Uruk Daur

**About: Vast, endless frozen wildernesses, colossal mountain ranges, ruins of long dead civilizations, and teeming hordes of vicious creatures, Uruk Daur is an unwelcoming place to say the least. Unpredictable weather and bone-chilling cold aside, the real threat are the monstrous races that have made the region their home; orcs, gnolls, giants, goblins, and kobolds have cobbled together loose societies and nomadic tribes, but there is no ruling government, the only law is the strong and cunning live and the weak and foolish die.  Humans, half-elves, and many half-orcs settle the south-west pocket of the country as the absolute fringes of civilization.
Capital: Shemat-Akûl**

* **With so few permanent settlements, the ones that have endured are all the more durable for it. Shemat-Akul is  undoubtedly the greatest standing city in Uruk Daur, ruled by**

**Government: Anarchist**

**State Religion: There is no formally recognized religion, though massive cults belonging to Rovagug, Lamashtu, and Gorum vie for supremacy. Smaller cults belonging to other evil deities like Tiamat, Orcus, or Dispater also hold some sway. Practically no one who lives in Uruk Daur follow any god or goddess that doesn’t promise righteous slaughter, making religions of Law and especially Good anathema.**

**Ruler:  Girithron Eithog (The Shuddering Ancestor)**

* **Though Uruk Daur is without social infrastructure, power is grabbed by any with the guile, cruelty, and violence necessary. Known as The Shuddering Ancestor, Girithron is currently the supreme warlord, ruling over a massive horde of devious half-breeds as diverse as they are vile, most of them his own offspring. A fiendish male of unknown origin and raised among a cult of Lamashtu, Girithron is seen as a holy portent from the goddess and indeed he helped make the cult phenomenally powerful.**

**Places of interest:**

* **Westhall: Those exiled north from more civilized lands banded together seeking refuge in the remnants of ancient settlements near the borders of Castile and Videk Umbra. Westhall is a den of disgraced former knights, murderers, traitors, and degenerates of every stripe who managed to escape justice, or who were banished. Many living in these lands are natives knowing only struggle and violence, the ones who survive childhood grow up into hardened warriors at far younger an age than their civilized counterparts. Infrequent skirmishes with crusading Castilians happen near Iomedae's Curtain, but thanks to the battle-worn ramparts of Castle Westhall attempts to wipe the region clean of the lawless have been deemed too costly in terms of coin and blood. Westhall is also supplied by unscrupulous Umbran nobles, trading food, building materials, and weapons for the hides of rare beasts, slaves, and illegal spell components. The current defacto leader in the region (Rafshat'ob Onrennin) was once a Knight of the Vigil, over 300 years ago...**
* **Hi’jutmokal: Called ‘The Ash-Water Marsh’ in Orcish, these wetlands stave off the freezing temperatures of Uruk Daur thanks to geothermal activity that melts the snow into vast but shallow lakes of boiling water. Minerals deep below the ground mix with the water to make a corrosive base that only a few terrible forms of life are immune to. Vents belching searing hot chlorine gas blanket some areas in dense poisonous fog that shifts unpredictably with the breeze.**

* **Fah'Karmaz Otugat: A hypersaline lake.**