The Troubled Lands

When the Cabal decided to cleanse the world of the
last vestiges of wild magic and reclaim the southern reaches of Ceilar known as
the Wilderlands (WIL der lands), they had one major obstacle in their way. An
ancient portal of seemingly limitless power, the Hell Gate had stood open on
the Ashara River since the days of Caralos, and not even the Master of the
school of Conjuration was certain of how to close it.

Then,
one day, as if in an act of sudden, divine serendipity, a crimson tower
appeared above the Gate, wrapping the portal in an iron and silver
"claw" that, while not closing the gate, barred it from use by the
creatures beyond. The owner of that tower was the conjurer Aneirin MacDeniol,
one of the heroes of the Second Dragon War, who had long before left the realms
of mortal man on a quest of his own to reclaim a lost friend and seal the Hell
Gate forever.

The
portal effectively shut down, the Cabal crossed the Great Wall they had built
to contain the wild magic and set about their work of cleansing the
Wilderlands. Once the last known vestiges of wild magic had been purged,
MacDeniol was appointed as Governor for Life of the lands now simply known as
Wilder (WIL der), because the Cabal really couldn't say no to the man who held
the key to the Hell Gate.

Despite
the somewhat extortive nature of his rise to power, however, MacDeniol has been
by most accounts a very generous ruler, placing the majority of the power in
the hands of the mayors and elders of governors of the loosely-defined nation's
cities and territories. For the most part, he just seems to want to be left
alone, only stepping in when called upon by those he has given power.

The
Governor welcomed the input of the lizardfolk tribes of the Wintermoor into his
counsel and even opened the borders of Wilder to the Warriors of the Broken
Tribes -- former enemies -- when their lands were made unsafe for habitation.
Most citizens speak of him in kind terms and choose not to question that fact
that a very large and well-armored hobgoblin guards the door to his tower.

Due
to the nature of its rule, Wilder has become known as the "Free
Nation". Its laws vary from city to city, town to town, and it welcomes
sentient peoples from nearly every race and walk of life beyond its northern
wall. That's not to say the territory is without its problems, as its plains
are fraught with warring hobgoblin tribes and dangerous creatures, such as
displacer beasts and owlbears, originally created by the wild magic that once
held sway there.

The
southern and eastern plains of Wilder were once speckled with barbarian
villages, as the broken tribes lived their semi-nomadic lifestyle in the chilly
but temperate clime of the lands bordering the mountains that separate them
from their ancestral homelands. While the barbarians paid honor to the
Government of Wilder, they were free to govern themselves, and do so with a
chieftain and elders for each community and a Chief-of-Chiefs, the title
claimed through challenge and ritual battle, that usually continues to reside
with the community in which he or she was raised.

And
only a fool would neglect to consider that Wilder is bordered by the World's
End Mountains and the Ice Wastes to the south, both of which are largely
controlled by the Kingdom of the Frozen Dead and its Lich King, with whom
Wilder's Governor had a long and storied animosity. Of course, since
MacDeniol's disappearance and assumed death, all of these political concerns
are a thing for the history books.

Days
before the Third Incursion of Kaos, shortly after the archangel Az escaped his
prison, MacDeniol dared to summon the celestial to his tower and demand a truce
based on the Governor's willingness to accept Az's followers into the nation in
prior months. Az, seeing all humans as little more than insects, refused. In
response, MacDeniol unleased the power of the Hell Gate, stored in his tower
for almost four and a half centuries, in an attempt to destroy the archangel.

The
resuts were devastating. Not only did Az escape the attempt on his life but the
outpouring of chaotic energy washed across Wilder, unleashing a wave of wild
magic that nearly destroyed the heart of the nation. Only those settlements on
the outskirts, bordering the seas or mountains, escaped the worst of the
effects. Centuries later, while the vast majority of the wild magic was shunted
into the Feywyld by the wizards and sorcerers working to stabilize the south,
the land is still showing the consequences of the Governor's decision, with ocassional
shifting landscapes, pockets of unstable magic, and a resurgence in chaotic
monstrosities appearing across its landscape.

The Warriors
of the Broken Tribes took down their camps and villages, moving them north to
greener pastures in the borders of Seawn or the southern the plains of Kæryn,
where they find more welcome than in the older, more rigidly theocratic
northern regions of that country. Most of the citizenry either fled to the
outlying settlements or pushed north to find homes among Wilder's allied
nations, and the lizard folk of the Winternoor left their swamps, now under
constant threat by the bizarre creatures that spawn there, and rejoined their
brethren in the northern marshes of Seawn.

Nevertheless,
along its fringes, the people of Wilder survive. No longer as happy-go-lucky as
they once were, they remain most welcoming of all people to those who consider
themselves misfits and outsiders. The Troubled Lands are home to every allied
race, including expatriated Ædar who refused to lock themselves away from the
surface, to Gnomes and halflings, and it has the highest concentration of
Sidhborne on the continent.

And while a few Lwnasidh from the Faerie
Isles can still be found here or there on the mainland, there are more in what
remains of Wilder than anywhere else on Ceilar. It is also not unusual to find
outcast members of the "evil" races, such as hobgoblins and orcs,
living on the fringes of its more civilized societies. Wilder remains a place
where all are welcome, "ever open" as its flag declares, though it is
less a nation at this point and more a scattered collection of self-sufficient
settlements, each with its own government, laws, and eccentricities.