The Northern ContinentIlmiora

Nadsokor

The Sighing Desert

Org and the Forest of Troos

Vilmir

The Weeping Waste

The Lords of Law hold sway across the rolling, grassy plains and city-states of Ilmiora. It is ruled by a Council of Senators sent from the many city-states that make up the country. The title of senator is a hereditary one, held by the oldest families of each city.

Much of the land remains wild and untamed, with wide distances between the thriving city-states. The people of Ilmiora are energetic and open minded. Such arts as dancing and singing are taught to all the members of the nobility. Even the peasant folk take delight in creativity, be it as simple as a song while they work.

The broken towers and sagging walls of Nadsokor blight northwest Vilmir, but even before one’s eyes are assailed by its slovenly appearance, the pestilential stink which encloses the city of beggars has one retching and gagging.

Nadsokor is infamous throughout the Young Kingdoms and from its decaying buildings, disease ridden and malformed beggars creep out to beg and steal across the world.

The sandy wastes of the Sighing Desert are so named because of the constant, mournful, moaning sounds of the wind over the dunes. Occasional jagged spurs of rock rear from the blazing sands. Sometimes travelers report finding precious metals and gemstones uncovered by sandstorms, remnants of some old forgotten kingdom.

However, The Sighing Desert is far from lifeless. Many creatures have adapted themselves to the waterless waste. Nomadic Tribes, those who call themselves members of The Nomad Nations thrive in the desert. These men and women have no gods, but instead seek enlightenment through meditation and self awareness.

Squatting like some cancerous growth among the grasslands of Ilmiora is the kingdom of Org. Few Orgians cross the borders of their land, nor are they welcomed beyond. Unsavory legends are whispered of Org and its people, stories of necromancy and decaying malevolence.

The disturbing Forest of Troos forms Org’s borders. It is a dark, sinister place. Shadows cloak the trees and strange plants and all manner of mutated, pathetic creature, predators and prey alike, haunt its grim glades. Few venture here. The forest does not welcome visitors almost as though it possesses a sentience and a wit to reject them.

Once, Vilmir’s land was a forest paradise. Now it stands as grasslands, ruined by the slash and burn farming of several generations of land workers, punctuated by the huge, uninspiring, pyramid-walled cities.

The wealthy and high placed souls of Vilmir claim almost everything for themselves, parasitically sucking life from those who toil hardest and deserve it most. But there is an exception to this stagnation. The city of Old Hrolmar is a beacon of enlightenment amidst the grey and the drab.

Vilmir takes the doctrine of Law to a logical extreme. The entire realm is strangled and decayed by its allegiance, while at the same time profiting from the advances Law offers that are seen nowhere else in the Young Kingdoms.

East of Vilmir stretches the vast, mist shrouded plateau known as the Weeping Wast. After climbing its steep, rocky slopes a softly-turfed plateau, green and damp, a place of eternal rains. Animals abound in the Wastes, including mammoths, bears, and the predatory burrowing mole-worms.

The barbarians of the Weeping Waste adorn their bodies with ritual scars instead of jewelry. Their curious tongue, Mong, has no written form. The are astounding horsemen and also display great skill in tracking and in bow craft.

The tribes of the Waste worship a variety of nature spirits, including the elements, and revere their ancestors. The more superstitious among them claim that only the Waste is the real world, and that beyond the clouds of mist and rain lies hell, the realm of Chaos.

The Western Lands

Dharijor

Jharkor

Dharijor, with her warlike knights and fierce corsairs, is the most powerful nation of the Western Continent. The scattered provinces of Dharijor are bound by the ferocious rule of their King, who in turn pays allegiance to the Theocrat of Pan Tang and the Church of Chaos. Dark priests roam the land with impunity.

Dharijorians are a blood thirsty people, and many consider violence their national past time. The warrior caste of Sharijor is honored below the priesthood and nobility. Merchants are not loved in Dharijor, and those who favor softer activities to battle and war, such as art and poetry, are despised.

Scars, missing limbs, and other maimings are considered attractive, evidence of moral fiber and strength of character.

Marshes of Mist

Myyrrhn

Shazar

Tarkesh

The Silent Land

Jharkor is a powerful western nation, and her sizeable navy and merchant fleets are commonly seen upon the seas of the Young Kingdoms. It’s coastline consists largely of low cliffs, with a line of gentle hills inland. Beyond these hills the landscape is drier and harsher.

The capital, Dhakos, is a large coastal city with a sizable harbor. Dhakos is called the City of Spires, after the plethora of spires that crown the buildings in the old city. The palace and the Cathedral of Law are found in the old city , before a large open plaza. Wrongdoers are crucified here, in the city square.

