Setting Information

## The Allied Kingdoms of Karimas

Karimas isn't actually one kingdom, though most both inside and outside of it tend to refer to it that way for simplicity's sake. Four Regencies coexist under a titular High King, who serves largely as a mediator and adjudicator between the four Regents. The Compact, which formalizes this arrangement, was a document drawn up about four hundred years previous. Nowadays, with the Sky Abbey's printing presses and the prevalent education in Karimas, virtually any citizen can study the Compact and the laws of Karimas. In the Compact, it details the duties and powers of the High King, as well as clearly delineating what powers he does not have. In times of peace, the High King hears disputes between Regents or nobles that cross one or more Regency's borders, maintains roads, keeps dealings with the Riverman's Guild, and observes and mediates between the four religious orders, as well as the Order of the Eclipse and the Order of the Eightfold Path, also called the Warrior's Way.

Each Regent is responsible for raising and maintaining an army should he desire to do so, though when Karimas is under attack, the High King may effectively overrule their authority, in order to bring the armies under one single banner. This has never happened, and is not likely to, as Karimas's geography makes it extremely difficult to assail by an outside force.

The four Regencies have adopted common coinage, languages, and customs for ease, as they have discovered that free travel and free trade makes a prosperous nation.

There are three units of common currency within Karimas:

* the pewter sil (shortened from sigil; some merchants will still use the old name), a circular coin about an inch in diamater with a crowned K etched into it
* the silver crown, a circular coin about an inch and a half in diamater with the Crown of Karimas pressed in relief on both sides
* the golden royal, stamped with the royal seal of the High King, four circles linked in a square.

The Kariman Exchange Authority has been dithering over introducing paper money, but has stalled on the issue largely because the durability of coinage is so highly appreciated among the highly pragmatic Kariman people.

## The Other Lands

The Sundown Archipelago : Named for the fact that the islands are to the west of Karimas, and because their banner is a setting sun, the Archipelago is home to a loose confederation of smugglers, pirates, thieves, and a small percentage of (more or less) honest merchants. The people of the Archipelago have olive skin and dark hair and eyes, tending toward a tall and willowy build. Sundowner government is a plutocracy – literally, whoever has the gold makes the rules, and their meyasthan (literally, “seven stars”) are some of the richest men in the world. The meyasthan make up the ruling host, and they in turn heed the man often referred to as “THE Sundowner”, Martje, a Seamage of incredible power who is, in all likelihood, the richest man in the world. Despite their reputation, many cultures around the greater world rely on the Sundowners for freelance shipping and guard on the waters, but oddly, no Sundowner will go more than a few miles inland; it is a superstition of theirs that the ocean holds the souls of all men, and to stray too far from it would be to lose theirs forever. Sundowners are largely amoral, ruled by the coin, although there is a sort of honor among them – a man paid to do a job can generally be trusted to get it done, and if he is bought off, is held to have a duty to inform his former employer of this fact. Business is business, and Sundowners don't hold grudges – unless they are cheated, and heaven help the man who fails to pay his debts…because no one else will. ?

The Shattered Lands and the Old Empire : Once one and the same, the Shattered Lands suffered a physical upheaval some four hundred years ago, and a political one some thirty years ago. The physical upheaval wracked the land with earthquakes, freakish storms, and volcanoes, in a catastrophe that has never fully been explained. The Shattered Lands lie east of the Spine Ridge, on the other side of the mountains that make up Karimas's eastern border. The Stormlands are the region immediately east of Stone Regency, across the mountains, accessible through the East Gate Pass. Ruled by Saeru's wife, the High Queen Ailenne, her title here is Stormwarden, a title she took from her father in a coup she engineered when she discovered Kazman's treachery. The area is constantly overcast, and suffers powerful storms with alarming frequency. Recently, Kariman ambassadors have begun setting up places for the religious orders to practice in the Stormlands. Stormlanders are tall and fair, known for self-sufficiency and pride. Women are generally treated rather poorly here, although Ailenne's succession has somewhat mitigated this fact, and she continues to work toward equalization.

The Wastes stretch along the northern half of the Shattered Lands, a broken, seamed stretch of land that still steams and occasionally bursts forth with streams of lava, or geysers of superheated steam. It's a dangerous and treacherous area, and only fools and madmen live there. The Wastes lie immediately eastward of the Ash Deserts, east of Drakes Regency, and stretch all the way to the eastern coast.

The Empire Reborn consists of what was formerly known as the Old Empire and several other lands surrounding. Ruled jointly by the young Yaz Kai and his two warmarns, Basari and Kensei, the Empire was once under the thumb of the Ravensguild, but thanks to Yaz Kai, they have thrown off the yoke of the Guild and have reuinifed much of the Old Empire. The people of the Empire tend toward a yellowish complexion and have angular features, including epicanthal folds around the eyes. Life in the Empire is very ritualized, and the folk there believe in doing one thing, and doing it as well as you possibly can.

The Amber Seas are the colloquial name for the farmlands in the southern reaches of the Stormlands and the Empire Reborn. As allies, they share this resource, miles upon miles of nothing but wheat and grain, grown and worked by the natives who live there.

The Singing Sands : This truly unusual country is located far to the west of the Sundown Archipelago; most Karimen have never even heard of it at all. The place is mostly desert, with an odd, pinkish cast to the sand; this is because the sand is ground from crystals that grow in the earth. The name comes from the sound the sand makes as it is blown by the wind and rubs against other crystals, a kind of glassine keening. The fine grains can abrade or lacerate flesh with ease, and is inhabited by giant insects who seem to display a kind of intelligence. The Singing Sands are home to the Ravensguild, who wear heavy cloaks to ward off the vicious sand and wreath themselves in the smoke from an incense derived from a native plant that wards off the insects. All Ravensguilders who aren't hiding what they are will cover themselves fully and carry a small silver censer. The smell is not unpleasant, and has a mild intoxicating effect that they themselves have grown immune to. “Ravensguild” is the colloquial name for the people most often encountered, as their sign is a raven, and they are slavers, the business of which extends to nearly all aspects of their society. The Guild has had for decades a kind of control over trade in the greater world, as its slave labor and technology had allowed for more effective procurement and transport of resources, but their influence has begun to fail. Never friends with the Sundowners, the Guild depended on the ports of the Old Empire to allow them to continue trade with all the lands, and had some way of navigating the Morass northward into Karimas. Until Saeru's rule, it was legal for them to pass through Karimas so long as they did not do business within its borders. However, recent events have seen the Guild driven from both Karimas and the Old Empire, and their influence in other areas are beginning to slip. This may herald the end of an age…and the fall of the oldest civilization in the world.The people of the Sands are dark-skinned, serious and sober of mind, though some have fallen to desperation and evil ways in an attempt to hold on to the glory of their failing way of life.

The Snowlands