S'yar Wan

The rainy, overcrowded continent of S'yar Wan is the ancestral home of humanity, but it has become the most cosmopolitan of the continents.

In its coastal regions, S'yar Wan is a mix of rural expanses and clusters of squalid villages. The villages and farms of coastal S'yar Wan are slow to advance partly because of the tenacious vermin population that breeds in the woods. Life on the coast is a constant struggle to fend off rats, spiders, dire rats, bats, wererats, cannibal locusts, and two-headed rats. It isn't unusual for travellers to return to a recently-visited town only to find that the entire population has moved out following a truly epic mouse infestation. Local mayors and town guards often hire beginning adventurers to take the fight to vermin in their foul nests. An embarassing number of these adventurers don't return.

Northern S'yar Wan is cut off from the rest of the continent by the Saishona Mountains, which make travel extremely difficult. As a result, the mountains are home to various secluded and independent communities, including a nunnery populated by beautiful female monks, a prudently-sequestered school for novice summoners, and a penal colony for orcs taken prisoner by Paladins sworn not to slay helpless prisoners. Every five years, one representative from each community in the mountains goes to the peak of the highest mountain (Mt. Ungar) to settle any disputes. This is about as productive as one would expect.

The warm southern region of S'yar Wan is mostly humid swampland, home to humans and lizardmen. As populations grow, the lizardmen have begun building expansive bridge systems over otherwise uninhabitable swampland. Mass combat is impossible on these bridge networks, and so small, opportunistic groups of warriors can loot and pillage the communities there without fear of facing mass resistance. Almost the entire current generation of lizardman children have been shipped to fighter colleges in Schlackengravva to combat this danger. So hurry up.

The heart of S'yar Wan is a sprawling redwood forest. The forest is best known for the handful of great cities at its center, including the great market city of Kain Lim, the magic-oozing city-state of Libram, and the thriving kelptocracy of Coldcock (where the local Rogue's Guild has wisely turned its skill at skullduggery to election fraud and managed to become the ruling party). These cities would be impossible without the valiant efforts of the Red Woodsmen, a band of rangers who defend the outer rim of the redwood forest with a solid perimeter of fortified tree forts punctuated by larger stone fortresses. The Red Woodsmen mainly fight back the vermin infestation so common on the coast, but they also do their best to hold back other threats. The Red Woodsmen, for all their courage, are not especially potent, and don't fare as well against competent warriors as they do against wandering rodents. As a result, their fortresses change hands often, perpetually being taken over by enemies and then reclaimed by the Woodsmen (sometimes with the help of hired adventurers).

S'yar Wan is criss-crossed with trade routes and its merchants love to engage in intercontinental trade. However, after accidentally exporting pestilent devil rats to several continents, the traders of S'yar Wan now take care of their shipping from floating offshore docking stations and transport goods to and from the mainland with swimming couriers or rafts. The floating station system breeds corruption, and so many of them are little more than creaky, sea-sickness inducing vice dens or well-guarded repositories for ill-gotten treasure.

The Great Cities of S'yar Wan

Kain Lim The Marketplace

Once a small city-state, Kain Lim gradually fell to its own capitalist doctrines. The whole of the country is now a vast marketplace, where anything and everything can be bought or sold.

The whole of the marketplace is ruled by a noble house. Their shop is the largest, and sits squarely in the center of the marketplace.

Justice is swift and brutal in Kain Lim, as the inhabitants do not want outsiders to fear soming into the Marketplace. There are constant armed patrols who will not hesitate to use deadly force when someone breaks the laws of the land.

At its outskirts, Kain Lim is ringed with hundreds of temples and shrines.

Within the boundries of Kain Lim, one is never more than a few stalls away from a place to eat, drink or rest.

The City-State of Libram

The art of magic requires vast amounts of study and practice to become even remotley skilled with. In order to help with this process, long ago a cabal of wizards and sages founded a magical college, named Libram. At first, the school was fairly small, and students were allowed in by invite only. But as time went on, more and more students were accepted into the school, and the campus grew. After a while, small towns began to appear around Libram, offering the nessessary support to the school.

As time went on, the campus grew, absorbing the surrounding towns into itself. As space started to become an issue, the university began to build up, and then out, towering over the surrounging area like an enourmous oak tree. Now, Libram is a sprawling city-state, teeming with magic; it's said that even the lowliest beggar knows a spell or two, and it's common knowledge that anything magical, be it enchanted weapon, magical item, or unique spell, can be obatined here. For a price.

As wizards graduated, they found that they still had use of the many services Libram could provide. Most wizards chose to remain living in Libram, while other constructed towers and keeps outside the city limits. Now, the continent surrounding Libram is dotted with these towers, and wars between wizards are not uncommon.