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| | What Is Strombolicus Rex? | Vincennzo Capelli | Heva Campagin | Play By Post Games | | ||||||
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The World of HevaIntroductionThis section will contain all material related to what the Heva Campaign setting physically looks like. Table of Contents
Just Like Earth?You can assume that Heva is set in a world just like ours. With the exception of magic, the physics are exactly the same. A year is 365 days and change long. There are 12 months in the year and seven days in a week. There's a sun and only a single moon that always keeps the same face towards the ground. There are stars in the sky and seven planets that move across the sky in a stately and predictable fashion. What do our Hevan Kin call the world they live on? Terra? Earth? Oerth? Aerth? Most likely they simply use the Hevan word for "Home," whatever that is. Seasons & The Calendar YearHeva has a twelve month solar calendar just like we do. The only difference is that the Hevan New Year lines up directly with the winter solstice. Winter, spring, summer and autumn are all commonly understood by Folk to be the chunks of time between these fixed celestial events. There is a second reckoning of the various seasons commonly used by Folk. This reckoning is defined by the behavior of the prevailing winds and is mostly used within the Golden Coast where it is possible to figure out which season you're in by simply looking outside and seeing what the weather is doing. These wind pattern based seasons are latitude dependant and quite different between northern and southern Heva, with some seasons existing in one and not the other.  Mistral, Sirroco and Monsoon are both the names of seasons as well as winds that generally blow from a specific direction during a finite time of the year. The Mistral and the Sirroco blow from the NW and the Monsoons blow from the SE. The Mistral and the Sirroco are the same wind, but they are given different names by virtue of their significantly different temperature. Southern HevaFrostfallNorthern HevaDawn ReversalThe Six Starting RegionsThese are the six regions that your character can initially hail from. Some Kin are more likely to be from a given region than anothers, so pay attention to that nugget of information. The image doubles as a link to the full resolution version. By the way, this map was featured on the 'Cartographers Guild' website. I like it too, though I'd really love to master this style of fantasy cartography. 
The Golden Coast is the most densely populated stretch of land within or around the Dominion, though most of it is concentrated on the exceptionally fertile floodplains of a series of shallow northwest to southwest running valleys. As Folk travel from the coastline towards the northwest along these rivers the land slowly rises to match the height of the low ridges of dry scrub covered limestone that separate the valleys. Where the valley floors and the ridge-tops meet, the "civilized" evergreen oak and stone pine forest known as the Hillclutch begins, stretching westward for a few tens of leagues at its middle before dwindling on the western slopes of the Greenblood Hills, the craggy line of hills that defines the border between the Golden Coast and the Rolling Plains. The northernmost section of the Golden Coast shore is Newhome, the homeland granted to the Elven Kin by the grace of the Onyx Queen only a few short years after they began appearing in Heva in large numbers. The Elves have done much to restore the Coastwood to it's former grandeur, with many of the Elven planted stands of Great Laurels now nearly as large as those cut down and burned during the chaos and rebellion following the advent of the Iron Curse.
