Regions

Ash Fields

With better neighbours, this might be a rather nice place to live. As it is, however, prevailing winds cover the region in ash any time the volcanoes to the west erupt. Despite that, a fair bit of agriculture is able to persist with the help of specialized shelters.

Black Island

The sheer cliffs of this island are composed of almost pure obsidian. In a world where all deposits of structural metals were exhausted millennia ago, this is a thoroughly valuable commodity. However, only the most rugged of creatures can survive in its desolate climate.

Blisterlands

The landscape here is flat, featureless, and easy to get lost in. You'll want to avoid getting lost, though. The dominant flora is a moss with poisonous spores: mere contact with skin can cause blistering. When a windstorm kicks up enough spores to blot out the sun, you'll want to be indoors.

Blue Highlands

A fertile upland overlooking the Night Forest. Its colonization by the Old Empire was unusually bloody and cruel. The only traces that remain of its previous inhabitants are the overgrown ruins of their cities.

Bone Forest

The calcified caps of what were once giant mushrooms preside majestically over an arid landscape. Once, this was a vibrant, living forest. What happened to it is a matter of speculation and legend, as no one living today was there when the rains stopped.

Chorus of Hell

This region is dominated by a cluster of active volcanoes. A few communities cling to the coastline, making a living from trade and the fruits of the sea.

Coral Maze

At high tide, the entire peninsula looks like an open sea dotted with islands. At low tide, the sea pulls back to reveal a complex system of coral reefs.

Curse

On the surface, this is a temperate island of unexceptional geography. However, the people and creatures that live here frequently suffer from strange diseases and deformed offspring. The source of such a malady has never been found.

Dead River Valley

Once, a great river ran through here. That river is long gone. But life carries on.

Dreamer's Bog

A lush and densely vegetated wetland. Of all the plants that grow here, a particular brightly coloured fern gives the region its name and reputation. The spores of this fern possess strong hallucinogenic properties. They play a role in medicine, religion, recreation, as well as a great many fatal accidents.

Drowned City

The seabed here is covered by the partially-intact ruins of what was once a great metropolis. The architecture is quite unsuited to aquatic denizens, suggesting that it was originally built on dry land. No one knows for sure who built the city, when it was built, or what happened to it.

Fetid

This dreadful bog has many names in many different languages. Most of those names mean the same thing, though. To travel this region without a local guide is a reliable way to never be heard from again. At the same time, there are many for whom this place is simply home.

Glass Desert

The entire surface of this region is a coarse plate of glass fused with rock. Life persists below the surface, reachable through the colossal cracks that open or extend any time an earthquake strikes.

Glowing Jungle

The region gets its name from two facts: it is a jungle, and it glows. The glowing is caused by a number of species of luminescent fungi, which are variously standalone or parasitic with the other vegetation. The animals of this regions have adapted to the general absence of darkness by developing incredibly gaudy camouflage.

Hivelands

The local ecosystem is dominated by a large animal that lives in burrowed hives. Each hive has a single queen attended by an army of drones. Conventional agriculture is limited by their tendency to devour it. Instead, the locals have learned to interact with the creatures as if they were a sort of semi-feral cattle.

Leviathan Bridge

If the sea in this region has a bottom, no one has ever reached it and returned. Cities are built on the backs of enormous, docile leviathans that filter-feed as they slowly traverse the waters. Thus, the location of any given city on a map is a mere convention.

Lifegiver Valley

Once it finally coalesces from its many tributaries, the Lifegiver is the greatest river in the known world. It irrigates vast swathes of farmland, and can be easily navigated by cargo ships. No other region has seen so many lives (whether soldier or civilian) sacrificed by nations seeking to control its bounty.

Midden

In a time before memory, this was a garbage heap for a great civilization. This bottom layer has since been covered by the remains of younger civilizations, each scavenging what came before. The near-bottomless maze of tunnels provides refuge for those who would be hunted elsewhere.

Mirror

During the long dry season, this is a perfectly flat salt plain. It is not ordinary salt, however. When it rains, the entire plain briefly turns into a shallow lake of acid water. With little in the way of natural resources, the cities in this region subsist entirely on long-distance trade.

Night Forest

One could live their entire life in the Night Forest, and have no concept of what sunlight is. Creatures living near the canopy have a use for eyes. Those living further below do not, and many have evolved to lose theirs entirely.

Old Heartland

The mountains of this region shelter multiple fertile valleys. These valleys form little pockets of agrarian idyll in a part of the world that is otherwise often harsh and inhospitable. Once upon a time, the region had a more central place in the civilized world. But as the wilderness has continued its steady advance, it now finds itself on the edge of the map.

Painted Valleys

A system of steep, narrow canyons carved by fast-flowing rivers. These canyons are reasonably sheltered from the elements, and their walls are covered in murals and frescoes from dead civilizations. Removing one layer will typically reveal something far older underneath.

Paradise

Much of this region is cultivated as productive farmland. However, it gets its name from the uncultivated parts, which are covered in a kaleidoscopic carpet of flowers through almost the entire year. Most of the these flowers are deathly poisonous. But still, it's very pretty.

Plague Lagoon

It is neither a single lagoon, nor are there much in the way of plagues there. At least not right now. The region has a turbulent history and has, at times in the past, been the epicentre of much death and suffering.

Screaming Forest

An ancient forest, largely untouched by civilization, covering the basin of a vast crater. It is inhabited by tribes of flying ticks whose ghastly screams terrify outsiders as much as what they do afterwards.

Shallow Sea

This sea is about as close to a sunny meadow as an underwater region can get. Many cities feature a tethered floating harbour to facilitate commerce with the nations on dry land.

Singsong

This verdant island is home to an unusually rich variety of birds. Among the locals, even a child can distinguish the singing of at least a hundred different species. Visitors, on the other hand, hear only a uniform, maddening cacophony. The advent of nighttime offers little reprieve.

Sleeping Desert

This region lies at the edge of the vast lifeless desert known as the Great Nothing. And during the long dry season, one could be forgiven for not being able to tell the difference. When it rains, however, everything changes: the landscape comes to life and blooms in every colour imaginable.

Spearlands

A region of arid, rocky badlands. The landscape is smashed and mutilated by frequent earthquakes. The sharp rock protrusions that result are part of the reason for its name. The other part is the ferocity of its inhabitants.

Steam Mountains

This is the tallest mountain range in the known world. It gets its name from the multitude of hot springs and steam vents that dot its narrow valleys.

The Fog

This low-lying valley is covered in a permanent blanket of dense fog. It is largely untamed, and home to a rich variety of dangerous beasts. And it is some of these beasts that yield the lucrative exotic substances that keep the region from being abandoned to the wilderness beyond.

Underjungle

A dense, shallow kelp forest. The region is rich in plant life, and the economy of most cities is based on harvesting and exporting this bounty. In addition, the region produces pearls, which are an important currency for large and long-distance transactions.