Message #1042361

[Le maître du jeu(Eretas)]

Other Major Regions

In addition to the Drakelands and the Skyfire Mandate, there are several major populated regions of Triaxus.

Allied Territories: Spanning the entire continent of Ora, this region—often simply called “the Territories”—is a riot of  nations  both  small  and  large,  including  monarchies, theocracies,  democracies,  and  more.  Once  these  nations struggled against each other in a political free-for-all, yet the first great wars against the dragons of the Drakelands drove them to ally into a single federated unit in order to ensure that humanoids would survive as anything more than just a slave race. After the great victories of the War of Heroes and the establishment of the Skyfire Mandate, however, the dragons became a less immediate threat, and old rivalries began to splinter the bonds of blood and fellowship. Today, the Allied Territories are a union in name only, frequently engaging in border skirmishes and even absorbing each other completely, while still paying lip service to the humanoid alliance of old. Should the dragons ever make another significant push into their  continent,  however,  it’s  likely  that  such  feuds  would quickly be mended, and all spears turned outward.
The  composition  of  the  Allied  Territories  is  always  in flux, particularly as portions of their population are driven south from the poles in winter or drawn north in summer, but of the hundreds of nations and free cities that spring up  periodically,  a  few  are  particularly  well  established, having survived many seasonal cycles. The riders of Aylok, for  instance,  hold  fertile  plains  and  are  widely  notorious for breeding the best cavalry. Zo, the Port of a Thousand Ships, boasts markets where anything can be found, and in winter maintains magically melted shipping lanes. Prieta, the Scholar’s Paradise, values learning above all, and even the basest of its mercenaries seek to improve their minds. And everyone in the Territories has heard of Kamora, the wealthy  gateway  to  the  Uchorae  Jungle,  whose  residents pay for their nation’s bounty by constantly defending their high-walled cities from vampiric predators.

Ning: An island continent separated from its neighbors by the wide Sephorian Sea, the Immortal Suzerainty of Ning is an independent empire rarely challenged by the armies of  other  nations.  Nevertheless,  the  empire  maintains a vast standing army that it uses to protect the countless rural  villages  strewn  across  its  landscape  from  the  many predators—both  bestial  and  dangerously  intelligent—that dwell within the forests and valleys of the continent’s interior. Many of these communities are reachable only by treacherous roads through sharp-toothed mountains and deep jungles, and thus one of the first things constructed in any new settlement is its shelterstone, a ziggurat-shaped fortress  designed  to  house  citizens  during  invasions  by monsters, and which usually contains some magical means of contacting the empire’s military for help.
Perhaps  the  most  unique  aspect  of  Ning’s  culture  is its  focus  on  social  station,  honor,  and  custom.  Ruled  by the  benevolent  Immortal  Suzerain  (a  title  conferred  on each  monarch  when  the  previous  one  dies  or  abdicates), everyone  in  the  nation,  from  government  officials  and nobility  down  to  common  farmers,  is  obsessed  with matters  of  etiquette,  and  those  who  flaunt  the  rules—either  deliberately  or  through  ignorance—can  find themselves treated as invisible by the affronted populace.Another  peculiarity  of  Ning  society  is  a  unique  caste called  ukara,  or  “battleflowers.”  These  individuals  are elaborately  decorated  and  androgynous  warriors  who renounce  all  ties  to  family,  social  status,  and  personal gender  in  order  to  compete  in  ritualized  gladiatorial bouts.  Those  who  do  well  are  treated  as  high  nobility, with  great  houses  and  powerful  merchants  competing for the honor of their favor, while those unable to prove their  worth  after  their  first  year  are  banished  from  the major cities forever, forced to spend their lives defending
outlying communities.

Sephorian Archipelago: The seas between these several hundred  islands  are  remarkably  gentle,  allowing  travel by  canoe  in  the  summer  and  by  walking  across  mazes of ice floes in the winter. Despite regular trade between them,  most  of  the  small  island  communities  maintain their own customs and traditions, with even a few miles between  islands  creating  vast  differences  in  culture.  To the  more  “civilized”  nations  of  the  continents,  the  most interesting aspects of the archipelago are the mysterious cylindrical towers on some of the islands that periodically exhale smoke and, aside from being used as navigational aids,  are  treated  as  taboo  by  the  residents.  Many  of  the more fertile islands are also left fallow, for reasons either unremembered or unexplained to outsiders.