IV
The Vale of Rhune is a cold, arid plain bordered on all sides by mountains, located in the northwestern corner of Llöthlor. In the center of the Vale lies Dagon’s Mount, a dormant volcano and the largest peak in Llöthlor. Runoff and hydrothermal vents on the mountain’s side converge to feed the Vale’s three major waterways, the Amuri, the Behrune, and the Nisos. Surrounding the Mount is the Ring of Rhune, a small range of sheer mountains which cut off the Mount from the rest of Rhune, save the three gorges cut out by the emerging waterways. The Mount and those lands within the Ring are sacred to Rhunites, and the six “Goddesses” of Rhune guard the way, two statues where each of the three rivers emerge from the Ring. It was around the Ring which rose one of Rhune’s most powerful fiefdoms, the Duchy of Fornox, Rhune’s spiritual capital and home to its best spellcasters. From there, the three great rivers of Rhune have shaped the land and its people, watering otherwise parched steppes with the water needed for livestock and agriculture. The Behrune flows north and west, carving the Behrune Gap between the northern White Mountains and the western Demure’s Daggers. Here the Duchy of Behrune formed, hardy northern farmers rich from trade with the frigid lands north of the Sea of Ice into which the Behrune empties. The Nisos flows south and east, where it empties into the inland Sea of Nisos where that sea juts out west between the Northern and Southron Spines and Rhune’s Grey Mountains. Here rose the Duchy of that name, whose sailors are among the most skilled in Rhune and feared throughout the sea that bears their name. Last is the Mighty Amuri, shortest but greatest of the rivers, which flows into the Bay of Amur that separates the Behrune Penisula to the north from the southlands of Rhune. It was there, upon the Amuri Delta, that the Empire was first founded by the Dukes of Amur, and it is there that the grand Imperial Demesne lies, the Gem of the North and one of the greatest cities in Llöthlor.
The Rhunites are a hardy people, and incredibly diverse, surviving in a land comprised of mostly cold steppes. Suited perfectly for these steppes and for warfare, the large, shaggy bred of horses known as the Fadenwaith have become the primary livestock for much of Rhune’s pastoralists. As a result, the majority of central Rhunites are born and raised in the saddle. Preferring heavy armor and bows, Rhunic cataphracts are some of the most feared cavalry in northern Llöthlor. The denizens of the Duchies of the Rivers, however, grew to accept the bounty of the Daughters of Dagon, being the best farmers and sailors in all the north. These Rhunites often preferred axes and shields to bows and fight in medium and light armor, if any. As the spiritual leaders of Rhune and Guardians of Dagon, a common myth among the other Duchies states that all Fornoxi are wizards. While they aren’t (some are sorcerers, druids, clerics, and warlocks!), they do produce the most talented spellcasters in all of northern Llöthlor.
The Federation is a loose confederacy comprised of the 12 fiefdoms of old. Each Duke/Duchess rules his/her Duchy with near autonomy, with the help of feudal Earls, the remnants of the clan leaders of old. It is from the Twelve that the Federation elects the Archduke/Archduchess, who must renounce their claim to their Duchy and rule as Chancellor and Grand Margrave from the Imperial Demesne for life. This practice has had the effect of leading Rhunites to abandon primogeniture, as abdicating such a position without an heir could be disastrous. The Archduke/Archduchess is largely a figure head, however they are expected to lead Rhunite armies into battle and mediate disputes between Duchies.
Other Duchies include Aratoy, Oriam, Gwyned, Mercia, Deheubarth, Saoisti, Briefne, and Fadenwaith.
The Demuren Free Cities
Government: Autonomous, Oligarchic Republics
Climate: Ranging from Cold, Damp Islands and Cold, Damp Swamps
Language: Demuren Pidgin
Dominant Religion: Animism
"Demure knows a price for everything." -Demuren proverb
The Behrune Peninsula and its core mountains, Demure’s Daggers, jut south from the Behrune Gap along Rhune’s western border with the Great Sea, forming the outer edge of the Bay of Amur. Demures Dagger’s sheer peaks slowly taper with the peninsula’s length, descending into a land of swampy hills known as the Mere of Demure, which itself dissolves into the series of lagoons, atolls, and archipelagoes known as Demure’s Fingers. Here, among the cold, shallow waters of the labyrinth which guards the Bay’s mouth, the rugged Demurens make their living from the Sea. A people bound to their waters, they rival the Nisosi’s maritime exploits. Ever watchful, their skill at arms has been honed by years of conflict with the pirates who haunt the Finger’s, the monsters who haunt the Mere, and the might of the Great Sea. Unlikely as it is, among these cold, wet rocks clinging off the coast of Llöthlor a number of powerful trading cities emerged.
