Nations of Ea:

## The Draconian Empire(Draconia):

The Last human nation left standing on Ea, and ruled by Emperor Julius Draco. Once renowned for its rampant racism and cruelty against inhumans, but has softened in recent years thanks to the emperor’s policies. They have a nigh-yearly war with the orcish nations of the wild lands for the purpose of military exercise and keeping the orcs in check. Though the Emperor holds the power, the Draconian church still wields great, immense influence through the empire and is said to have their own private military, hunters in the night to carry out the church’s commands. The church is also infamous for being 100% Xenophobic in regards to inhumans, and is Emperor Julius’s biggest opposer for inhuman rights. They have been known to put entire villages to the torch for so much as talking with inhumans, but Emperor Julius claims to have put an end to that.

## The Inhuman Coalition:

A nation founded by the mysterious patriarch long ago, built on the principle of liberty for all races. Considers all races capable of sentient, intelligent thought as citizens so long as they prove themselves decent members of society. Has waged war in the distant past with Draconia over territorial disputes and the action of the Draconian church, but barring certain successes, were beaten back the Draconian cavalry each time. Is ruled by a council of elected officials from each of the member races, is said to be one of the most Peaceful lands on ea for those who can stand living alongside monsters. They are constantly combating problems with their member races seeing the human citizens as food, and public security there is quite high to prevent inter-species devouring.

## The Wild Lands:

The lands of the orcish tribes and other various giant races, it is a cold, rocky, desolate place ravaged constantly by war and strife. The orcish camps meet at Mawgrind point once a month to discuss goings-on in the lands, but never get much done due to infighting. Currently, they are without a lord after the last one died in the war with Draconia.

## The Elvenwood:

While technically a forest and not a nation, the Elvenwood has been recognized as sovereign territory of the Elves by all nations, even the wild lands, since time immemorial, mostly owing to a great magical formation that spans the entire forest. While it’s creator and origin are unknown, the formation consistently keeps out outsiders who dare venture into the Elvenwood off the designated roads the elves maintain so travelers can pass through safely, teleporting any who stray from the paths to the place they entered. While not understood, the great formation has successfully protected the elves for countless centuries from both invasion and prying eyes. Little is known of the elves that call it home, as seldom does a straggler emerge from the forest. Those that do speak little of their home, and seem to be gathering information on the outside world...they are sometimes seen with strange weapons that gleam oddly, fascinating even master dwarven smiths.

## The Dwarven Peaks:

The mountain lands of the dwarves, the Dwarven Peaks are marked by great, towering mountains that dot the rocky landscape, some of which are carved with the likenesses of the great dwarven heroes of ages past. While the fantastic sight of the mountains carved into monuments alone draws tourists from all over, far more interesting are the dwarven strongholds located beneath the earth, nine great holds for each of the eight dwarven clans, and a capital for the council to rule from. Connected to each other by roads on land and also massive, sprawling tunnel complexes that run between the strongholds and are even said to have extend out beyond the peaks in eras past, the dwarves take great pride in their massive cities of stone. They are also the only race directly in contact with the famously dangerous lands known as ‘The Shattered Lands’, a stretch of land connecting the west part of Ea to the East. Wracked with horrible storms and awful magical anomalies, the Shattered lands are the primary cause of the travel ban between the two countries over land.

## The Venau Necrocracy:

Known to the western lands of Ea as ‘The safest place in the world’, the lands of Venau are frozen, bitterly cold, and absolutely crawling with the undead. A land ruled by the Dread Lich Barkhan and his vast swathes of loyal undead soldiers, the various cities of the lands of Venau are constantly under threat of being buried in the drifting snowbanks of the north, but the tireless nature of the undead ensures that labor is never in short supply. While not a place most clerics enter, it is said Barkhan greatly encourages the study of magic in Venau, with several great libraries and even the largest, most notable university being located in Venau. A great nation for learning and a wonderfully safe place, the lands of Venau are some of the safest in the land, though the Draconian Church frequently expresses its desire to crush them soundly. With public security high and a land rich with learning and magic, the Venau Necrocracy is a strangely serene place for most to live...if you can stand the stench of rotting flesh, and living next to a family of undead.

