Daragoul

Daragoul is a cold and unforgiving place. Much of the northern half of Daragoul is covered in mountains that formed with the Rending pulled the continent apart. Daragoul and the other three warring nations rest atop the lands that once belonged to the ancient Human nation of Yevar. None are entirely sure what fate befell Yevar, or exactly how far the nation’s borders reached, but there is profit to be made in excavating ruins for weapons and trinkets from the old nation.

Much of Daragoul’s landscape consists of rocky crags and canyons. It looks similar to the grand canyon area, but much snowier. The southern parts of Daragoul are dedicated almost exclusively to farmlands.

Any who travel to the more northern areas of Daragoul might be able to guess why the ancient Yevarians were so obsessed with weaponry. The farther north one travels (and indeed, why the Demon’s Thumb peninsula remains unclaimed by any nation), the weaker the border between planes and the general fabric of reality gets. Apart from generally causing headaches, this is a problem because demons use this part of the world as an entryway into the material plane. Daragoul is a nation often at war within its own borders. Demons spawn and summon others then make fortresses in the mountains that Daragoul then assaults and cleans out.

This fact has caused Daragoul’s population to adopt a very pragmatic attitude when it comes to manpower and army size. Because demons seem to have a damn near infinite supply of lesser creatures to summon and throw at the armies of Daragoul, they realized very early on they would need an edge. And that edge is necromancy. Most of Daragoul’s armies are filled with zombies and skeletons. While some might consider this a repulsive practice, to Daragoul’s credit, they’ve refined it and taken much of the “skin crawling horror” aspect away from the rituals. Everything is done with surgical precision. The corpses are given a formaldehyde and lavender compound that is laced with magic to stave off decay and mask any unpleasant odours that tend to come with corpses.

While these armies are normally only used to combat the demonic threats that crop up to the north, they have been turned on the other nations when one tries to invade or pick a fight with Daragoul. They are not shy about the fact that they employ necromancy and care little if other people think them monsters.

Daragoul also has a very high concentration of Warlocks. The enhanced demonic presence in these lands leads to a much higher rate of pacts being struck with demons. These warlocks are often hunted down and killed if they are found out by the Daragoulian government/military, as they want to discourage communication and cooperation with the demonic forces that plague their lands.

The Demon's Thumb Peninsula

The Demon’s Thumb is one of the most northern parts of the world. The summer seasons is short and hardly gets warm enough to grow most anything. None of this matters, however, because the area has been largely burnt and blasted down to bedrock by hellfire and other powerful spells. The Demon’s Thumb got its name because the material plane and the lower planes (the Nine Hells, mostly) are very close together, which makes getting from one place to the next require almost no effort what-so-ever. As a result, different demonic lords have crossed over at different times with armies to try to invade the material plane. Although, often these invasions do not get far as infighting and backstabbing is common among the more ambitious demons. There is rumored to be a large keep made of brimstone and bone at the most northern tip of the Peninsula that was created by the first invaders. It has been occupied at various times throughout history by different demonic lords, although no intelligence exists currently telling us if it is inhabited or not.

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