The Fingers, located not only beside the mouth of the Bay of Amur but as the last true ports through to the Sea of Ice and the mysterious far western isle nation of Nemeria, sit upon a vital trade route which have enriched the fisherman and sailors of these hostile waters with goods and trade from far distant lands. Yet the numerous isles and fertile waters of the Finger’s have also made it a haven for pirates, while the Mere’s murky depths hide sea creatures of great peril. Each of the Free Cities find themselves hard pressed to protect themselves, let alone quarrel with each other or protect ports and fishing villages upon which they rely. As a result a flourishing mercenary culture has emerged, freelance monster and pirate hunters working for the highest bidder.
While de jure vassals of the Federation, the Free Cities share de facto autonomy, many ruled as republics or even democracies. A few however are ruled by powerful mages, merchants, or sea captains.
The Demuren Free Cities include Atoloi, Llacuna, Dalamere, Padnos, Llyn, Istretti, and Ynys.
The Dominion of Soissons
Government: Autocratic Republic
Capital: Soissons
Climate: Temperate Coastal Forest
Language: Fornoxi
State Religion: The Six Goddesses
"Upon the western shore of the Nisos rose a great city, Soissons, a beacon of hope from the ashes of the Waste." -The Death of Smyrna
Nestled between the Grey Mountains to the north and the Southron Spines to the east, the Dominion of Soissons is a rising city-state along the Sea of Nisos’s southwesternmost shores. Centered in the eponymous seaport, it is a nation founded by refugees fleeing the ancient Horde, and bolstered today by those fleeing persecutions in the neighboring Elythrian Empire and her Three Sisters. Vassal to the Duchy of Nisos, Soissons holds its Elven enemies at bay through the sponsorship of its powerful northern neighbors.
A proud place, the city itself is said to predate even the rise of Smyrna, having repelled numerous attempts by the Horde to subjugate it. But where the Orcs had failed however, Dwarves and Dragons succeed, as the lone city-state on the Sea of Nisos became the gateway to Smyrna’s Nisosi colonies and the launching ground for Smyrna’s attempts to quell the remaining Dragonlords of the Isles. After brief independence during the Twilight of Smyrna, the city became one of the first additions to the Rhunic Empire under its first Emperor. Ever after tied to Rhune, it became little more than an extension of the Duchy of Nisos, remaining in the Empire through the Rhunic Interregnum. Even when the Empire finally collapsed, Nisos held sway in Soissons.
As xenophobia and racism grew through Elven separatist lands to the south, humans fled to Soissons, where they found protection under a Nisosi court. Despite attempts by the Elven forces to their south to claim the city and its dominions, the Nisosi dux of Soisson have held true. Now, recent events in the Elthyrian Empire have armed the city-state to go on the offensive and maybe even find allies where once were enemies.
The Dwarven Fiefdoms of the Spines
Government: Feudal Fiefdoms
Climate: Frigid Mountains
Langauge: Brythonic (Northern), Smyrnan (Southron)
Dominant Religions: Ancestral Animism, The Cult of the Strangers
"The stout men of the Spines are as sturdy as the metals they mine..." -A Dalesman tavern song
The Spines are a vast range of gargantuan mountains which make their way down west-central Llöthlor, between Lands of Winter to the north and the eastern most reach of the Sea of Elthyria to the south. Vast peaks snow-capped to their very southern reaches, they serve as one of the most extreme geographic barriers in all of Llöthlor. At their center however, separating North from South, the vast inland Sea of Nisos gouges its way between them, the island remnants of this stretch of the peaks speckling the waters. As imposing a barrier as the mountains themselves, the Sea has separated the Spines’s kinsmen, the Dwarves.
