Here's the expanded version of Professor Hart's whiteboard map, promised back in June:
Some geopolitical info to go with it:
The Mother Isles are the seat of the older of the two human empires (the one that the younger one, the Imperial Republic of Magisteria, successfully split off from two hundred some years ago). They have holdings elsewhere on the globe, though their control is the strongest in the region between them and
Pelorus. When Metros refer to "the continent", they are almost always referring to this particular area.
Pelorus is the homeland of most of the world's "Pelorian" dragonkin, and the modern military capital of the human empire, which for various reasons prefers to quarter the bulk of its legions and its most effective generals far away from the imperial seat of power.
Thylea is the region inhabited by humans of northern stock. It is comprised of many smaller kingdoms which have occasionally been united. Environmental factors and the strong warrior culture has prevented the Mother Isles from ever making a serious attempt at pacifying and subjucating the Thylean realms, though border skirmishes have been common in the past.
In the modern age the internal borders are fairly stable and the Thylean kingdoms form a coalition; their combined political, economic, and military power allows them to deal with the empire as something more like a peer. While imperial policy was initially opposed to Thylean unification, the Unnameable Emperor has since come to realize that it's harder for the coalition to decide to make war than it would be for an individual tribe or petty kingdom to go raiding.
The Orcwaste is a northerly region that is the closest thing the nomadic orcs have to a homeland. They've always tended to concentrate there during the summer months, and as the human empire of the Mother Isles spread across the continent it became a year-round haven for those who wish to avoid imperial rule. Orcs have historically complicated relations with all of their neighbors; they have been both frequent enemies and allies of the Thyleans in particular.
In the past two centuries, the empire has attempted to absorb the orcs by giving orcish citizens the right of free passage across the empire's internal and external borders on the continent, in the hopes that enough orcs will take up the mantle of imperial citizenship and effectively carry the empire into the Orcwaste with them.
The Seven Kingdoms (more properly "the kingdoms of the seven"; how one counts the individual kingdoms varies according to definition and time period, but there have never in recorded history been exactly seven) is the traditional dwarven homeland. Dwarves are found in mountains all over the world, but the greatest concentration is here. Other folks have settlements throughout the Seven Kingdoms; the dwarves lay no claim to the surface lands and in fact encourage habitation as it means they don't have as far to go to trade, though they do not tolerate imperial ambitions... the region of the Seven Kingdoms is one of the most politically fragmented parts of the world, full of villages that belong to no greater entity than themselves. It also attracts people of an individualistic or solitary bent.
The Holy Kingdoms of Lesser and Greater Merovia are the chief rival to the Empire of the Mother Isles in the old world. They are a distant second in most measures of military power, but the presence of a deity-in-residence gives them a strong trump card. "
Le frontier", the border of Lesser Merovia is one of the most mystically and physically fortified borders in the world, capable of repelling a greater dragon. At night, its glow is visible from fifty miles away. At times, Merovia has been an ally to Magisteria, by dint of a common enemy.
Malbus is an unlikely political hot potato. Located near the center of the Sea of Ardan, it was once an important port of call for ships that wanted to avoid sailing past the shores of one or more hostile powers in the age when global commerce was centered around that sea. It flourished as an independent city-state and became the third largest city in the Empire of the Mother Isles, but improvements in travel methods and shifting trade routes have transformed it from the jewel of the Ardan to an unsupportable tax burden in serious danger of becoming the first province to be granted independence without a fight.
The edge of
the Shift depicted on the map is actually the
Near Shift, as opposed to the Deep Shift... the other side of the mountains is just where things *start* to get a little weird.
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