LORE: World and Geography

As of yet, no one has sailed the seas to prove otherwise, but three great continents and several much smaller subcontinents are known across the world. Not all nations call it the same thing... but the known world is loosely known as Eyre. The waters between them are short; most landmasses connect to each other, with at least a few joined landmasses or shared seas.

To the north, the large and jagged continent of Morgbrell looms over the known world. It is a strange land with twisted mountains, flesh eating forests and shapeshifting hills. Although home to all monsters in the world... Morgbrell does not contain any nations. It is a mercy to the rest of the world that monsters rarely work together: they quarrel, compete and constantly fight each other over meager territories. Most leave Morgbrell for more hospitable lands to torment.

To the southeast, Eyrasia and its islands border Morgbrell, connected to the western nations only by treacherous mountain passes. It borders a sea with Morgbrell. Home to the Bakar empire, a very militant and religious superstate, this land is mostly deserts but also has many deposits of magical ores, precious gems and several magical oases that change location with the shifting of the sands.

In Bakar, only one religion is legal and it is Bakal: excessively secretive, all outsiders and non-converts know is that its followers pray several times a day and practice rituals at sunset. It is spread by Bakar's conquest: subjugated peoples overran by its powerful army must convert, or be exiled to Morgbrell. It is a ruthless nation- but despite that, it is an important hub for trade, as Bakar happily grants merchants and foreign workers travel and trade permits even to nonbelievers. Some extremists within the Bakar empire radically disagree with the Sultanate's decisions to allow foreigners to work and trade without converting to Bakal, but the majority accept foreigners if they are working or trading because commerce with outlanders has made Bakar absurdly rich.

Bakar is rules by a Sultan, the twenty-second of the unbroken Mehdi bloodline. Although he politically endorses Bakal, a hotly debated and dangerous issue in the empire is that Bakal itself does not define nor require a Sultan, so Bakal extremists wish to destroy the monarchy: such rebels are known as the Mujahdeen. They have waged three rebellions over two-hundred years, but in their third civil war- led by the famous Baqir Basama who wielded the Spine Cleaver- the Mujahdeen were beyond decimated and almost all of their members were executed by Sultan Mehdi XII's secret army, a of captures foreign slaves raised since childhood to be the Sultan's sworn assassins. Almost no Mujahdeen survive today, not even Baqir himself.

Normally, Bakar might've conquered west, but Eyrasia has a total lack of forests: it is impossible to gather timber for ships, and most nations will not sell it to Bakar for fear of them. The Bakar empire suffers a very backwards navy as a result, despite their otherwise advanced military sciences; instead of wood ships, they utilize huge floating stone barges, but the vessels are large brittle targets unfit for battle. Seafaring pirates trouble Bakar's shores to no end and raid these vessels constantly. To compensate, Bakar adores pirate hunters, and pays even foreign mercenaries huge sums of money to kill or capture pirates.

Some islands exist off the coast of Bakar housing strange nations of people who write in pictographs and drink rice wine. Bakar has attempted to invade them many times, but the yet unknown far-east islands are equally militant as Bakar, repelling their stone ships with catapults.

To the far west, the world of Eyre changes greatly... The western continent is known as Liebe, and unlike Eyrasia, consists of many separate nations. Most prominent among them is the empire of Styria- a hardy, cold country in the middle of Liebe. It has rich iron, coal and timber resources. Most of all, it is the world's strongest industry, producing huge amounts of steel for weapons, armaments, armored ships and devices. Styria has a long, open border with Morgbrell that it is constantly fighting and building on. At the same time, Styria is not afraid to war other nations: it has conquered and annexed three small kingdoms as provinces and is the only nation in the world that rivals Bakar. Home to fair skinned humans but some other races as well.

Styria is an authoritarian monarchy ruled by a long-lived emperor, the High King Ganglere the First. Sorcery has allowed him to live to the age of a hundred and sixteen; he has overseen all of Styria's expansion and somehow retains his mind. A brutal, cunning tactician, he has been present for nearly every war and campaign waged by Styrian knights and forces. Although he wishes to invade Bakar, he has not yet found a way to overcome their fortified mainland, but Ganglere's decision to massively grow Styria's navy into a huge fighting has allowed him to crush Bakar's attempts to leave its landlocked borders. Very unlike a king, Ganglere is known to hire pirates and meet personally with mercenaries, fostering friendships with his henchmen. He is a greatly feared figure- moreso than he is respected, because he has committed many atrocities to grow Styria's power...

In Styria, the state military adopts children who are orphaned, impoverished and or troublesome. Although they receive care and education- they are trained to be soldiers and are into some branch of Styria's military in their mid teens. Advancement from there is abundant for those who survive. Unlike anywhere else in the world... while nobles are still the first class in Styria, merchants are not second to them. Military officers and knight commanders comprise Styria's second class. They have strong authority over local rule, commerce and even politics. Some cities are governed by generals or admirals, others by noble families.

Handfuls of small monarchies border Styria and live in constant fear of the empire. Some plot to offer annexation themselves to avoid being conquered. Others invite Bakar's emissaries in hopes of retaining their autonomy. The lines between these contested nations change consrantly, but they are all seated southwest of Styria, along the coasts and across plainslands.

But to the far south of Styria and its neighbors, Liebe is a very different place: Aererhiad, the land of elves, rests comfortably beneath the human nations as a lush semi-tropical peninsula. Almost no humans nor any non-elf lives there, as it's strictly illegal. Aererhiad almost never issues travel permits, and when it does, they are very short- counted in weeks, not months.

Aererhiad hosts a complicated monarchy that is moreso a federation of elf clans. The king, in actuality, is quite powerless. They number almost seventy two provinces, all with different but similar laws, even though Aererhiad is only two thirds the size of Styria. Every province has its own name and who the elf king is changes constantly. Elvish politics are deadly and subtle- someone's always getting killed for the crown only for a figurehead to be put in their place.

Long ago, one of the first elf kings gave the northern landmasses of Liebe to the humans in an official deed, under pretenses of being kind to the less fortunate humans. However- their true intentions are and always have been to humans into being their buffer with Morgbrell. Styria holds off the monsters, while the elves live comfortable lives far from the battlefields.

For centuries since, Aererhiad has never entered diplomacy with humans. Humans who cross their border without very special permission are killed. However, with the growth of Styria as a world superpower, Aererhiad has been pressured into simply deporting human trespassers... but some disappearances still happen at the border: the elves viciously guard their lands. Nevertheless, High King Ganglere's frequent threats of invasion have the elves to be much more diplomatic with their human neighbors.

Aererhiad itself is a gorgeous land and the second most magical place in Eyre. It is full of huge, spiraling old forests and deep caverns in which mana crystals grow. They have abundant resources and rarely trade, but do sometimes sell enchanted items and armaments to Styrian merchants alone as so to amass human currency, but they seldom pay gold for anything- mana and magic are all the currency for trade among the elves.