GR Local Game
The World
The world is broken up into three main continents. The northwestern continent is Aveth. The northeastern continent is Thonas. The southern continent is Shalera. Long ago, before the Rending, the continents of Aveth and Thonas were a single continent known as Avethonas.
Aveth
Thonas
Shalera
Rytheria
is another “pre-Rending” civilization in the sense that there was a city there before the Rending and it is still inhabited today. Because the Elves live for so long, there are Elves who had parents that were alive pre-Rending, so they have a much stronger connection to the past than most of the other nations and races. They embody the stereotypical snooty Elf persona and fiercely guard their forest from outsiders.
Rytheria does not do much trade with the other nations. Occasionally, a Rytherian ship will sail into port somewhere with trinkets and goods to sell and trade for different resources. Often time they seek metals and materials that cannot be found within the confines of their forest or from the Dwarves that inhabit the mountains to the east of the forest. A Rytherian ship always causes a big stir in whatever port they dock in, which often acts to boost the economy of the port for the duration of the Elves’ stay. As a result, governing officials often go to great lengths to make them feel welcome and try to convince them to return at some point.
Londova is a collection of five Dwarven cities that reside within the mountains of Shalera. Pre-Rending the Dwarves that resided there were reclusive and borderline violent to any outsiders who disturbed them. Little is know about these Dwarves as much of the history was recorded via magic (and much of that vanished with the Rending).
The nation of Londova began as a collection of Dwarves that had fled to the surface during the Rending. When they returned to the collection of cities, the Dwarves found them uninhabited by anything other than beasts from the Underdark. They started a long and bloody campaign to reclaim the homes that once belonged to them. Their fight took almost 100 years to finish, but they cleared their home of all the beasts that had taken over. From there, they set about plugging the entrances to the Underdark and posting guards outside them.
Once the Dwarves had taken back their cities and resumed their ancient tradition of mining rare and valuable metals and minerals from the earth, they took a completely opposite approach to things from their ancestors. They expanded much of their cities to be able to fit the taller races and built large above ground areas and encouraged trade in all forms. They compete in an unspoken trade war with Rokdar in the metal market. Londova often has better prices, but Rokdar is closer and more convenient for many.
Zekarna is the world’s largest city. It isn’t as much of a full fledged nation as it is the only port city with any amount of regulation and protection. Much of Shalera outside of the forests and the mountains is wild lands that are unclaimed and untamed by anyone. When Londova began seriously competing with Rokdar for trade, they helped pay for the construction of a city they would use as their primary port.
It didn’t take long for Zekarna to grow bigger than what the Dwarves of Londova could reasonably handle remotely. So, an agreement was struck. Zekarna would function with its own government and regulations and what not, but it would be under the protection of Londova in case of danger and Londova would pay none to little in the way of tariffs and taxes. To this day, that agreement is honored and it has brought significant wealth to both Zekarna and Londova. As more and more people heard about this city of commerce and trade, they made their way there. Others saw it as a chance to start over in a less regulated part of the world. Smaller villages and towns popped up in the surrounding countryside.
Although none of them officially exist within Zekarna’s borders, they all engage in a robust trade (normally for food) with the city. A series of walls intersect the city at various points where the governing body assumed the city’s growth would slow/stop. After the third wall was passed, they decided to stop trying to build walls for the city.
Navkadrak isn’t really a “Pre-Rend” society other than the Orks that live there live in the same spot as Orks in the Pre-Rend times. Otherwise, the society and culture are entirely different. Nakvadrak is a nation that exists on the tumultuous Hilt Peninsula, although there are certainly some settlements outside the official borders of Nakvadrak.
Most of Nakvadrak’s food comes from fishing and what their farms can produce during the warm months of the year. The Orks of Nakvadrak are very skilled with boat building and usage (navigation, I guess? I’m honestly not sure what the term for “good with boats” is) because almost any village exists close to the shore. The middle of the peninsula is dried out, cracked earth from when the Orks and Dragons first clashed long before the Rending. Although Nakvadrak is counted as one of the nations of the world, it is almost never united on anything. There is constant infighting and civil war between various factions that rise and fall as the political landscape shifts (normally due to leaders being killed).
The only thing of any real value in Nakvadrak is the magical obsidian that is mined from the otherwise ruinous middle region of the peninsula. Unlike actual/normal obsidian which is very brittle and shatters easily, this obsidian, when tempered properly, becomes as durable as steel while also maintaining the incredible sharpness of obsidian. (I’ll expand more on this later)
Ork smiths have learned how to work with this material and guard the secret jealously. The only trade that comes to the Hilt is for the weapons they make. There are a few towns that are more welcoming to outsiders and have come to semi-rely on the trade themselves. The rest of the peninsula is filled with Orks that will raid and sink ships that don’t fly their faction’s colors and symbol.
While this violent behavior does give somewhat of a bad name to the Orks and Half-Orks of the world, there are Orks and Half-Orks that exist in many other societies, so seeing one is not cause for concern or excitement (basically, you can play a Half-Ork character without fear of everyone being a dick to you).
