The Western Wildlands
The world of All's Well That Ends is not long (in aeonic terms) from its last sleep beneath the waves, and so the land is awash in stunning corals, mile-high forests of kelp, and scattered with the bones of leviathans that could swallow small cities. That said, its landscape is otherwise as diverse and hospitable as our own. Much more so than now, game is abundant, though in forms we would not recognise; in many places a man with a good bow and a strong arm can feed his family indefinitely. But the high houses and their protector gods laid claim to those places in long-dead centuries, and now rule them under the guise of Civilisation.
However, the campaign takes place far beyond the fringes of Civilisation, in the Western Wildlands, a place where even the high houses fear to overextend themselves. This is in part because of the inherent dangers of the Sagath Mir, the foothills and plains where the Sagathoi eke out their existence, worshipping the monstrosities that occasionally wander from the Hot Flats, and perhaps more importantly, because of the lies those dangers stand to reveal.
A backwater settlement that at one point marked the westernmost frontier of mankind's reach, the town of Helhope has grown over the decades since the Ichoranda was discovered, as prospectors used it as a waystation and later, a retirement destination. Few of those who earned enough in the Ichoranda to hang up their shovels did so without lasting scars, lesions, mental anguish or bizarre physical reconfiguration, so the populace consists principally of burnt-out old diggers, and those with the imagination to turn their suffering into coin.
The grasslands, hills and valleys to the north of Helhope teem with life. Cattle of many species graze in numberless herds, lesser crustavians throng the treetops, and ranches dot the landscape. Further north still, and the borders of the Sagath Mir grow dangerously blurred. Signs of human occupation grow sparse, and more often than not lights in the darkness are the wicked lures of candlegoats.
Beyond that, the grasslands disappear under the weight of Whaler’s Wood, a trackless and forbidding forest so dense it exists in permanent gloom and is rarely entered by any who dwell in the light. Creatures forgotten by the outside world drift in the darkness, mockeries of their ancient ancestors. Vast cetavians, swollen by immense air bladders, sail yoked to the world only by the canopy’s density. Armoured nephropids and shapeless holothuridans stalk the undergrowth, while far more dangerous and alien intellects lurk in sunken caves.
Yet, industrious as they are, humans of several stripes are resident there. Most numerous are the Burners, a people whose labour takes place in the very deepest reaches of the forest. They produce charcoal in volume enough to fuel the known world, ceaselessly loading their product onto freighters bearing myriad flags from the beaches at the forest’s far northern rim. They are a sullen and inward-facing people, neither hostile nor welcoming, but well capable of defending their interests.
This is just as well, since the other denizens of Whaler’s Wood are less wholesome still. Over the years bandits, highwaymen, and drifters have sought solace in the forest, and while most have met ungodly ends, some have thrived.
.jpg/:/rs=w:1209,h:1612,cg:true,m/cr=w:1209,h:1612)
Of these, the Kulatt Klan is perhaps the most notorious. A rough patchwork of thieves, killers and swindlers, the Klan recruits where it can and, while its numbers are impossible to know, certainly stretches to the hundreds. From the Wood they launch raiding parties into the farmlands, taking livestock and human chattel, burning and salting the earth. Organised efforts to suppress them have met with limited success, curbing their excesses but not preventing their pillaging forays entirely.
To the immediate west of Helhope the land dries out, levels, and becomes seamed with cracks miles deep. Burning gusts shoot from the earth and scorch the air, rising to form dizzying thermals that summon rascolans and the winged avr in droves. So barren is the ground that no safety could be found should the avr choose to make prey of those crossing the Hot Flats, but still the brave and foolish take the risk, travelling west from Helhope, bearing their lives on their backs.
In the midst of the Hot Flats stands the labyrinthine residence built (or more likely found) by the formidable and reclusive arcaniac known as Carnelion. His Manse serves as the base of operations for no less than four mining corporations whose workers venture out by the hundred, beyond the Flats, to dig for the treasures of the Ichoranda. The town that has grown up around the Manse is fractious, each corporation vying for overall stewardship of the place, but fear of the arcaniac and his faithful servant, the metal giant Chirogranhua, ensures an uneasy peace.
Further westward still, the Ichoranda is a prospector’s dream, a treasure trove of artefacts buried within a churning morass of moving mountains, liquid skies and constantly shifting, realigning chaos-scapes, thought by many to be a crash site of one of great Mamekanda’s bones. Those who venture too deep encounter impenetrable walls of wild light, and turn back, skin blistered and minds fractured. Though few understand the function of the treasures they unearth, caring only for their value to the highest bidder, many have implied that the fruits of their mining are often technological in nature
North of the Hot Flats lie the fertile foothills and plains where the Sagathoi forge a sordid existence. Were it not for the protection of Carnelion and Chirogranhua, every venture into the Hot Flats and the Ichoranda would end awash in blood. Worse still, the Sagathoi still bear the human inclination to worship whatever they do not understand.
While the high houses revere their bitter gods, for the Sagathoi, the higher powers are the monstrosities that occasionally emerge from the madening lights of the Ichoranda to wander the Hot Flats. Some of these beings may once have been human, ambitious arcaniacs corrupted by the powers of that place, or prospectors whose delving uncovered energies best left buried. All are hideous beyond recognition.
Others can never have been human, vast, tortured beings of fabulous power and incomprehensible intentions. Most continue their vagrant travels, unheeding of the Sagath cults that trail in their wake, but others come to understand the sway they have over humans, and allow themselves to be enshrined in Sagathoi city-fanes. Numberless congregations arise around these beings, growing over years and even centuries, before, inevitably, they are unleashed upon the world.