In the North the Spines are a frigid wasteland, their interior and eastern slopes cold and dry and their western slopes cool and wet. Vast in breadth, only a small number of passes pierce from east to west, while countless other winding paths create a deadly labyrinth waiting to swallow the naive and lost. Home to numerous bands of primitive tribals, the true powers of these vast peaks honeycomb the mountains’ depths living hidden in their massive fortress-mines. The rugged and resourceful dwarves of the Northern Spines dredge valuable metals, minerals, and gems deep beneath the behemoth peaks. With these they forge beautiful works of art, their furnaces fueled by wood cut from the mountain side by their tribal neighbors. The most prosperous mines, however, are those which arose along the viable trade ways, enriched not their own mineral wealth, but by the markets which emerged at their door steps. But greed and revenge run deep among the Dwarves, and petty feuds between Dwarven fiefdoms persist, ensuring continued disunity within the mountains.
In the South, things are a shade different. Once the industrial heartland of the Dragonlords of Smyrna’s vast domain, the mines of the Southron Spines where ravaged by the same Waste which brought that empire they served to its knees. Many of the once great mines of Smyrna now lay empty, nothing more than monster filled ruins dotting the warm, dry peaks which border the wild central valley of Smyrna. Those Dwarven strongholds which remain in these barren peaks are insular and xenophobic, keenly aware that their ancestors paid dearly for their foreign alliances and expansionist ambitions.
The Wildlands of Smyrna
Climate: Cool, Temperate Mountain Valley
Dominant Religion: The Cult of the Strangers
"In the valleys of the Southron Spines there live monsters the likes of which make men sick at the sight of." -A Comprehensive Bestiary of the Spines
As the Southron Spines reach south toward the Sea of Elythria, they split down the middle, forming a fertile valley watered by the summer run-off of the vast surrounding peaks. It was within this wild, easily defended valley that the Great Horde made its greatest holdfasts against their Dwarven enemies. And it was there that the second Alliance defeated the Great Horde at the court the Orc’s had made. It was on the ruin of that battlefield that the some of Dragonlords of Isles commemorated their victory with their Dwarven allies by raising their own holdfast, the mighty Orquacourt, among the greatest fortresses since the long ruined holds of the Llöthlori. These Dragonlords of the Vale subjugated a vast dominion with magic, stretching throughout the lands bordering the mountains and the shores of the Sea of Nisos. Records of the nation these Dragonlords built are spotty, much lost in the chaos now known as the Great Waste, a strange, unknown affliction which torn at the heart of the empire, ravaging its heartland and leaving its hinterlands ripe for the taking.
The valley of Smyrna is now a wild land shrouded in mystery, shaped and change by the events which precipitated the Great Waste. Few who venture into the valley every return. Those who do return changed, shaken by the experience, babbling tales of a twisted landscape populated by strange monsters and stranger magic.
The mysterious cult of the Strangers holds these lands to be sacred.
The Elythrian Empire
Government: Monarchy
Capital: L'Alcasaba
Climate: Ranging from Temperate Forest to Arid Desert to Subtropical Rainforest
Language: High Elyt
State Religion: The Church of Elyt
Dominant Religions: The Church of Elyt, The Church of Regina
"Humans are simple animals. And history illustrates the folly of their continued free agency." -Elyt the Grand in a letter to his first wife
Forged during the collapse of the Rhunic Empire by Elven separatist, the Elythrian Empire is the primary successor state to the estate of a High Elven conqueror of old. With ample coast lines along the Great Sea to the west and to the south along its namesake, the Empire stands as a prosperous hub of trade. A temperate fertile land which bridges the lands of the North with those south of the Sea of Elthyria, the Empire has emerged as one of the greatest nations in Llöthlor. Ruled by an insular High Elven upper class, its power was forged on the backs of slaves justified by a belief in Elven racial superiority. While the Woods Elves of the Empire form its minor lords and merchant middleclass, its Human population have suffered over the centuries in bondage, those few who have their freedom condemned largely to a life of poverty and discrimination.
A decade ago the fires of rebellion were kindled as Humans revolted against their High Elven overlords. Beginning as a simple of act of disobedience, a revolutionary movement rose around a charismatic, young warlock name Domingo Delgadio. After years of battle and numerous miraculous victories, the rebels delivered the killing blow in the Battle of the Elyt Peninsula, where the Emperor and his son fell in battle, leaving the lands in the hands of the Emperor’s young daughter, Isla Aurelia.
On face value the rebels have emerged victorious. Suing for piece, the Empress has done the unthinkable and offered her hand in marriage the rebel leader. Though denied the title of Emperor, Domingo Delgadio has been given the position of Grand Margrave, commander-in-chief for the Empires armies. Even after 3 years, Elythrian politics smolder on the verge of renewed violence. While slavery remains, reforms have released many from bondage, while in turn enslaving many of the land’s former ruling class. Those High Elves which remain in power stand with their Empress against the aggressive policies of her husband, a situation only complicated by the warlock’s mistress, a High Elven turncoat bent to claim the throne for herself.