Jharkorians are renown for their love of secrets and they make superb assassins, scribes, scholars and priests. The people of Jharkor are unused to open displays of magic, and view sorcery as unnatural and evil. The have a firm belied in the rule of the White Lords of Law.

These unnatural marshes form the boundary between Shazar and the Silent Land. These stinking, mist-shrouded bogs teem with life, all of it unpleasant. Swamp bears, marsh Serpents and moaning, half dead spirits number amongst the foul beings resident here.

Legend claims that the gleaming fens, ripe with decay and stinking slime, were cast up by the inhabitants of the Silent Land ten thousand years ago, as a barrier against encroaching Melnibonéan legions.

The winged folk of Myyrrhn dwell in rocky aeries high in the northern mountains. The oldest civilization native to the Young Kingdoms, the Myyrrhn have never had an empire, nor has it ever been an aggressive nation. It is rare for the Myyrrhn to have much commerce with the outside world.

The Myyrrhn use complex aerial ceremonies to worship Lady Lassa of the Air.

The lush plains of Shazar stretch across the south of this continent. Sparse grasses wave in the constant sea breezes along Shazar’s coast of cliffs and shingled beaches. It is a peaceful land that takes care to trouble no one.

Shazarian horses are acclaimed as the best steeds in the Young Kingdoms, the Shazarians are known as wild and clever riders. The knights of Dioperda and Aflitain are the best trained cavalry in the land and many a Shazarian lad or lass dreams of a career among their number. Horses are the pride and joy of Shazar and Shazarians, and are held in high regard.

All the Young Kingdoms shun this place, and the existence of its inhabitants is a fear-haunted mystery. A handful of adventurers have entered the Silent Lands. None have ever returned from it’s black mountains. The pale, scuttling residents dwell unseen and unknown in lightless warrens beneath these same mountains.

Tarkesh is a land of contradictions. The far north of the country is mountainous and thickly forested, as is the west; fjords and a multitude of islets fringe the coast. Life is hard with little good land for farming. Northern Tarkeshites live by hunting, fishing, and raiding.

The south and east of Tarkesh are more gentle, consisting of farms and grassy plains that become hot and dry in the summer. Southerners subsist more upon trade, on rich harvests and on large herds. Tarkeshites wear colorful silks, bright wools, velvets, and brocades in the south; in the north, furs and thick woolen garments. The northern people view their southern neighbors as effete weaklings and decadent city dwellers, while people in the south see northerners as ignorant savages.

The Southern ContinentAgrimiliar

Dorel

Filkhar

Lormyr

Oin & Yu

Pikarayd

Once a member of the Lormyrian Republic, Agrimiliar holds fast to the notions of honor and chivalry. While the nation is largely an agrarian society, the remains of the Bright Empire are evident throughout the land.

The cattle barons of southern Argimiliar are among rhe most powerful and tradition bound of the nations nobility, although the richer, more decadent merchant-nobles of the coast enjoy the wealth from the fleets of the Cadsandrian sea-lords.

The worship of Law is dominant in Agrimiliar in particular Lord Eglis, the Gentle. Recently the coastal cities have dabbled in Chaos worship.

Inhabited by venomous black serpents and by tribes of wild, whooping, chariot-riding barbarians. Dorel’s landscape consists of bare moorland dotted with rocky outcrops, narrow rushing streams, and hardy twisted trees. Snow covers Dorel for over half the year and great slabs of stone rear up from the barren earth, pinnacles of granite rising to dizzying heights.

Dorelites are feared as raiders throughout the south, their loosely federated tribes pillaging settlements across the continent. They dress in crudely dyed plaids and tartans, have no cities but only temporary encampments. Dorelites fear and hate Chaos and are exceedingly superstitious. They worship Lassa as a goddess of storms and Grome Earth-King.

Despite Filkhar’s small size, it is one of the richest countries in the southern continent. Its low, marshy coast swarms with marine life and it’s fens and fertile valleys are bountiful.

Filkarians are arrogant and obsessed with style and clothing, and for decadence and hedonism. Filkharians are well known gourmets and excellent cooks. Even the peasants of Filkhar are well dressed by foreign standards.

The Lords of Law are worshiped throughout Filkhar and although Chaos is not outlawed, it is viewed as quaintly old-fashioned

Four hundred years ago Lormyr was a vibrant nation,the first to free itself from Melnibonéan dominion. The Lormyrian Republic ended two hundred years ago. Since then Lormyr has become the most pleasant and tranquil of all the Young Kingdoms, and is still dominant in the south.