South of newhome is the fabled stretch of coastal cliffs known as the Halls of the Great Spirits. In this place, the humped mass of the Spirithall Hills directly intersects the shoreline of the Well Known Depths and gives rise to miles upon miles of strangely eroded columns and towers that jut out of the water seemingly at random. These cliffs are natural wonders that are well known beyond the Dominion and have been reproduced in an uncountable number of works of art. The most famous of these is “36 views of the Onyx Pyramid,” a series of woodblock prints by the famous gnomish artist Geladanium. This widely reproduced series of prints depicts the Onyx Pyramid on the horizon with different sections of the Great Cliffs and scenes of everyday life in Heva in the foreground. A cheap and poor quality reproduction of one of the most famous of these is shown below.  At the southernmost end of the Golden Coast before crossing the Gam Jo River are the Drake's Envy Hills and the Queen's Wood. This name was given in mocking reference to the fabulous deposits of precious metals and stones found within its folds when the previous name, the Forestspire Hills, no longer made any sense. Sometimes, the Drake's Envies are also referred to as the Ghost Wood in reference to the forest that covered them before it was used to fuel the Dominion's furnaces during the Great Building. Following a line due west from Drake's Envy leads straight into the southern end of the Queen's Wood. This forest is devoid of all Kin and their associated industry and its edges now infrequently patrolled edges extend approximately a mile beyond the encircling bleached stone wall known as the Suitor's Bones. At the founding of the Dominion, this area was some of the richest soil to be found in all of Heva and the city site of Melanthetis' greatest rival Aeteius, now known by most only as the Lost Suitor. Aeteius and it's surrounding lands were razed by the Queen's Legions, its people put to the blade, the ground planted with the white blossomed tree known now as 'Queen's Tears' and declared forbidden as part of the pact the Dominion made with the Wardens of the Wood in order to bring about a swift end to the 999 plagues. The Golden Coast is home to a great majority of the Dominion's population, who live within its seven great cities (known amongst the Folk as the Seven Suitors) and a host of attendant towns and villages. It's lands are a place of pastoral beauty and such is the Gnomish fixation on the arts that even the littlest Thorp has a statue of cast bronze, a small stone ampitheatre for theatrical performances or some other display of public art. Folk living within Heva are predominantly Human and Gnomish, with a sizeable minority of Greenbloods and smaller numbers of Haflings, Elves and Dunimas. As most Dwarves spend their lives wandering with their Caravans, few can truly be said to call the Golden Coast home, but one can be assured that the majority of existing Dwarven Caravans can be found within the lands of the Golden Coast at any given time. Stretching out for some seventy five leagues on either side of the Gam Jo River, the length of the Rolling Plains as defined by the Pact of Two runs from the northern end of the Queen's Forest to the impenetrable fortress of Fort Gap. The plains are, in fact, a vast expanse of gently rolling grasslands. They are bordered on the west by the fractured foothills and ice encased peaks of the Tallwall Mountains and the grass and granite patchwork of the Greenblood Hills to the east. Enormous herds of dark and shaggy bison course across the grassland like living reflections of the wildly churning thunder filled clouds in the sky above. Chasing the herds in an endless hunt are the stout travelling villages of the nomadic Greenblood clans. Skulking quietly in their wake are the scavengers like vulture and hyena, finding life in the refuse and cast off carcasses the Greenbloods leave in the their passing. To the east, watching the bison in hunger and the clans with wary suspicion are the plain's greatest predator, the mighty dire lion. From his high cave in the foothills to the west, the fierce dire bear watches the procession of hunter and hunted for a time before roaring with scorn and turning up into the high mountain valleys in a search for easier food. So far out in front that it will be days before the herds catch their scent, a troupe of Ferals tears a hapless gang of Orc marauders to pieces before settling down for a while to quarrel over the choice bits of meat and gnaw sullenly on the bones. In the distant south an isolated Dwarven Caravan, travelling alone between the cairn marked routes all other kin must use to traverse the grasslands, struggles to fix the damage caused by the near passage of a storm-wrought whirlwind. Just beyond their view and a mere day away, three cargo-barges serenely float upon the silty ribbon of the Gam Jo River. They unknowingly carry the replacement axle that will be used to return mobility to the caravan's ornately carved and metal encrusted Holy Shrine. All of this, the whole of what the Ghost Lord of