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Blessed Isle

East

Reisengraf

In the east a great valley kingdom through which a river cut its way through the middle. A prosperous place in the First Age and even into the Shogunate it seemed to do alright through the Great Contagion thanks to a long standing blessing on the region from the central manse of the region. However the invasion of the Fair Folk changed that. A terrible unshaped descended upon the valley and then when it moved on the place was changed and twisted. Everything that the Great Contagion hadn't slain was consumed yet...not dead. Not even undead. Not alive though. Instead the lingering wyld energies had certainly slain them but left them with a sort of life. The trees, the grass, the fish in the river, the people, the river itself even hadn't quite realized they were dead yet. If you look down at the valley from the heights around it you will see the place for the barren place it is with a dark twisted river twisting through it. As you go down though it seems to come to life. The scraggly dead trees seem to grow strait and get covered in leaves. Skeletons of people move and for a moment you can see they are sun bleached bones before full bodied people are in their place moving. The people nearby though know that the friendliness of the once living people there is a lie. They draw you in and kill you and you join them. Still for the crafty or heavily armed brief raids can yield Shogunate legacies.

Heimhall

40 years after the Great Contagion the remains of the 18th Legion of the Dragon-Blooded Shogunate returned to what was once the city that they had been based out of. The Fair Folk invasion and retaliatory strike of the Scarlet Empress had scoured the place from the map down to its foundations. Yet elemental and wyld energies had mixed with the power of the ancient magitech left from the First Age giving them what was at first called White Tiger's Fountain. Seeing potential in this strange liquid-organic glass being made the few savants pooled their talents and bound it into what they would call the Glass Cauldron. Feeding the right things into it and playing the inscribed sides with jade hammers one can grow buildings or other objects of this glass with the glass having a hardness of stone or steel. The very first test run of this was a opaque grey glass barrack building some 100 feet long and it still stands today. An attempt to steal the Glass Cauldron while it was in use a decade ago has lead to the ruling family using it more rarely and under much much heavier guard which has lead to the development of more conventional buildings in the city. Though the cities rulers claim descent from the original survivors of the 18th Legion careful examination of the cities history indicates a coup in the second century leading to a new ruling family and little remains of the blood of the Dragons in the city.

Tangxi

One of the numerous nations of the Thousand Kingdoms this growing city is set against a mountainside. Placed near a river a few inherited first age siege weapons ensures that they are able to profit from tariffs on passing trade. However 50 years ago mining in the mountain they are set against turned up something amazing. Not only did they come across the fossilized remains of a truly massive behemoth creature seeming mountain sized itself but also indications of a hidden submerged city. Entrance to the area is highly restricted and mining the remains or excavating the ruins is very dangerous. The beasts death have infused strange energies into rocks and the petrified flesh and bones. Also some of the people old inhabitants have come to life to defend the revealed ruins, wielding painted bronze and arcane lacquered woods they have slain many excavators. However the value of the finds and demand for the remains have made it a valuable source of income for the city-state. The city is ruled by a child King, who is blessed with youth and long life as well as other strengths by a group of 5 local terrestrial deities. The child rules for a century before being a lottery chooses the next. The old child ruler vanishes and the new one replaces them, changing by the imbued power to take up the role.

The Raised Kingdom

One of the stranger nations of the Thousand Kingdoms is known for its bridges. This would not be so interesting except that all the bridges connect various hills and do not cross any bodies of water. During the years preceeding the Fair Folk invasion the entire area was under water but for numerous islands. Connected by imperishable bridges made by First Age methods the area was influenced heavily by the Lunar who later Exalted there leading to a lot of animal images and themes to the bridges and architecture. The Shogunate covered up these motifes where they could.

The Fair Folk invasion changed things however. Elemental energies and chaos changed the landscape in places an soon enough the lake were emptied or raised, waters diverted. Now the bridges connect various hills on which towns and a city or two are built with a class of underpriveledged and criminal element setting up shop under the arches of the bridges themselves.

The Ruins of Ronal

Just two days by foot north of Nexus lie the ruins of the RCP once called Ronal by its natives. Once a minor Dragonblooded weapons production facility the Great Contagion and Ursupation reduced its popualation to nothing. The last ones to live there placed traps and wards to gaurd it before the disease consumed them. Yet seven centuries beside a major city means that it has been visited time and time again by the Scavanger Lords. The ancient traps have a tendancy to repair and rearm themselves and so even now the place holds dangers though no real treasures.

