Cretaton
The temperate, sparsely populated land of Cretaton is perhaps the closest thing to a paradise in all of Dungeonpalooza. Nevertheless, there is a reason that populations have remained small in Cretaton. While the fertile plains and hills provide easy living for humanoids, they also permit rare breeds of exotic beasts to thrive. Giants, dire animals and the ancient beasts known as dinosaurs all exist in otherwise unknown numbers in Cretaton, preserved by the amazing bounty of the land. Given that the continent's humanoids are mostly less than 4' tall, it's not surprising that many nations in the region have decided to give expansionism a miss and move straight on to complacency and decadence.
The population of Cretaton is concentrated along the forested hills of the eastern coast. Here, ancient yet thoroughly modern gnomish civilizations predominate. The gnomish kingdoms are loose, sprawling cooperatives that cling to monarchy in name only. This can be confusing for outsiders, especially because the gnomes have a custom of using royal offices as a kind of charitable position for poor, alcoholic or dimwitted gnomes. Meddlers from other lands can cause huge problems by trying to involve gnomish "charity nobles" in serious issues. Then again, the luxurious, eccentrically-appointed fortresses of the addle-brained charity nobles are tempting enough that foreign treasure-seekers continually seek out gnomish kingdoms despite the risks.
But the gnomes aren't the only humanoids in the hills. There are also isolated communities of dwarves and halflings, many of them idiosyncratic offshoot groups who left their homelands to escape their native cultures. The dwarven and halfling settlements include barbarian tribes, druidic cults, pacifistic theocracies and clans of dragon-blooded sorcerers. None of them are yet strong enough to challenge the gnomish kingdoms, and few care to do so. Most of the dwarves and halflings are content to mine into the hills as their communities expand rather than encroaching on the gnomish forests.
There are elves in the hills too, living under loose gnomish rule, but they're not exactly advertising it. It's embarassing.
The humanoid population thins even more beyond the coast. The hills gradually flatten as one moves inland, and open into wide stretches of warm plains in the south. These more isolated southern hills are the homes of the hill giants, who survive by hunting dinosaurs and dire animals. Every few years, the hill giants must trek across the plains to find new hills to call home, because a series of natural caverns beneath southern Cretaton hosts a huge population of otyughs. These foul, diseased creatures are drawn to the hill giants' filthy caves and castles. After 100 years of turning a green, idyllic hill into a trash heap, the giants find it easier to find a new hill than to clean up and evict the otyughs.
The warm hills of the west form the most storied region of Cretaton. Here, the lush climate can feed and shelter creatures who are long extinct in other parts of the world. Dinosaurs and dire predators are only some of the more well-known creatures that exist in these untamed wildlands. It is said that weird hybrid animals also roam these lands, along with giant plant creatures, primal nightmarish fey and bands of elementals. Ironically, the west is also famous for its most unnatural locale, the Architect Graveyard. An evil priest once banished his thousands of hired dungeon contractors to an uninhabited hill near the western coast of Cretaton. The architects and construction workers promptly died in the wilderness, but rose again as a result of their long exposure to Evil Fumes in the poorly ventilated catacombs of the dungeon they had built. The mindless undead are now locked in an endless cycle of building, and have had over a thousand years to construct their sprawling, pointless dungeon. It is rumored that their dungeon may have been inhabited by some greater power sometime in the past few centuries; no one knows whether that power might serve good or evil, or what it might use the dungeon for.
Other than the settlements in the eastern hills and the giants in the south, the only civilization on Cretaton is in the form of sparse tribal communities of gnomes, halflings and elves. While adventurers and traders have made some contact with these tribal communities, the only real penetration of mainstream culture into the tribes has been the concept of the tavern. Even the most backward tribes now host taverns, providing travellers a place to feel at home even in the most alien cultures. The tribes are not to be trifled with; those that have survived have learned to protect themselves from dire wolves, dinosaurs, giants and underground filth monsters. Those hoping to intimidate them with Dancing Lights and spooky monologues will be sorely disappointed.
