World Map

Located in the side of a large volcano, this is the home of Aekthos the fire giant. An ex-war general and blacksmith who has been recruited to create weapons for Mortis’ army.

From a distance, the continent-spanning mountains separating the north and south appear as a mundane geographic feature. However, a closer investigation reveals a rather odd idiosyncrasy: piles of boulders balance almost supernaturally along the spines of these mountains. According to legend, ancient primordial forces once engaged in uninhibited battle across the land, and the Antivalli marks the meeting point of their massive arcane force. The supernatural pressures led to the mountains being forced violently upwards while also inverting the local gravity. Traveling up the mountain is remarkably easy, as it almost feels as though you’re pulled upwards as you climb. However, descent takes incredible effort, with each step a fight to free oneself from the gravitational attraction to the summits.

Located in the icy north, this large kingdom is the birthplace of warrior Taren Hornraven. While once only a conglomeration of fishing communities, much renown is now placed on the city’s chief export, intricately carved fish bones recognized the world over as exquisite art pieces and arcane foci. The scrimshanders hailing from this region are highly sought after for their remarkable control and eye for detail.

As one of the largest cities in the world, Clearcrest is home to five districts; Fool’s March, Philomath, Tinker Town, Golden Cape, and Skyleaf. Historians cite the Battle of the Braided Armies, fought against the Thunderspear hobgoblin invasion, as the event that unified the diverse settlements of Qu’lar Quest, Kraz’Drak, and Alamir Spires into a single city. Eventually the districts formed around the specialized goods and services each area of the city could provide. Each district is represented by an elected official known as its Chancellor. These five Chancellors oversee and govern the city from the appropriately named City Center.

This coastal city–a hub of trading and commerce–is a flourishing remnant of the centuries-defunct Eldur Empire, from whence the continent acquired its name. One of the major trading families from this region are the Delecuirs, currently helmed by its patriarch Harold.

Danric’s Haven Map

A small dwarven mining town on the northern end of Dolgan’s Pass. Known as the birth place of inventor and one of Clearcrest’s founders, Taklinn Emberfell.

Dragonhold is a renowned school of bardic magic and performance. Perched upon a rocky precipice on the western coast, this fortress uses the cliffs around it as a natural defense against intruders and unwanted visitors. It is rumored that popular musician Sebastian Scuttlebutt studied here before finding fame in Fool’s March.

Rumored to have been started by the remnants of a pirate crew that were abandoned in the hot deserts as punishment for a failed mutiny, Erast’s citizens have found a way to survive in the harsh climate through trade with passing vessels and farming the indigenous herbs and hearty root vegetables. Various precious metals are also mined in the desert, but it is dangerous work. Found at the western edge of the Western Expanse, this desert community has a population of roughly 2,200, mainly composed of tabaxi, warforged, kalashtar, orc, and dark-skinned humans.

Erast Map

This small logging village sits to the east of Murkwood Forest and is the birthplace of Rodan Evendur. With a population made up of about 300 humans and elves, this town has made a name for itself for the highly durable timber they craft with which has a dark hue from the wood of Murkwood Forest’s trees.

It has also been rumored that famous Golden Cape merchant Riccus Mageblood faked his death and is hiding out here under the pseudonym Miccus Rageblood.

Glenwood Map

A small quiet village with a dark past. Strange things seem to happen here on a regular basis, including a group of cultists summoning a large werewolf during Haddonfield’s annual Harvest Festival.

More recently, a ritual involving human sacrifice and necromatic enchantments was rumored to have been conducted in the same area by none other than Kellamin Elato, the famed Lightning Knight of Clearcrest’s Ring of Roses combat tournament.

Haddonfield Map

“Where the plains meet the peaks”. With a population of 400, this modest, but prosperous, settlement is nestled in the rolling grasslands at the foot of the Antivalli Mountains, just northwest of the town of Lillyhammer by a few days travel on horseback. The town’s wide pastures and gentle climate make it a center of animal husbandry: sheep, goats, oxen, hardy mountain ponies, etc are raised here. They have a well-earned reputation for the quality of it’s livestock and animal goods.

Locations:

• Great Pens: Enormous wooden enclosures holding hundreds of sheep and goats.
• The Hoofmarket: A sprawling open-air market for livestock, tack, and wool goods.
• The Shepherd’s Stone: A weathered menhir near the town center, said to grant fertility to flocks when garlanded in spring.
• The Wool & Whistle: A cozy inn and tavern where herders gather, its sign painted with a sheep’s head and a shepherd’s pipe.

This small island contains the crumbling manor of the once powerful Elato family. While respectable and respected mages within Clearcrest, this isle’s pervasive necromatic atmosphere and the remains of many experiments on humanoid subjects paint a different picture of the family’s foul history.

Morbien Elato was recently found arisen from the grave and harnessing dark magicks within the home’s basement to forcibly strip Abjuration enchantments from several artifacts and into a ebony key. It’s suspected that this may be a recreation of one of the eight Keys required to open the mythical Octadic Interlock.

A tiny island two days travel from Danric’s Haven, the Isle of Ishap is home to a monastery devoted to the goddess Ishap. The monks that live here wear simple white robes tied by a yellow sash with the image of two colliding suns embroidered upon them. They have devoted their lives to maintaining all knowledge for the sake of truth.