The Elyt Estates
Government: Monarchy
Capital: Elytia
Climate: Ranging from Temperate Forest to Arid Desert to Subtropical Rainforest
Language: High Elyt
Dominant Religions: The Church of Elyt, The Church of Regina
[Pending]
The Three Sisters
Government: Monarchy
Capital: Kyn (Kyn), The Haven (Mithlin), Arborein (Arden)
Climate: Temperate Coastline and Forest
Language: Elyt
Dominant Religion: Ancestral Animism
"On Kyn rose Three Sisters, like emeralds from a sea of blood..." -A History of the Elyt Estates
The three Wood Elven nations of Kyn, Mithlin, and Arden nestled between the Grey Mountains and the Elythrian Empire share their powerful southern neighbor’s pedigree. Born from the northern borderlands of an old High Elven estate, the Three Sisters straddle along the shores and islands of the massive Bay of Kyn. While the two Sisters of the Arms, Mithlin and Arden, are more welcoming to trade with any nation, the Sister of the Interior, Kyn, suffers xenophobia in greater degree than even the elite of the Empire, trading only with their Elven neighbors.
Many within the Sisters look suspiciously upon their neighbors across the Grey Mountians, the Rhunites, and look covetously upon their neighbor, Soissons, a prize they claim is their own.
The Land of Nuren
Government: Gerontocracy
Capital: Tharbad
Climate: Cool, Temperate Forest
Langauge: Thaurban
Dominant Religion: Animism
"In the primordial forests between the Nisos and Lake Nuren did fall Cerys I Penddraig's legions to arrows beyond number." -A History of Rhunic Expansion
One of the Lands Beyond the Nisos, Nuren is a insular nation of Hobbits and Wood Elves in the east of Llöthlor, tucked between the Sea of Nisos and its smaller eponymous Sea (more of a lake). Nuren’s denizens have a long history, having resisted colonization by both Smyrna and Rhune, the large wood hills and dells of their land providing them the cover for brutal guerrilla war. Master archers, the Nuren Elves and Haflings prefer simplistic living. However, they have in recent years opened trade with denizens of the shores of Nisos, a fact potentially motivated by problems along their northern border with the Great Steppe.
The Pirate States and the Sand Shield
Government: Meritocratic Kleptocracy
Climate: Hot, Arid Desert Coast
Language: Ysry, High Elyt
Dominant Religions: Animism, The Church of Regina, The Cult of the Mauler
"Fear men who live long lives in professions where men shouldn't." -Sailor's proverb
Along the southern shore of the Elythrian Sea, dotting the Sand Shield's coast, are numerous ports which serve as havens for the pirates which haunt the Sea. These cities, the Pirate States, are largely independent city-states fueled by trade from the south and plunder from the Sea.
Among them includes Salé, a republic, populated in great part by human refugees from the Elythrian empire; Dzayer, the Islands, a city located in a protected cove on a cluster of islands; Ruskikda, the Promontory of Fire, where natural eruptions of naphtha fuel a cult of fire worship; and Mahdya, ancient capital of a short lived federation of all of the pirate cities whose Despot still pretends to lord over them all.
Tahert, the Lioness, lies somewhere deep within the Sand Shield. It is home to what remains of the cult to the godess that is called the Mauler.
Other Pirate States include Tampsus, Elea, Tyre, and Ur, the City of Thieves.
The Kingdoms of the Hared Desert
Government: Monarchy
Climate: Mostly Arid Desert
Language: Smyrnan, Ysry
Dominant Religions: Animism, The Cult of the Mauler
[Pending]
The Dales
Government: Autocracy
Capital: Royeaux
Climate: Cool, Temperate Mountain Valley
Language: Brythonic
Dominant Religion: Animism, Cult of the Mask
"Here I am the Law, and even Death fears me." -The Masked Empress of the Dales to Rhunic Emperor Llywelyn IV Penddraig
One of the oldest nations in Llöthlor, the Dales were originally conquered by a young charismatic chieftain and his beautiful sorceress wife in the years that followed the defeat of the Horde. Crowned Lord of the Freeman of the Dales, the young chieftain ruled his holding until his death. But the sorceress was the true power behind the throne. In the centuries to come she ruled the Dales in secret, advising her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren as each took the Lordship of the Vale. But as the Great Waste took Smyrna, distrust of magic grew. The nobles of the Dales rose up against their ruling Lady and her immortal chief adviser, the sorceress, bringing them to trial and executing them as maleficarum.