It is that exact fact that has turned the place into a tourist destination of sorts. The retired Scavanger Lord Tam of the Quiet Blade has turned it into a profitable business. She takes rich tourists or young scavanger lords to be on trips to the place. Since she is so familiar with the place the dangers add some excitement to the trip without putting people in real danger. It is good training for the young and an experience for the jaded as well as letting her live in very fine condition in Nexus. Her home has never flooded and doesn't suffer the black snow that the poor parts of the city does.

The Kingdom of Tima

Around 800 miles directly southwest of Densador lies the city state of Tima. Situated on the banks of the Grey River this city has many sobriquets. The Land of Song, the City of Music, the People of Chime and Voice, and many more as even in the many kingdomed east it stands out. Music is the language of these people in a very literal way. They have their own unique tongue based on musical notes. The writing looks more like sheet music than regular words. Even when they learn other languages they often have a musical quality to how they speak which is their accent as it were. Those with a particularly heavy accent just sing sentances in other languages.

Modern day Tima is not particularly large but it is well off. The land around it provides the food it needs, it is well stocked in lumber and its location on a major river provides ample fishion and the opportunity for trade that it brings. Furthermore its reputation as a musical city brings lets it export music, musical instruments, and musicians. Every five years a great performance goes down the river to Great Forks, Nexus and Lookshy and once every ten they go to the Imperial City and have performed for the Empress. The land has no enemies to speak of and is not built on any First Age ruins though sometimes travellors hoping to go to Rathess pass through it.

Tima is also a matriarchy ruled by Queen Freshly Fallen Frost, an Air Aspect. The reins of power pass from mother to one of her daughters every 50 years. This could pose problems were the reins of power held in purely human hands for the last 700 or so years the city state has been ruled by Dragonblooded. They have managed to remain a mostly cohesive group as well with only one attempted coup around the middle of the fourth century. Families determine lineage based off the mothers and inheritences generally give a priority to the eldest daughter and then is shared more or less equally among the remaining sons and daughters. There is no real major discrimination though in terms of what can be accomplished.

Taking a look to the city states long history it only goes back to a decade or two after the start of the Realm. A small core group of ex-Shogunate Legionairs had been harrying the retreating Fae and stamping out any small pockets that remained. Two decades of guerrila warfare against the Fair Folk and a few cunning deceptions had lead to the group developing a strong musical bent. Musical notes used as ciphers, and soldiers taught to sing and play as a way to delay the Fair Folk. The commander had noticed that time and time again the Raksha would hold off on devouring soldiers or their commanders if they had some musical talent and could amuse them. This trick had allowed dozens of rescues and even ambushes to be set up.

They first tried to enter Densador on their way back but the madness of that place drove them away. So they went to the Grey River and having found a place well situated the commander declared they would found a city there. Music was kept up as method of secret communication. Humming messages, written notes, various tools for dealing with outsiders the whole thing evolved over the centuries to become their main language. They also benifited off of a certain degree of divine patronage. Parad, the Left-Hand of Power, was almost having fits after the Ursupation devested the Terrestial Host. He feared for a renewed period where the Dragonblooded would fuck anything that moved and dilute their blood even more. So he appeared in dreams to various leaders but not many heeded his words being a little bitter at the Gods seeming to do nothing.

Yet she heeded it and has benifited of his patronage. Mostly it has come in the form of his help in choosing husbands ensuring a degree of bloodline stability unknown outside of the Realm or Lookshy. Yet they have never been exactly prolific and with the natural drives of ambition in many who would exalt but were not the eldest daughter some would leave to seek their own fates elsewhere. Still a strong stable population of nobility that has intermingled in many places with the royal families own bloodline. What Dragonblooded exalt from the common folk tend to have been descended of immigrants to the area. Officers did not screw around with the rank and file and that tradition has remained in a way leading to the nobility not chasing peasent or servant girls and boys around for a quick tumble.

Underneath the modest palace lies two things. The royal burial crypts and the last pieces of Shogunate War technology. Each Queen has a customized tattoo on their body, an advanced form of the Cipher Missive and Craft Icon dragonblooded charms that the ancient machines recognize and will respond to. Or maybe they don't. They have never seen any use since they were put away and may no longer be operational. Still the mark is nigh un-copyable and serves as a good way to tell who is, or was, the Queen.