Eagles sees as he effortlessly glides above on the day's rising thermals, is life on the Rolling Plains. The vast majority of Kin who call the Rolling Plains home are Greenblood of one stripe or another. In fact, there are as many Greenbloods in Heva as there are Gnomes. The Greenbloods only seem like a minority because most tend to remain in their homeland unless called away by obligation. Humans, Gnomes, Dwarves, Elves, Dunimas and Haflings do call the plains home in comparitively small numbers, but they are without exception confined to the Pact of Two proscribed communities of Fort Gap, Fort Sun, North Port and South Port. With the exception of Dwarves, for whom the Greenbloods granted an exception shortly after their arrival in Heva, to be found off the cairn marked routes without a suitable Greenblood chaperone is a death sentence, if not by the clans then by their feral progeny. The region of Heva referred to as the Drako Badlands is only the southern third of a mass of jagged black rock, bristling with sharp peaks and capped at the top by the slowly melting remnants of the thick blanket of thick ice that once covered the entire rise. Where the ice no longer maintains its grip on the land, sinuous and steep walled valleys separated by narrow ridges gouge into the rocky flanks, radiating outwards from the higher elevations. At the border between the Drako Badlands and its neighboring regions the valleys are wide, disgorging milky ribbons of icy glacial melt and lined with wisp-like cataracts that fall gracefully from high up hanging valleys. Valley openings along the eastern and southeastern side of the badlands are thickly forested with towering beech and elegant silver spruce, and these valley forests extend up into the badlands a good deal further than they do on the wester flanks. Western side openings are much drier and covered by a patchwork of tough grass and thickets of thick barked trees able to thrive despite the generally dry conditions and frequent wildfires blowing in from the Rolling Plains. It is at this shallow margin that a traveller might be most likely to find small communities of people eeking out a quiet life based on sheep herding and tending irrigated crops. They are little troubled by the Drakes, as they rarely travel up into the high valleys where those fell beasts are more common. Orcish warbands are a different matter, and most Folk have at least one nearbye place of safety to flee to when the creatures are spotted. Travelling no more than a day or two up the river valleys, one finds that the air quickly grows much colder and the thickets of trees grow more sparse, eventually fading entirely. Here, the flats are thick with verdant grass and tangled. Kin found at these elevations are either isolated communities of monks who view the empty silence as a blessing or prospectors blinded to the danger of being so close to Drake infested land by their greed for the precious metals often found in the gravel beds of the rivers. Another two days of hiking up the steepening grade of the rapidly dwindling valleys will at last bring the traveller to the badlands proper, as all vegetation shrinks and shrivels until the only living creatures found are tough lichens growing on the sides of boulders and an occasional patch of moss. From this point and and to the remnant ice it is the province of the Drakes, and Kin should not enter unless they are prepared to defend themselves against tooth, claw and magic. It is also a land of great beauty, with all natural features seemingly stretched into improbably vertical relief and capped with glistening mantles of snow and ice. The two largest valleys of the Drako Badlands accessible from the Hevan side are quite a bit more civilized than the rest. On the southwestern flank, the deep and narrow chasm known as The Great Ravine slices through the badlands like the wound from an enormous Spatha. It stretches all the way from the shore of the Well Known Depths to the badlands proper and is guarded from Orcish infiltration at its far terminus by Fort Drake. Little grows within its confines and the narrow thread of the Ravine Road to Fort Drake runs down one side of the defile or another. Sections of the road are frequently washed out by the the sudden deluges of water bursting out from under the remnant ice. The road is also often buried by landslides caused by the earthquakes that routinely shake the badlands. On the western flank and containing the eastern headwaters of the Gam Jo River is the wide valley known as the Vashti. Named after the mother of the mother of Gam Jo, the first Bugbear to unite the disparte Greenblood tribes, the Vashti is home to the vast majority of non-military Kin that call the Drako Badlands home as well as the large town of Vash'Kel, the northernmost trade port on the Gam Jo river. Most races of Kin call the badlands home in equal numbers, with a slightly more numbers among the Human, Greenblood and Elven populations. The dark and forbidding Tallwall Mountains cannot really be called home by any Kin. This impossibly tall range of mountains, some belching fire