## The Great Southern Desert:

A land covered in sand and devoid of any centralized power structure, the lands of the great southern desert are rough, brutal, and rugged, much like the myriad races who call it home. Home to the largest bandit population on the continent, the desert is loosely kept in order by the various villages, who keep in contact in with each only so far as maintain knowledge of the goings-on across the land. In the past, the desert was ruled by a great line of Sultans who ruled from the Old Palace, but after the cataclysmic event known as the Sundering that wiped the Desert Elves and their homeland off the map, their line came to an end and the desert fell into anarchy. Since then, the desert people have lived in relative harmony, the only successful example of anarchy that has settled and become a viable method of governing a country. Though the bandits run rampant, they mostly refrain from killing or attacking travelers and focus on the desert dwellers, for the dwellers only retaliate if life is lost. Though merely a rumor, it is said the sand elves still maintain a small village somewhere in the desert, but this has never been confirmed.

## The Shattered Lands:

The Shattered lands is the catchall title used by the races of Ea for the stretch of land that connects the western lands to the eastern ones. Forming the only land bridge between the two continents, the shattered lands are continuously wracked with terrible magic storms every hour of the day, the very rules and fabric of reality weaker there than anywhere else. Magic users especially find it hard to traverse this space, as magic runs rampant in its natural state in the form of wild magic, and rarely bows to their whims. However, the danger is not limited to Magic users. In the shattered lands, even the very direction of gravity is not assured, and the air has been frequently known to change color, lightning to travel upwards, and the time of day to rapidly shift between day and night. In extreme cases, people have been turned inside out, aged, de-aged, and even briefly become other races, or learned other languages. The danger is not limited to the land bridge, however. To either side of the Shattered Lands, in the two bays that surround it, great, swirling, churning whirlpools swirl endlessly, grinding up and devouring any and all ships, people, and objects foolish enough to traverse them. For this reason, no race has ever been daring enough to sail over sea to the eastern lands.

## Stormblast Tower:

A mysterious tower said to be perched miles out to sea off the northern coast of Venau. Said to be a base for a mysterious, crazed group of ‘maniacs’, the tower is said to also contain a plethora of slaves of all sorts of sentient races, used for little more than slave labor by those who live there, and is a great source of mystery to all who have laid eyes upon it or heard of it. Spoken of as an ancient, weathered tower that heavily resembles other high human buildings that litter the land, this strange tower is said to pulse as if alive, its corridors and walls alive with the throbbing of magical power, the tower itself providing protection from ocean and sky alike to those who dwell within its stone grey corridors., and it is said to be perpetually surrounded by strange weather, the solitary tower jutting from the ocean waters as it has always been there, though the remains of an island can be seen in some places beneath the waves around the tower. Though it is completely separated from the mainland, the slaves who have escaped claim that the group who calls the base home uses the race known as the Sanctor as winged slaves to transport massive barges back and forth to get there, though they are strangely tight-lipped about any goings-on there, other than how ‘terrible’ it was. Just how ancient is this mysterious tower?

## Castle Vaylkrond:

The Ancestral home of Vampire-kind, this castle is said to be one of the most ancient buildings to exist in the world today, and even the oldest of beings attest it is yet older than even them. Old yet phenomenally intact for its age, this massive castle lays perched between between a trio of mountain peaks atop three titanic statues that seem to suggest the castle and the statues that support it might have once been carved from one, monolithic mountain. Regardless, this castle is eternally shrouded in mist and is rarely accessed by outsiders in the modern day, as those who call it home seldom appreciate visitors.

## Baron Merul Weiss, Noble of the Empire:

Known as ‘Iron Wall Weiss’ for his steadfast nature as well as his fighting style that employs heavy armor and an even heavier tower shield, Merul Weiss comes from the distinguished Weiss lineage, a lineage famous for its long history as nobility and warriors. A distinguished member even of his lineage, He served the Empire of Draconia in the recent great war against the orcs, where he was rewarded by Emperor Julius himself for valiantly facing an entire battalion of Orcs by himself to allow his fellow soldiers time to retreat during an ambush with the Dragonic Emblem, the Empire’s highest honor. Since then, he has retired to manage his territory, a task which, if you ask anyone, he has been handling superbly. He lives frugally compared to other nobility, and is nearly infamous for being just as likely to be found down at the tavern raucously drinking with his citizens as he is to be the first to take up sword and shield to defend his people.