Summer Neverending

During those first years after the Great Contagion, while the world was empty and scattered a Raksha known as the Thousandfold Petal Emperor set himself up a palace in a quiet empty plain east of what would one day become Marukan's eastern border. Because this noble Raksha did not raid for tasty mortal souls, the palace set up on a desmense, in time people approached him. Those first visitors he offered baubles and trinkets. Baskets that were full of bread until the sun had crossed the sky 10 times, or snares which drew prey to them. All he asked in turn was that on the first day of Resplendant Fire they send their best storytellers to him with new stories. Stories unshared with anyone else.

And so they did. Surprisingly the storytellers came back unharmed and one even came back wealthy from the Emperor's rewards. Well one did not but all agreed she had brought a story that they had heard before. None could remember what story they told or what they others had said. That had been taken, a payment price for the Thousandfold Petal Emperor's competition and personal hungers. Such has it been for centuries. Where once he called a competition every year as the world grew and the fame of the event spread he called for it once every 5 years and the last few times have been every ten. Even when the competition is not around he entertains visitors with the tales he has taken, geasing them to never repeat them and in so doing ensuring their wonder and potency. People even forget at times he is one of the Raksha so long has he been at it thinking him some strange god instead. The first competition since the breaking of the Jade Prison is coming up...who knows what this year will bring. So the storytellers gather and head to Summer Neverending.

Kingdom of Roland

Set within the protected area formed by a small range of mountains that form a horseshoe with the open space to the north the Kingdom of Roland has existed for near two centuries in the turbulent Thousand Kingdoms region of the east. The Kingdom is divided into two parts. The southern part where the capitol city rests and the larger northern half. The two regions seperated by a powerful fast moving river. The only bridge that connected the two collapsed 30 years ago and instead of restoring a way over the river the industrious people built a great tunnel under it.

The Kingdom has benefited of strong rulership centered in the capitol and home to the royal family. The land is prosperous enough that they can manage a standing army. This balances them against several other nearby strong kingdoms, the area not agressive but sitting on rich land that they have no plan to give up. As well as a small but loyal military that also functions as the police for the region the kingdom has a small elite group of enlightened martial artists. Called the Gleaming Templars this group is more like an elite military order than traditional monks that people think of when they think about martial artists.

The small kingdom has little in the way of things that would interest Scavanger Lords or the Exalted. It did once. In the western part of the northern half of the Kingdom a single tower stands at nearly a kilometer high. Once this monolithic structure was part of the domain of a powerful Anathema. The place became the holdout of a reborn Solar during the Shogunate, an invinceable fortress until the Dragonblooded legions were able to wreck the local geomancy enough that they could break in and fight their way up and slay the Solar. The place remains standing but empty, the local essence feeble if there at all.

Aside from that one great tower though the region is of second age inhabitation and construction. A few minor manses are in the region all however are claimed by local gods. Those Gods who make their home in the region have shared their blessings to keep the offerings and worship coming in but have bowed to the pressure of the national god of the region and produce no offspring with the locals. The Guild has only a light presence in the region thanks to the strong local government and a touch of interference from a membef of the Gold Faction.

The Great Eastern Wall

One of the very rare legacies from before the rise of the Exalted lies in the far east. In the great eternal forests there is a massive wall so tall that one can see it rise above some clouds. It is roughly made from massive blocks of some unique brown stone. The whole thing gives one the idea that it was made perhaps by a child playing with building blocks...were such a child a massive titan miles in size itself. Stretching nearly 200 miles perfectly north to south the wall was permitted to exist after the fall of the Primordials by the Solars thanks to certain properties it has. The western side of the wall is normal enough. The eastern side though twists the energies of the dragonlines that flow under it causing strange fauna that are found nowhere else in all Creation to be found growing within a mile of it.

In the second age it survived the invasion of the Fair Folk and has survived the passage of time and elements too. Yet for all its length only a single village dares grow nestled against its western side. There is even a path up to the top. The villagers hold a legend that one who climbs to the top with a wish in their heart and jumps off towards the Pole of Wood will, so long as their heart is true, be caught by the Dragon of Wood and have their wish granted.