They were recently attacked by a legion of demons after a planar rift in monastery catacombs tore a hole into the Abyss. Brother Matthias, an Elder of the Order of Ishap, was able to seal the portal once more with the assistance of Callique Montescue’s crew.

Out of the Mombahar Wilderness, a slow and steady incline eventually levels off along with a transition to a more temperate forest and chillier temperatures. The forest slowly gives way to a grassy scrubland. Eventually, a pole with a fluttering banner attached to it with a curious design marks a rough trail. Subsequent banners leads onwards to the edge of the Ivory Plateau, rising high over the Nachlear Ocean.

The Cliff City of Kharst is built into the edge of the Ivory Plateau, circling the edge of the Thynlet Bay. Its three tiers step down to the water’s edge, where dockside commerce keeps the citizens bustling. However, the most notable feature of Kharst is the Silver Citadel, an enormous rock of silvery metal resting within the heart of the bay. Home to the renowned Lightspeakers, this hub of divine learning and mystical research boasts a reputation as the finest center of magical healing in the world. It is this feature that accounts for Kharst’s second moniker, the Divine City.

There are rumours that a dark reflection of Kharst, known as T’Srahk the Crater City, exists within the plane of the Shadowfell, caught between the Grimcarpal Steppe and Bloodlet Bay. It is home to twisted echoes of life which seek only to destroy any who dare tread in their territory, and duplicitous deal-makers like the Carrion Sisters, eager to draw victims into their debt.

Kharst Map

This ancient tribe of orcs have inhabited the Black Foothills for centuries. Neamathili Hirall Zasarath Mankiller VII (“Neam), historian for the Clearcrest Chronicle, hails from this area.

A small village to the west of Clearcrest. Home to the traveling merchant Egitrix the Enchanting and a particular breed of tiny flying buffalo used to make the community’s signature dish, “buffalo wings.”

A dark fortress populated by all sorts of unsavory creatures and characters. Undead servants Darfin Vara, Dormund Stonecutter, and Splart the Goblin recently enacted a sacrificial ritual to empower the lord of this stronghold, an ancient lich by the name of Xaegrim Mortis.

A long, narrow ocean hemmed in on the east by the central continent and the west by a smaller pair of landmasses, the Nachlear Ocean is the main waterway of many of the world’s cities, from Erast and Kharst to Tirith and Dragonhold. The relative closeness of the land masses on either side leads to some strange weather patterns, making sailing this ocean an occasionally perilous adventure.

A small farming community deep in the heart of Bastion Forest. Twig Blights run rampant near this village due to trade with a nearby goblin clan that possibly unwittingly offers cursed apples from the Gulthias tree–an ancient, evil tree flourishing in an underground “twilight” orchard on the site where a vampire was staked centuries ago.

The capital of Old Elduri, this vaguely gothic metropolis in the center of the western half of Elduri. Once the center of an empire specializing and depending on quick and effective (though impermanent) enchantment magic, the city now survives as more of a tourist destination for those curious about the Era of Enchantment and its human focal point. They’ve also got some impressively broody architecture.

Smooth, tiny pebbles lay thick on the ground in every direction approaching Salim’s Paradise to a half-mile radius. The first few steps on the Sea of Stones are crunchy, as though you’re walking on eggshells. After about ten feet, though, you realize you’re definitely sinking an inch or two with every footfall. By the time you’ve made it thirty feet towards your goal, the nearly frictionless pebbles have slid around your legs up to your knees, and you know that you’ll be crushed by the sheer weight of the rocks before you ever arrive at the oasis at this rate. In addition, the Sea is a natural habitat for kruthiks (10ft long chitin-covered carnivorous reptiles which thrive in hot environments and can burrow easily through rock or stone). It’s not a fun trip if you don’t know the safe path to the town gates.

Once you enter the oasis, the air immediately cools with the presence of shade trees. Intense foliage is broken by a narrow footpath that leads into a central clearing around an azure pool. To one side, a small tent village has been constructed, and judging by the hard-packed earth and flagstones, it’s been here a while. A group of tall, elegant, and olive-skinned people are wandering through the central bazaar.

This is a small farming community nestled within the Spatzle Hills inhabited mostly by halflings. It is this bucolic hamlet from whence the international bardic sensation Sebastian Scuttlebutt hails.

A large port city with trade and fishing as the main drivers of the economy. This metropolis recently fell to an invasion by the evil Mortis army. The only known survivor to escape the attack was Annalise Pureheart–daughter of the deposed king and cousin to Clearcrest native and Bright Edge Brigade commander, Lance Pureheart.

Since the overthrow of the rightful government, giant mechanical “peacekeepers” sent by Mortisian forces have utterly destroyed most of the community. The trio Groucho Sparx, Slagg Ovent, and Agreeable Box burned, poisoned, and stapled over ninty percent of the populace, and have wrecked large portions of the infrastructure. General Dormund Stonecutter now reigns here as viceroy under Emperor Xaegrim Mortis.

The Yanomami people are an ancient tribe of sea elves that live deep within The Mombahar Wilderness. As they have very few interactions with the outside world, little is known about them except to the handful of dedicated scholars that have been accepted into their society.

This small island contains remnants of an alien spacecraft that once housed an opulent casino. This was the last known location of the Glimmerstar Fascinator.