Post by Lies on Oct 15, 2015 0:13:40 GMT
The East is a really big place, so I’m going to divide it into the Scavenger Lands and the East proper, just like the published books do. The Scavenger Lands are the nations and city-states clustered around or near the Inland Sea, whereas the East proper includes those nations further from the Blessed Isle. The major areas of the Scavenger Lands include Nexus, Lookshy, Great Forks, Thorns, and Greyfalls.
Nexus is the heart and soul of the Scavenger Lands, a city-state all to itself that shows allegiance to no one and nothing but the mysterious Emissary and the Council of Entities that rule there. It is a nearly lawless place, where laws are passed and repealed so often that civil structure of any kind is enforced only sporadically. It is a place of great opportunity, especially for the emerging Anathema, for anything can be purchased in Nexus – adventure, romance, slaves, artifacts, maps to ancient cities, and more – for the right price, of course.
Lookshy is similarly an independent city-state. However, where Nexus is a lawless den of rogues and scoundrels, Lookshy is the last bastion of the Seventh Legion, the final remnant of the Dragon-Blooded Shogunate. The Seventh Legion refused to bow before the Scarlet Empress, and they have shown that they possess the military might and savvy to remain free of the Realm. They are the alternate Dragon-Blooded power in Creation, and while they are not friendly to Anathema, neither are they a civilization based around finding and murdering them.
Great Forks is the City of Temples, a place where gods, elementals, and god-blooded rub shoulders with Fair Folk, Exalted, and stranger things. Run by a trio of gods, Great Forks was once a refugee settlement founded after the Great Contagion. Since then, its rulers have made a thriving city that can boast of having defeated a Deathlord… a feat which no other living being can claim to date. It is still a refugee haven, a place of unbridled worship and hedonism, where the affluent can forget the cares of the Time of Tumult for a while. Of course, the less aflluent still have to struggle to survive amidst the strange company their city keeps.
Thorns was once a tributary of the Realm, strong and proud, but everything changed a few years before the start of the default setting. A Deathlord calling himself the Mask of Winters led an army of the dead out of the Underworld and, with the help of the reanimated remains of a First Age Behemoth, laid waste to the city and turned it into a shadowland. Now, the living are slaves to the dead, and while the Mask of Winters pretends to send representatives to other nations and claims to simply be an equitable leader of a viable nation, his eye turns to the other nations of the Scavenger Lands, seeking the next jewel to add to his soulsteel crown.
Finally, Greyfalls is a tiny tributary of the Realm, one of the last in the Scavenger Lands. They are in dire need of aid, beset as they are by beastmen, Wyld mutants, Anathema, and worse. However, the rumblings of civil war on the Blessed Isle have forced the Realm to withdraw much of its support from such a distant tributary. The satrap has to decide best how to protect his people in the Time of Tumult, and with Realm aid so far away, the choice seems more and more likely to come down to either the traditions and mores of the Scarlet Empire or the shelter of the first port in this metaphorical storm.
Halta is a prosperous treetop nation, where its citizens live in harmony with intelligent animals, while the Fair Folk claim the ground of their forest. Linowan, by contrast, is an uncivilized collection of tribes, and the two have been warring for decades. However, with the coming of the Bull of the North and his alliance with Halta, Linowan is suddenly caught in the jaws of the beast. Further, there are powers within Halta that do not appreciate the Bull’s interference, which all adds up to a stew of trouble, just waiting for some young Exalted to come and boil it into a fine dish of adventure.
Sijan is a city that has existed since before the Primordial War, and no one is entirely certain of its origins. The people who live there have always been morticians of the highest caliber, and, in fact, the city is run by the Mortician’s Order. Nobility, gentry, and peasantry from all over the Scavenger Lands and the East come to Sijan to be buried, cremated, or otherwise mortificated, for the Mortician’s Order is familiar with every burial custom in Creation. Sijan has a strong reflection in the Underworld, and both Sijans work together, living and dead, to create a vast and respectful homage to the departed.