But all great mages have contingencies. The Witch of the Dale rose from the ashes with a terrible wrath. Through magic, trickery, and conquest, the Dales fell to their new Masked Empress. And she has ruled the Dales ever since, feared by her people.
The City-State of Genoi
Government: Autocratic Republic
Capital: Genoi
Climate: Temperate Forrest
Langauge: Llöthlori
Dominate Religions: The Six Goddesses, The Cult of the Strangers
"In Genoi ancient structures stand vigilant, the last true heirs of the Dragonlords." -The Nations of Nisos
Situated on the Isle of Llöth in the Sea of Nisos, Genoi is the oldest city in all of Llöthlor, founded in the days of that Greatest of Empires. Originally home to those Dragonlords who survived the fall of their great empire, the centrally located City emerged as a regional trade power during the Age of Darkness. Following the Great Waste, Genoi served as the primary military rival to Rhunite expansion in the Nisos, eventually falling to the Rhunites after nearly a century at war.
But the Genosi are a proud people and were among the first to throw off the yoke of Imperial rule as the Rhunic Empire collapsed. In the years since, Genoi has re-established itself as one of the primary powers on the Nisos and re-emerged as one of Llöthlor's primary trade cities. Now days, the Dragonlord's numbers dwindle, the migrations of the great wyrms making the replenishment of their numbers more difficult. As a result, lesser class of ruler under them has arisen from among the great merchant captains and privateers of the island. Called Sealords, they have held greater sway over the affairs of city-state in recent years, seeking collectively to grow the city-state's power and influence, meddling in neighboring affairs and establishing client states along the Sea of Nisos.
The Nihoni Empire
Government: Monarchy
Capital: Azuma
Climate: Varies greatly
Language: Nihoni
Dominant Religion: Ancestral Animism
"Never falter. Never fail. Never give in. And never surrender." -Nihoni Warrior Code
Over a decade before the Rhunic Interregnum, the legions of Rhune pushed east of the Nisos, inadvertently starting the war which precipitated Great Empire's collapse. There the legions encountered the fierce Nihoni, whose fledgling Empire rivaled their own.
The largest state in modern Llöthlor, the Nihoni Empire rivals Great Rhune at its height, stretching from the easternmost shore of the Nisos to the easternmost edge of Llöthlor. A huge land dominated by constant conflict between fueding warlords, it is loosely held coalition of city-states and fiefdoms beholden to One Emperor.
Possessing some of the fiercest warriors in Llöthlor, the Nihoni still long to expand their empire west. If, and only if, they could cease their infighting...
The Other Lands Beyond the Nisos
"It was the Nisos which fueled the Rhunites' Empire. And it was at the Nisos' mercy that it fell." -On the Rhunic Interregnum
North of the Sea of Nisos, stretching to the Lands of Winter, is the Great Steppe, a massive northern plain populated by ramblers and nomads. South of the Sea lies the Hared Desert, a land of desert kingdoms which cuts its southern and eastern neighbors off from the rest of Llöthlor..
The Lands Beyond the Elythrian
"Those mad enough to brave the Sand Shield find that it guards a land which has never known the Frostmaiden's Touch." -The Travels of Baird the Bard
Along the southern shore of the Elythrian, the thin band of the Sand Shield cuts off the Pirate States from the Lands of Endless Summers to the south. In these lands of mountains and jungle, the only nations which emerge do so near the embrace of the Great Sea or atop the cool peaks of its many mountains.
The Lands Beyond the Great Sea
"It is said that in Nemeria they know no want. I wonder why they would want to live somewhere that cold." -Behrunen Duchess Bronwyn III
Llöthlor isn't the only continent to populate the world, and the Great Sea surrounding Llöthlor hides many lands. Rhunite explorers have visited many across the western Sea, establishing trade with the strange lands beyond. The most noted of these is the frigid land of Nemeria, a Halfing forest nation to the northwest, made wealthy by the mining efforts of its Gnomes.
Llöthlor, Don't Ask Me How It's Pronounced (Campaign Setting Help)
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