South

The Prosperity Breeze

Hidden in the vast deserts of the south lies an area dominated by these great white columns that stand a hundred meters high each. At the top of each column a great windmill operates slowly churning the winds through the area into essence which powers great machines burried under the sand. Great catwalks and platforms connect this windmills and even after millenia they operate and though weather and time has not ravaged them damage by mortal hands has taken their tole in places. Today various desert tribes battle amongst these windmills to capture which of them they can. Wind is turned to essence which then is turned into various goods. Food, water, metals. The valuables of the desert.

In the First Age though they were set to another task. The complex powered great spiritual drills which worked from Creation into the Labyrinth itself and let the Solars gather materials from that place without leaving the comforts of Creation. The drills could be quite damageing while in operation to the tunnels of that place but since only ghosts were the ones who would be ground to motes and nothing by the machine no one overly cared much.

After the Ursupation the Dragonblooded of the Shogunate repurposed the machines to help feed the many lands of the south. That and they were afraid to try to maintain it as it was and risk turning that strange spiritual device on other realms. Yet the Great Contagion would ravish the south as it would all other lands. The desert seemed to swallow it up and it was lost but to ancient memory and the desert tribes which battle for it.

West

North

The Sacred Paths

With the moutains of in northern Deshan is a wonder that sees pilgrims of the Immaculate Order throughout the summer months. Called the Sacred Paths or the Fourth Wonder of Pasiap there are pathways carved thruogh the mountains and lining these paths are thousands of statues. The are like the Penitant in style if not in size and each path seemingly carved from the rock around it as if some great blade had carved into the mountain like butter. Each statue sits and rests in meditative repose and making the mudra for peace and rest. In Immaculate doctrine it is said Pasiap carved these to calm the souls of those who had been taken by the vile Anathema before their overthrow by the Immaculate Dragons.

That however is the story that the Sidereals have spread around and made known. The truth something else. In the First Age a great Celestial warrior with many storied victories and triumphs grew troubled. Sleep haunted by memories of all those slain the Celestial went into the mountains to carve, resolving to continue until their heart was troubled no more. Details of who that Solar or Lunar or Sidereal was remain scarce. A few elder Sidereals or Lunars may recall though the documentation for it is lost amidst the Forbidding Manse of Ivy after an overworked heavenly employee put information about it into the same area as details of a thief operating during the early years of Chiaroscuro.

The Wyld

The Echo Market

There is a place in the Wyld outside Creation that almost none know of. The simple fact is that one must brave the dangers of True Chaos for a time to reach it. Yet if one holds in their mind the idea of business and merchants and keeps walking away eventually they will reach a great city. The city is vast and sprawling where Raksha sometimes come to do business. Mostly though the city is filled with hooded and robed figures with only darkness and 5 yellow pinpoints of light shining from it. These merchants sell the unique products of this city. Those products simply are anything that has ever been sold anywhere more real than the Wyld.

Yes when a man in Creation sells a painting to another, a copy appears on sale in the Echo Market somewhere. This extends to everything. Duplicate inns pop up selling rooms. Slave markets sell people. Trade secrets of businesses gone for centuries still can be found and traded. Even stranger things can be bought here. When a slave buys his freedom then in the market his freedom goes on sale. Were these things just illusory copies like much of what the Wyld produces it would be an interesting diversion and little else. However if one pays the price, and the prices are always commesurate to the value of the object you desire, one can return to Creation with that thing.

Five years ago a score of 50 Solar Exaltations appeared in the Echo Market. What inconceivable price would one have to pay for such a thing? What would one get if you did? Would it free one of the Green Sun Princes? Would there now be 301 Solars? The souls and freedoms of those who become Akuma are on the market and the merchants who work there claim that buying that and returning to Creation will reverse that state though none yet who have been there have ever met their prices for such a valuable thing.

The place has never been robbed. In fact it is impossible to rob. Anything stolen from there fades and vanishes once you leave the cities limits. Even carrying thoughts of robbing the place denies one the ability to find it. The merchants can not be bargained with. They name a price in crisp perfect Old Realm and that price is not always in simple Jade. That price or something that they think would be more valuable is the only thing they will accept.

For Storytellers who use this place it can be a powerful storytelling tool. Things people think they have lost forever can possibly be regained. Friendships traded for power or the rarest of components for a powerful artifact. Using it as a place to let the Players just stock up on an infinite string of potent devices isn't recommended. The

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