## His Highness Julius Alexander Dracon, Emperor of Draconia

The most recent ruler in the long, storied history of Draconia, the last cohesive nation of humanity on the lands of Ea, Emperor Julius has come to be known as the ‘Peasant King’ due to his actions to reform his crumbling nation from within, and stop the rampant, infamous racism that has long since taken root in Draconia for non-human races, his reforms and politics taking long strides to grant inhumans citizenship and rights, and to better improve his lands. A title used derisively by those who wish him dethroned and to his benefit by those greatly praise his reformist policies, he is good natured, kind, and wise, though in recent years he has become increasingly short-tempered when it comes to dealing with trouble in his lands, likely due to frustration. However, he is universally extolled by friend, foe, and even other countries alike as a warrior-emperor, a lord who rules from the front, and leader of the infamous Draconia Cavalry, a band of wyvern riders which form the bulk of Draconian military might. It was on the battlefield he earned his formal title, ‘Dragoon’, due to how he rides an adult golden dragon into combat, a being which stays by his side always as his protector. It’s unknown how the Emperor befriended a golden dragon to such a degree, but the two claim to be close friends, and never leave each others side.

## Dread Lich Barkhan, Ruler of the Venau Necrocracy:

Perhaps the most famous existence in all the lands, the name Barkhan is synonymous in the land of Ea with Fear itself, though not in the way you’d expect. Most every detail of this mysterious undead’s life is all but unknown, but it’s been made abundantly clear he stands a cut above the others of his kind in more ways than one, and that he’s been around for a long, long time, perhaps since the beginning. Even the rumored immortal patriarch of the inhuman coalition claims to know Barkhan by name, a testament to the lich’s long life and infamy. However, perhaps most notable about him is the nation he created precisely six hundred and twenty years ago this year, using his own immense magical might and drive to erect a mighty nation of undead in the frozen lands of the north. Unlike all others of his kind, Barkhan is reputed to be a capable leader, wise, powerful, and though not without his faults, he is widely considered to be the single exception to the rule of Undead being evil creatures. Claiming to have ‘Transcended past the limits of petty morality’, Barkhan governs his vast lands from his throne in Mortheim, the city of the damned, a ruler famous that, while he has a zero-tolerance policy for crime, is famous for having the highest public security in the land. For those who can stand the undead, His nation of Venau, a nation he claimed to have created as ‘A haven where all undead can live in peace, provided they learn to get along with mortals’  is a wonderful place to live, if a bit unnerving. However, take care not to offend him...he may be a more tolerant example of his kind, but he has made it clear he holds no qualms with violence, war, and slaughter if the need arises.

## ‘The Patriarch’, Founder of the Inhuman Coalition

A mysterious being which never shows his face in public, the mysterious ‘Patriarch’ that founded the coalition is said to reside in the council spire in the capital of the coalition, a hidden, shadowy figure that has long since relinquished his hold on his lands to a council made up of all the major races living within it to live a life of mystery, away from the public eye. Said to have existed since the coalition was founded some seven hundred years ago, the ‘Patriarch’ is said to be immortal, undying, and as wise and cunning as he was the day the nation was founded. What race he might be is unknown, as is everything else about him, but every member of the council unanimously claims him to be a wise, all-seeing father figure for their empire, though the veracity of these claims is impossible to prove, due to his famously secular nature. Notably, the Dread Lich Barkhan frequently claims to be a close friend of his from long ago, but has never been seen visiting the coalition in recent memory. The nature of their friendship is unknown.

## Tamamo-no-Mae, Empress of the Eastern Imperium

The only known example of a Kitsune that has managed to reach a nine-tailed form and attained supreme power, many details about her are unknown due to the inability of the western lands of ea to reach the east thanks to Obliteration reef and the Orcs holding the only usable ports outside of it. From what has been learned through contact with the eastern traders who come to the west, she is a cruel, tyrannical empress who rules the unified eastern lands with an iron fist, squeezing her people dry at every opportunity and guiding entire villages to the slaughter to appease her thirst for blood. However, from what the traders say, despite her cruelty, they all attest the unification of their lands to her, claiming she saved them from themselves, unending civil war, and even unified the many languages of the land and rebranded the new national language ‘Maeish’, after herself, some thousand years ago. Thus having lived under her for so long most of the population has come to accept her rule as commonplace, they endure her torment so as to not return to the old ways of bloodshed. Said to be a goddess in the flesh and worshipped as one in the lands of the east, this kitsune is a force to be reckoned with...