The Near Realm

*The Near Realm* refers to the continent on which you have lived your whole life. 412 years before the start of the game, the Great Calamity took place, an event that erased centuries of culture and history in the blink of an eye. A great magical barrier called the Veil rose around the source of the Calamity, and what that event was or how the Veil came to be are all lost to living memory. Ruins of the Tekton Elves, a force that came down upon Xanadu with ferocious \*\*\*Dragonborn armies, are still scattered across the land.

The Near Realm is home to \*\*\*humans, \*\*\*leonin, \*\*\*owlin, \*\*\*merfolk, and \*\*\*harengon. These ancestries have a history of battling or competing with one another through the centuries, but there are no large scale campaigns of war.

In the distant past, the greatest minds of all the peoples of the Near Realm lived together in a shining city called Xanadu. It seemed to have been at the center of whatever the Great Calamity was, and the myths and tales of Xanadu that survive today conflict one another.

CITIES OF THE NEAR REALM

Exile

At the edge of the Veil is the city called Exile, a somewhat grim echo of the lost Xanadu. Before the fall of the Veil, it was a place of refuge for all who would follow the simple rules of the city: Don't ask questions about someone's past, and don't cause trouble. Killers and theives on the run, exiled heretics, and political dissidents of each city in the Near Realm came together to make the city what it is. As soon as the Veil fell, Exile became the de facto hub for all expeditions into the Veiled Yonder, the region experiencing a veritable gold rush.

Human Cities and Settlements

\*\*\*Mymna

Situated on the northeastern coast of the Near Realm, below the \*\*\*Aspis Mountains and the \*\*\*Polos Woods, the Mymnites have lived in the Valley of the Bull for as long as history can recall. They spend their lives mastering the spear and shield, and an able-bodied adult of Mymna serves in the infantry from ages 20 to 70. The loss of one's shield a crime punishable by death or exile.

\*\*\*Ashak

Separated from Mymna by the rolling plains and a long stretch of coast, the citadel of the horse lords was briefly the seat of a mighty empire. Their mounted archers swept across the land, conquering nearly all the cities of the Near Realm in a tide of ferocity. That was more than two centuries past, when the clans were united under a Great Prince. Now the individual clans squabble over the ruins of the once great city, the blackened citadel burned to a husk at its center.

\*\*\*Ras Amal

The god king Arxes watches over Ras Amal, hoping to usher in an age of prosperity through scholarship and trade, welcoming all who wish to study at the \*\*\*Temple of the Oracle or learn the healing magic of the priesthood. However, if you enter Ras Amal and do not show deference to the god king, you will likely be visited by the Hazoret Secret Police. Foreigners usually get a warning, but if you were born in the city, heretics are usually not seen again.

\*\*\*Ras Fulud

The Oasis of the Iron Rock is home to the wandering tribes of the northern portion of the desert known as the \*\*\*Red Abyss. While the southern tribes helped Arxes reclaim his throne in his youth, and now reside in the city, the northern tribes remain in the desert, strengthening their bodies by consuming the meat and blood of slain demons.

Non-human Cities and Settlements

\*\*\*Pithios

The City of Marble is home to the \*\*\*Leonin. In ages past, the lion folk were instrumental in routing the ferocious Dragonborn who marched on the cities of the world after the Great Cataclysm. Now, the \*\*\*Seven Sages of Pithios have ushered in an era of higher thought and hard-fought peace. Led by a conglamerate of scholars, retired generals, philosophers, and inventors, the city aims to enrich the world through enlightenment.

\*\*\*Lonlala

In the lofty canopy of the \*\*\*Kimir Forest, the city of Lonlala is hidden away. The Owlin there are secretive, but not sinister, and many people of the world consider them to be benevolent guardians of the forest. Their religion holds that they came down from one of the moons, and that when they die, they depart to another world in their true, astral bodies. As such they are forbidden from interfering too much in the affairs of the material, lest their astral bodies become corrupted by attachment.

\*\*\*Erura

Beneath the waves of \*\*\*Leviathan's Bay, the Merfolk of Erura sing, dance, and act out great scenes in order to appease their sleeping god, Leviathan, lest he wake and destroy the world. Few are those who do not wish, at some point in their lives, to make pilgrimage to those rocky shores and hear the songs of the Merfolk.

\*\*\*The Lepora Plains

Situated between Pithios, Mymna, and Ras Amal, the Lepora Plains is a rolling expanse of grassland inhabted by the nomadic tribes of Harengon. It is considered bad luck to mistreat a Harengon, and so the rabbit-folk are among the few that go mostly unharassed by bandits wherever they roam. Their folklore tells of an ancient foe, snake-men bent on their total destruciton. The seer-sages of the Harengon also tell of a Great Burrow, the ancestral home of the rabbit-folk, to which they someday shall return. The Harengon act as couriers for the human cities.