and smoke and others not, is a place of bestial horror and wild predation. Even before the Libaeum, the Tallwall Mountains were a place where a traveller could be beset by horrors on all sides. The mountains are the natural range of the multi-headed serpents known as hydras, the feral four armed apes known as Gorillions, troupes of ravenous Owlbear, insects of enormous size and a host of lesser horrors. It has also traditionally been said to be the playground of hags and their demon and fey consorts. Baba Yaga herself is said to wander the high mountain valleys, searching for power and copulating with all manner of beasts in her crawling palace perched on innumerable legs of bone. Now, with the disasters wrought by the overzealous reach of early practitioners of refined Fleshcraft, the Tallwalls are also the province of the ever swelling numbers of Giants and even more hiddeously unnatural creatures like Eye Tyrants, Grell, Neogi and their ilk. But even within this cesspool of Abberation, stout bastions of civilization can be found in the form of Fort Up, Fort Down and up where the air becomes nearly to thin to breath, the gilded Temple of Light perched in grandeur on the shore of the Lake of the Stars. Characters that choose this region as their starting point would generally have the following race related background:
Imagine a land that is nearly as dangerous as the Tallwall Mountains but even more devoid of life. A place where it hasn't rained once in the 800 years that records are available. That place would be the Neverrain Desert. Of all the regions of Heva, the Neverrain Desert is the one most commonly spoken of in folklore as being a place where Ancestral Relics abound. These strange edifices, constructed for unknown purposes in a time before the collective history of all Kin begins, are said to litter the desert like flies on the rump of a horse. Many Ancestral Relics are awash in strange and eldritch power and their prevelance in this region is the likely source of the weird storms of energy that crackle through the air and slither along the sand in this coastal wasteland. It is an indisuptable fact of history that the black clouds of necromanticly charged sand that periodically plague Port Dust were never encountered in the first 150 years of the settlements existance. Furthermore, their first occurance was only days after the great leaden seal of the Lonely Hand was finally penetrated and it usually presumed that the two events are somehow related. The Frost Reaches are a land of dark forests, bone-chilling fog, winding bays and rivers of ponderous, crushing ice that flow down from the immense white cap smothering the southern tail of the Tallwall Mountains. Like the Neverrain Desert, strange Ancestral Relics of metal and stone inscribed with an unknown and unstranslateable language and decorated with frescos depiciting weird and alien places are scattered across the region, particularly in the western parts. Most Folk used to consider the Frost Reaches to be part of the Dominion of Heva. Since the ascension to power and rulership of the Fell Lord of Talantek, most Folk think of it as being its own distinct place. A place where they wouldn't want to go. The Dominion has never formally relinquished its claim to Talantek and the surrounding lands, but neither has it attempted to reassert its authority through direct force since the early days of the rebellion there. Some see this as indication that the power of the Dominion is waning and worry about what that means for the future, while others simply assume that Talantek and its surrounding villages and towns have not garnered the Onyx Queen's attention in the way that other matters currently bedeviling the Dominion are. Ultimately the matter is unclear and likely to remain that way for the forseeable future. What is clear is that trade, but not travel, between Heva and Talantek is strictly forbidden and those caught engaging in it are sentenced with the cruelest punishments available to the Dominion. The Lord Regeant, and by proxy his servants, appear to hold no ill will towards the Folk of Heva, so travellers should be safe while in Talantek proper. That being said, the reaches are notorious for being a hot-bed of Demon and Fey Worship and there are many rumors swirling about of travellers within and without Talantek simply vanishing into the frigid mists. The Dominion would likely prefer that trade between Mu and Talantek cease as well, but this was apparently beyond even the reach of the Last Word when the formal accord between the two powers was completed. Mu apparently either has no issue with Talantek's penchant for human sacrifice or finds the trade lucrative enough to turn a blind eye to this universally hated practice. If you must travel the country side of the Frost Reaches, keep seasoned and well armed company with you at all times. Creatures of the Tallwall Mountains both natural and unnatural alike have little difficulty travelling the region, as the corrupted Folk there welcome and even openly cavort with them. |
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