Vasloria¶
A forested, medieval, feudal land, Vasloria is peppered with few cities, mostly just towns and villages. While there will someday be nations here with proper borders, as of now in the Age of Chaos those nations are merely geographic areas with names people use to distinguish lands that share similar terrain and subcultures.
Aendrim, the land of hills and farms. Corwell with its knights and castles. The marshlands of Tull where witches and wise women battle hags and swamp monsters. The thick forests of Farrow with its bands of archers, and the horselands of Graid home to the best cavalry in Orden.
Mountainous northeastern Vasloria is home to the small earldoms of Sednia, Olvaria, and Sărda, and the earldom of Rhöl containing the land of Glauer once ruled by a deathless count.
Scattered across it all, Vasloria boasts the densest collection of elf-haunted wodes in Orden. All regions have wodes, but Vasloria's northern border is the Great Wode where the world still works as it did before humans arrived.
Within the wodes, time misbehaves. Cause and effect are only distant cousins, as all lands were before Ord placed the dwarves in the world,
imposing the Law of Time on Orden. Children's tales of villagers wandering into a wode and emerging unchanged 100 years later are based on real events. When pressed on how this "works," the elves look baffled. "How does what work?"
Omund's Land¶
Western Vasloria, including most of Aendrim and Corwell and parts of Graid, was until recently ruled by Good King Omund. His draconian knights, the Dragon Phalanx, protected the weak from the strong, dispensing justice. Omund's rule lasted 35 years and in his life this area was known as Omund's Land.
Under Omund's rule, order thrived. Roads were safe. People could even walk into the woods unafraid of meeting anything more threatening than a nymph or conversational manticore.
Omund died 15 years ago and so died the rule of law. Now the forest claims the towns and roads once held safe. The woods are dangerous. Their only law... tooth and claw.
Omund was betrayed and his castle fell to Ajax the Invincible, now called the Iron Saint. His wizard Mortum unlocked the secret of the ancient sky elf flying cities, and raised the Chrysopolis, Ajax's city-fortress in the sky.
It was Mortum who used the secrets of the synliroi body banks, granting immortality to those nobles who voluntarily submit to Ajax. Those same body banks produce Ajax's war dogs, his brutal, patchwork—soldiers who owe their new lives to the Iron Saint and fight for him fanatically.
Ajax abolished all faiths and temples. He executed the dukes who organized and united the barons, leaving the far-flung baronies to try and hold human civilization together. Once, these people were loose allies. There was trade between humans, elves, dwarves and orcs.
Now there is only suspicion.
The high elves of the fallen city pay tribute with ancient artifacts they plunder from the fallen celestial city of Irranys. The wode elves of the Orchid Court, lacking any centralized government or cities, refuse to bow to Ajax.
The dwarves of Kal Kalavar pay tribute in prisoners they abduct from those foolish enough to travel the roads unescorted. These prisoners serve Ajax as forced labor or are fed into the body banks. Brooding under the mountains in their fabled Hanging City, the stone dwarves do not like this deal with the Overlord but lack the power—or the will—to rebel.
The Hawklords of the High Aeries, once remote and proud, almost mythical to the people below, made their own pact with Ajax to avoid extermination. They now serve as his elite counterinsurgent force. Mounted on their giant hawks, they project Ajax's power, enforce his law and extend his influence into every corner of the wilderness. Their mastery of the air means any revolt or rebellion is quickly seen and crushed.
The Dragon Phalanx is broken. Ajax placed a high bounty on its warriors' heads. Some folk still see Omund's knights as symbols of justice, heroes of a lost age before might made right. But in every town, every village, there are always desperate people willing to collect the bounty, summoning the Hawklords to pluck any dragon knight foolish enough to travel without a disguise away to the Chrysopolis.
Isolated and outnumbered, the human baronies desperately fight a losing battle against the encroaching wilderness. Order dies. Chaos thrives.