Currents from the Boiling Sea warm Lormyr’s coast of cliffs and shingle beaches while snow blankets the inland region for much of the year. Villages of whitewashed stone and thatch roofs dot Lormyr’s pleasant undulating hills.

The Lords of Law are worshiped throughout Lormyr and the religion of Chaos is forbidden.

Barbaric Oin and Yu, although two separate nation, are joined in many ways. As well as being the poorest of the southern nations, they share one city between them, the seedy capital Dhoz-Kam, straddling the banks of the river Ar.

The Oinish and Yurits are superstitions, primitive peoples who live in fear of the demons they claim haunt the coastal jungles. Oinish and Yurits have no organized religion or central government and loyalty to family is paramount. Blood feuds between clans are common.

Worship is directed toward the Elemental Rulers, particularly Grome, Straasha, and Lassa, as well as toward the Beast-Lords.

Pikarayd is a land of ragged hills and dark forests given to sudden storms and hard winters. Closer to the border of the Dead Hills Pikarayd becomes bleak moorland, broken by deep bogs. Legend claims that the borders between the worlds are weak in the Pikaraydian badlands.

The rivalry, contempt, and outright hatred that Pikaraydian clans show one another is matched only by their loyalty to their own clan. By tradition the King of Pykarayd holds hostages from each clan to act as clan emissaries.

Once the people of Pikarayd worshiped the Elemental Lords. In the past hundred years Chaos worship has spread throughout the land.

The IslandsThe heart of the Bright Empire, Imrryr the Beautiful stands on the main island of the Melnibonéan Archipelago. This main island is often called the Dragon Isle after the great winged reptiles slumbering in caverns beyond the city. Imrryr is also known as the Dreaming City, due to the languorous narcotic haze that fills her inhabitant’s days.

Landing on the Dragon Isle is virtually impossible, as a treacherous sea maze guards Imrryr, and reefs and dangerous currents ring about the steep cliffs of the shore. For centuries Melniboné has slumbered undisturbed.

The folk of Melniboné predate humanity, and share little in common with them. They are proud and amoral, and they delight in every sensation. They take pleasure in pain, especially that of others. Melnibonéan ways often seem frightening or cruel to humans. With their delicate graces and refined tastes, Menibonéans are a race without vitality or curiosity, beyond good and evil, content to exist in drug enhanced pleasure as they have for centuries. Only tradition and worship of the grotesque and gorgeous gods of Chaos rule their lives.

Melnibone

The Isle of the Purple Towns

A bleak, storm lashed isle in a nameless sea, this shattered island of black rock and fused glass is called Pan Tang, and those dwelling on it, Pan Tangians.

Pan Tang is a nation of sadistic, warped people, all of them quite possibly insane. The rest of humanity fears them as pirates and bloodthirsty priests. Pan Tang is a dominant power among the Young Kingdoms, more because of her black sorceries than for her military might.

Like a warped reflection of Melniboné, her hated rival, Pan Tang has but one city. Hwarmgaarl is often called The City of Screaming Statues, after the twisted stone figures that dot its walls and rooftops. The sobs and screams of these damned statues echo about Hwarmgaarl incessantly, as do the roars of tigers taken from the northern jungles that now prowl the iron paved city streets.

The third island civilization of note in the Young Kingdoms is the nation of the Purple Towns. It is home to a bold race of sailors and merchants, renowned for honesty and seamanship. Although a precarious political balance exists upon the Isle between the old nobility and the new and powerful merchant class, this has not stopped the Isle of the Purple Towns from becoming a center for trade to rival Imrryr. Purple Town traders are not smiled upon by Melniboné.

The folk of the Purple Towns are the best and most trustworthy sailors of the Young Kingdoms. The long bearded and leather clad Purple Toners are to be found in every port of the Young Kingdoms, wherever there are ships to be sailed. Its nobles spend the year celebrating one festival after another, roaming the island in a continuous cavalcade, while its peasant folk till the soil as they have for generations.

The Isle of the Purple Townsgains its name from the color of the stones from which its people construct their houses and buildings. It is a pleasant place of fields and small farms, the warmer lowlands of the north giving way to rugged mountains in the interior, and the sheep dotted moors in the south. Menii is the Isle’s modern and stylish capital, while the nobility chooses to live in northerly Kariss, a more sedate and lethargic city. The priests of Goldar, whose golden pyramid temple looms over the marketplace in Menii, claim that if something cannot be bought in the Isle it cannot be bought at all, such is the wide array of products from the four corners of the Young Kindgoms brought and sold in the Isle’s markets.

Lord Goldar, a god of Law, is the main deity worshiped in the Isle, eclipsing the reverence given to Lassa of the Winds and Straasha Sea-King, two Elemental Rulers.

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Pan Tang