Mount Metagalapa is one of the oddities of the East, for it is a flying mountain. Some theorize it is a weapon of the First Age, waiting to go off. Others suppose it might have been infused with Wyld energies from the Fair Folk invasion during the Contagion. No one knows for sure. What is known, however, is that a small civilization of humans has grown on the slopes of Metagalapa, and they survive by raiding nearby lands on their giant hawks. While they have cooly cordial relations with most of the nations in the East, they are isolated (by virtue of living on top of a flying mountain), and so they share few of the natural prejudices of the rest of Creation. Of course, that just leaves them with room for their own unique taboos.
Chaya is a nominally uninteresting place. A remote nation in the far East, it is a calm civilization of introspective individuals, people who seem to have no extremes of emotion and show less than they have. Visitors are few, and while they have trade negotiations with the Confederation of Rivers, they are mostly isolationist. However, when the fire trees bloom, their pollen sends the calm Chayans into murderous rampages, an event for which no one has a full explanation. For this reason, visitors are sent away during these “mood swings,” though some theorize there is some profit to be made from the fire tree pollen.
Rathess was once the heart of Dragon King civilization, the race of saurian humanoids who populated Creation before humans. They were always faithful and loyal to the Unconquered Sun, and for this crime, they were devastated during the Primordial War. Rathess became the heart of the Solar Deliberative after the war, but eventually that moved to Meru. Rathess slowly degenerated into obscurity, and after the Usurpation, it was mostly forgotten. Now, however, it is a potential treasure trove for the returning Solars, if they can navigate the primeval jungles that surround it and survive the dark terrors that now inhabit the once glorious city.
Finally, Sperimin was once a glorious First Age academy of learning and sorcery. It was (and remains) the resting place of the fabled Book of Three Circles, a tome said to contain a copy of every spell ever made. However, during the Contagion, when its population dwindled, an elder Lunar named Raksi returned from the Wyld with an army of beastmen and conquered the city. Now renamed Mahalanka, the City of a Thousand Golden Delights, Sperimin lies lost in the forests of the East, subject to Raksi’s twisted, insane whims.
More information will be added below, this is simply a quick glance for a layman. All credit goes to for Tentacled Vitriol this write-up.
Nexus is the heart and soul of the Scavenger Lands, a city-state all to itself that shows allegiance to no one and nothing but the mysterious Emissary and the Council of Entities that rule there. It is a nearly lawless place, where laws are passed and repealed so often that civil structure of any kind is enforced only sporadically. It is a place of great opportunity, especially for the emerging Anathema, for anything can be purchased in Nexus – adventure, romance, slaves, artifacts, maps to ancient cities, and more – for the right price, of course.
Lookshy is similarly an independent city-state. However, where Nexus is a lawless den of rogues and scoundrels, Lookshy is the last bastion of the Seventh Legion, the final remnant of the Dragon-Blooded Shogunate. The Seventh Legion refused to bow before the Scarlet Empress, and they have shown that they possess the military might and savvy to remain free of the Realm. They are the alternate Dragon-Blooded power in Creation, and while they are not friendly to Anathema, neither are they a civilization based around finding and murdering them.
Great Forks is the City of Temples, a place where gods, elementals, and god-blooded rub shoulders with Fair Folk, Exalted, and stranger things. Run by a trio of gods, Great Forks was once a refugee settlement founded after the Great Contagion. Since then, its rulers have made a thriving city that can boast of having defeated a Deathlord… a feat which no other living being can claim to date. It is still a refugee haven, a place of unbridled worship and hedonism, where the affluent can forget the cares of the Time of Tumult for a while. Of course, the less aflluent still have to struggle to survive amidst the strange company their city keeps.
Thorns was once a tributary of the Realm, strong and proud, but everything changed a few years before the start of the default setting. A Deathlord calling himself the Mask of Winters led an army of the dead out of the Underworld and, with the help of the reanimated remains of a First Age Behemoth, laid waste to the city and turned it into a shadowland. Now, the living are slaves to the dead, and while the Mask of Winters pretends to send representatives to other nations and claims to simply be an equitable leader of a viable nation, his eye turns to the other nations of the Scavenger Lands, seeking the next jewel to add to his soulsteel crown.
