Travel on Zyreema

## Settelements on Zyreema

Zyreema is vast and the regions between populated areas are filled with peril.

Due to the Magic that is ever present in The World, as well as the Never Ending War of Good and Evil, the Good people that live on Zyreema have developed a wide variety of strategies to survive. The most basic one of these is to form communities and protected settlements. These settlements can vary in size and shape, often being as large as the surrounding land and resources will allow. But all have their own defenses and allow for relative safety even from something like a Dungeon Keeper raid or an assault from powerful Magical or Demonic Beasts. The nature of the defenses varies from culture to culture and from settlement to settlement and often adjusts to ward off local threats more effectively. While nations like the Galande Kingdom or the Summus Empire rely mostly on strong, sometimes enchanted walls, the dwarves of Nimbadnur build their homes underground, the Elves of the Green Vale hide far above the ground in the crowns of giant trees.

Due to their vulnerability settlements the size of villages, hamlets or even single farms are only built in areas that are considered very safe, which typically only applies to the close vicinity of large cities in the center of a strong nation.

Towns often rely on hunting and gathering from their surrounding wilderness or from the abundant Wildlands that can be found across the land with a little bit of farming done just outside the walls. Relying on local production and the efforts of adventurers to acquire what is needed, and on trade for anything beyond that. Trade between settlements or even between nations, as well as simple relocation, is a difficult affair however.

## The Magical Claim

**Claim** can not be detached from life on Zyreema as it is shapes, in some way or form, the lives of everyone who calls the continent their home. It is the Magical authority creatures can enforce on the world around them and is integral to many kinds of Magic, whether for activation or for use.

So important is this Claim that it is not an extradition towns and cities (and even whole civilizations) are built and held depending how well one knows and makes use of Claim.

This is primarily due to Claim being integral to the function of certain Dungeon Keeper abilities, and thus maintaining claim over your lands becoming integral to keeping the Dungeon Keeper threat out.

## Waypoints

To travel the unclaimed wilderness between the relative safety of kingdoms is always a dangerous adventure, but to increase the chances to reach your destination alive most good nations have established fixed trade routes with their neighbors and defend them with fortified waypoints.

Waypoints are heavily fortified outposts in the contested territory between kingdoms and independent towns. Their size varies from that of a single watchtower to that of small towns on their own. All of them offer accommodation and hospitality for the travelers as well as a place to heal (as all waypoints have at least one, if not more, priests of The Light stationed on premise in order to make sure that the waypoint does not succumb to Evil Magic or influence). But that safety is not cheap however, as many Waypoints demand fees or taxes be payed for their use and the safety they provide (as well as to assist in managing and maintain the roads between the Waypoints). Those who cannot pay are usually required earn it with whatever services they can provide.

Travel typically consists of several very stressful sprints from waypoint to waypoint, as wild beasts, bandits or Dungeon Keepers are likely to attack at any moment. For that reason, most travelers seek safety in numbers and join heavily guarded caravans that can easily count in the dozens.

Every once in a while a traveler will try to rely on stealth and travel off-road in the hopes to slip through unnoticed, but they often end up as yet another missing person.

The condition of the roads can vary heavily. Good countries maintain their own roads as best they can but often enough the disparity between important and well traveled roads and roads with fewer travelers and patrols is quite obvious. Regardless of whether or not you are on a better or worse road one can often find old and damaged carts lie along the roadside, either abandoned by their owners due to an accident or a result of an ambush.

### Waypoints and Claim

Waypoints are by definition far removed from civilization and the arm of the ruler, and thus the ruler's Claim, is naturally weak out there. Due to this, a longstanding tradition exists that secures claim over the area of the waypoints - **the Inn.**

A long time ago a Saint hung up his sword, one of the few that retired before he offered his life in the line of duty, and decided to settle down. He made a house in the wilderness but soon enough travelers began to veer and a new road was made going by his house in hopes of safety and hospitality. This is the story as to the first "Waypoint". It is uncertain whether this was also the origin of the tradition of Innkepers naming their inns after their former lovers they have bad memories with (in as insulting of a way possible usually).

In the present day, Waypoints all possess an Inn within their walled walls. The owner of the Inn usually being a person who did great acts in the name of Good and was rewarded by the local lords or kings (or their direct kin). The Magical Significance of this is nothing to sneeze at. By making Innkeepers a kind of short-lived nobility (certain customs dictate that a person made an Inkeeper keeps the in for his and the next generation - meaning their descendants would have to re-earn it if they want it to stay the family) a very real Claim is put on the land and its immediate surroundings - helping in protecting it from the hands of Dungeon Keepers.

### Fallen Waypoints

Despite their heavy defenses living at a waypoint is still dangerous and it it is not impossible that waypoints are conquered or fall due one disaster or another.

Another problem is that, because the reach of the law is weak out there, they might attract suspicious individuals. If a waypoint should gets attacked with sufficient force, help from neighboring towns or cities is unlikely to arrive in time, if at all. Thus stories of waypoints declaring their independence, being taken over by bandits or turning to banditry themselves soil the pages of history books. In rare, and very extreme, cases it has even been noted that some waypoints would turn to Evil or side with a Dungeon Keeper, although they occur far less frequently than they are told and mostly serve to keep everyone on guard (the presence of priests at waypoints goes a long way to ensure that The Virtues are not forgotten, no matter the distance from major League cities).

## Agriculture on Zyreema

The areas close to the capitals of Summus, Galande and the Shire are considered safe enough to build villages and have wide spread farms and acres. These farms are needed to feed the citizens of the core cities where most of the rarer goods are crafted. There is practically no wilderness between settlements and small localized Magical Hotspots are well known and secured. But the further you go from these safe core lands, the more dangerous the land becomes due to the threat of the servants of Evil and natural hazards.

Most settlements beyond these agricultural areas have to rely on their own ability to gather resources from their surroundings and on transport and trade to get the things they can not locally produce. Larger towns require regular shipments from other towns or their capital in order to support their populations (and they in turn provide some resource available locally or they provide protection from Evil on a specific front).