Northward

Northward is a mountainous subcontinent extending north off of the verdant land of Ehlonna. It is separated from the mother continent by a wide, forested valley marked with deep, watery fissures from ancient volcanos, home to several elven Woodholds, as well as a large population of orcs. An isthmus north of Northward leads into the harsh Snowlands, home to packs of vicious gnolls. The eastern reaches of Northward are low and heavily populated, for a recently frontier colony, and form what is known as the Ragged Coast, marked with ancient mountain ranges trailing off into the Winding Sea and the bays they form, as well as transient islands which disappear and reappear with the seasons. The western coast of Northward is all high, jagged mountain peaks, slowly being dissolved into rock and sand by the Calmswell Sea; an inhospitable, broken land perfect for the waterborne pirates that call it home.

Southeastern Northward is home to the Jokastrian Valley, where the Kingdom of Lancia thrives. Sheltered from the battering northern winds, it has a climate not unlike the more temperate lands in Malthusia, and the original colonists established several vineyards on the slopes of the Irontongue Infradom, which forms the northern border of Lancia. The Jokastrian tribe was a well-established chiefdom when the Malthusians annexed the land, but easily took to Malthusian rule, holding strong Firstships and accepting Pelorite worship over their ancient druidic teachings quickly.

North of the Irontongue Infradom and through Highgauntlet Pass is the Mottlander Valley, which slopes east from the high moors of Moorland down to the fens of the Floodland Marshes on Mottland Bay. The Motte-Men were a group of small tribes with a cultural oddity that was quickly adopted by other regions in Malthusia: they built earthworks, from large extensive forts to simple, conical mounds, for protection and to raise their places of worship. The Motte-Men were easily corralled into the empire, but their decentralized identity has led to a continued individualism, and where once Firsts were treated with open derision, a chamberlain or king now has to actively win the hearts of their subjects, and the Kingdom of Mottland is rapidly declining in structure as the king continues to age.

North across the Deeprun Sea is the ancestral home of the Vaskalians, a large tribe of Motte-Men with a tradition of druid-kings, very much like the elves in the Wildwood that border their lands. The Vaskalians fought tooth-and-nail against the Malthusians when it became clear that the druidic traditions would not be respected, and were to be supplanted by the Malthusian religion; besides being atheistic in the estimation of the Pelorite church, druids were also seen as too similar to the elves, who had a very tense relationship with the Malthusians. Little by little, the Vaskalian tribe moved east across the upper coast of the Mottland Bay, until they were left with only an island to call their home: Vaskalia, the Island of Druids.

In the wide Mottlander Valley are the three extant elven Woodholds: the Wildwood, the Vexwood, and the Brandwood.

Higher up on the western end of the Mottlander Valley is the Kingdom of Moorland, where the loose tribes of the Moor-Men lived in the sheltered valleys and grazed their herds high on the moors. At the top of the valley, hemmed in by the Goldfist Infradom and the Deepsilver Infradom, is Lake Constanz, a massive glacial lake that forms the headwaters of the Grey River, which flows to the Mottland Bay. The Moor-Men were easily persuaded to join the Malthusian Empire after Sanctified Constant of Malthusia defeated Snake-fang, the elven tyrant of the Brandwood, who had held the Moor-Men as slaves for a century. Snake-fang summoned up a curse from the Misty Moor, and cloaked much of the upper moorlands under a thick fog called the Mistveil, which was dispelled after Constant and the dwarf king Grom Goldfist worked for ten years to create Pelor's Eye, a powerful artifact that was installed deep in the heart of the Mistveil, where Stonefast Hall was later constructed by a Malthusian First, and was even later converted into an anchory.

Across the craggy moorlands and over the Gemheart Infradom lies the windswept, northern steppe of Farland, which was home to the wide-ranging Longabartians, a tribe of war-like Northwarders who battled the gnolls for as long as they could remember, and held deeply to their druidic beliefs. Shortly after the Malthusians settled, the druid Hans walked from Northward to Malthusia and back, and became a Pelorite mystic, and was soon venerated as the Sanctified Farland Hans. Later, to protect from marauding gnolls, Okko the Lance built Okko's Wall across the Bridgeland. Since the Diminishing, Farland crumbled into druidic Longabartian tribes again, and the former Malthusian settlements and fortifications are now hotly-contested for their strategic value.