Finally, Greyfalls is a tiny tributary of the Realm, one of the last in the Scavenger Lands. They are in dire need of aid, beset as they are by beastmen, Wyld mutants, Anathema, and worse. However, the rumblings of civil war on the Blessed Isle have forced the Realm to withdraw much of its support from such a distant tributary. The satrap has to decide best how to protect his people in the Time of Tumult, and with Realm aid so far away, the choice seems more and more likely to come down to either the traditions and mores of the Scarlet Empire or the shelter of the first port in this metaphorical storm.
Halta is a prosperous treetop nation, where its citizens live in harmony with intelligent animals, while the Fair Folk claim the ground of their forest. Linowan, by contrast, is an uncivilized collection of tribes, and the two have been warring for decades. However, with the coming of the Bull of the North and his alliance with Halta, Linowan is suddenly caught in the jaws of the beast. Further, there are powers within Halta that do not appreciate the Bull’s interference, which all adds up to a stew of trouble, just waiting for some young Exalted to come and boil it into a fine dish of adventure.
Sijan is a city that has existed since before the Primordial War, and no one is entirely certain of its origins. The people who live there have always been morticians of the highest caliber, and, in fact, the city is run by the Mortician’s Order. Nobility, gentry, and peasantry from all over the Scavenger Lands and the East come to Sijan to be buried, cremated, or otherwise mortificated, for the Mortician’s Order is familiar with every burial custom in Creation. Sijan has a strong reflection in the Underworld, and both Sijans work together, living and dead, to create a vast and respectful homage to the departed.
Mount Metagalapa is one of the oddities of the East, for it is a flying mountain. Some theorize it is a weapon of the First Age, waiting to go off. Others suppose it might have been infused with Wyld energies from the Fair Folk invasion during the Contagion. No one knows for sure. What is known, however, is that a small civilization of humans has grown on the slopes of Metagalapa, and they survive by raiding nearby lands on their giant hawks. While they have cooly cordial relations with most of the nations in the East, they are isolated (by virtue of living on top of a flying mountain), and so they share few of the natural prejudices of the rest of Creation. Of course, that just leaves them with room for their own unique taboos.
Chaya is a nominally uninteresting place. A remote nation in the far East, it is a calm civilization of introspective individuals, people who seem to have no extremes of emotion and show less than they have. Visitors are few, and while they have trade negotiations with the Confederation of Rivers, they are mostly isolationist. However, when the fire trees bloom, their pollen sends the calm Chayans into murderous rampages, an event for which no one has a full explanation. For this reason, visitors are sent away during these “mood swings,” though some theorize there is some profit to be made from the fire tree pollen.
Rathess was once the heart of Dragon King civilization, the race of saurian humanoids who populated Creation before humans. They were always faithful and loyal to the Unconquered Sun, and for this crime, they were devastated during the Primordial War. Rathess became the heart of the Solar Deliberative after the war, but eventually that moved to Meru. Rathess slowly degenerated into obscurity, and after the Usurpation, it was mostly forgotten. Now, however, it is a potential treasure trove for the returning Solars, if they can navigate the primeval jungles that surround it and survive the dark terrors that now inhabit the once glorious city.
Finally, Sperimin was once a glorious First Age academy of learning and sorcery. It was (and remains) the resting place of the fabled Book of Three Circles, a tome said to contain a copy of every spell ever made. However, during the Contagion, when its population dwindled, an elder Lunar named Raksi returned from the Wyld with an army of beastmen and conquered the city. Now renamed Mahalanka, the City of a Thousand Golden Delights, Sperimin lies lost in the forests of the East, subject to Raksi’s twisted, insane whims.
More information will be added below, this is simply a quick glance for a layman. All credit goes to for Tentacled Vitriol this write-up.