Editing SWAE.Spellslinger (section)

== Brief Overview of the New World and the Territories ==
The ‘Old World’ is based somewhat off '''Greyhawk''', although the landscape is a bit more European like and the year is 1178 (Common Era, or after the formation of the '''Great Kingdom'''). This ‘'''New World'''’ has been settled by many different peoples over the last two and half centuries and about a dozen Old World cultures have set up petty kingdoms and nation-states along the Eastern shoreline (collectively called the '''Colonies'''). The Territories, as it has become known, are a semi-settled lands of the Free Peoples (Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes, Halflings, Half-Elves and Half-Orcs) and run from the Colonies to the '''Ghost Mountains''' (some 1,000 miles west of the eastern most Colonies). The Ghost Mountains are haunted and the dead do NOT remain resting there… ever. Most right-thinking people avoid them, but the dwarves and gnomes have two fairly large mining city-states set up on their edged.

There are no known living native peoples on the eastern side of the Ghost Mountains. Once there were a primitive Human and Elf-like people but they all died out for some reason hundreds of years before the Free Folk discovered the New World and started settling here. Well, one could say no living native peoples here because as mining has started in the Ghost Mountains and the Gnome-Rail pushed out from the Colonies, ghosts and other undead supposedly of these native peoples have started haunting the Territories.

The landscape of the New World looks vaguely like the eastern seaboard of the continental U.S. with the incredibly high Ghost Mountains being located about 1,500 miles inland (these mountains are almost impassable, more like the Himalayas of Earth then the Rockies). This range separates the semi-civilized Territories of the Free Folk and the wild Frontier on the western side (no one really knows what’s on the western side of the mountains but it is said to be a land of giant monsters and huge thunder lizards). There are two other much lower mountain ranges, the first which separates the northern plains and the southern badlands. Called the '''Middle Mountains''', there are numerous wide passes through them. The second range is to the north known as the '''White Cap Mountains''', this range is always encased under thick layers of snow even in the hottest summers.

Along the Eastern Shoreline the lands is heavily forested and somewhat flat lands referred to as the “Colonies”. These lands are the most heavily populated and industrialized areas and are made up of ‘'''11 Colonies'''’ (see below). None of the Colonies extend much more than 200-300 miles inland, and the lands past them and running all the way to the Ghost Mountains are collectively called the ''''Territories''''. These are unclaimed by any one of the Colonies, and the people living out in there for the most part want to keep it that way.

The lands of the southern Territories are a semi-arid '''Badlands''', of high mesas and plateaus, deserts and arid grazing lands where the winters are very cold with good a bit of snow (about the only rainfall that the lands get). These lands are the least settled of the Territories, mostly prospectors and a few cattlemen. Shattered settlements dot the landscape, increasing in number the farther north one goes. Too the south the land falls a bit with badlands to the west and the '''Ever-Marsh''' near the coast. Even farther south is the Colonial outpost of the '''''Grey-Company''''', a breakaway group from the lands of the '''Confederate Cavaliers'''. North of the Middle Mountains, called the '''Great Plains''', the lands are much more futile plains with extensive grasslands settled fairly heavily by farmers and ranchers. Farther north (around where Canada would be in our world) the land rises sharply – called the '''Up-Lift''' or the '''Shelf'''. These lands at the top of the Up-Lift are heavily forested with huge pine-wood timber, and settled by mostly woodcutters and a few trappers. Farther north of this are the White Cap Mountains and mostly inhabited. South of the Shelf are the great lake system of '''Spirit Lakes''' that feed the mighty '''Green River''' that cuts south east all the way to the coast. These lands are settled by backwoods trappers and fishermen. 

Most of the Colonies and the Territories are fairly peacefully with each other, or at least there aren’t anything more than a few small border wars going on. The ‘'''Border Wars'''’ between the '''Confederated Cavaliers''' and N'''ew Furyondy''' was the most recent and most violent ones ended just over a year ago over a border dispute that cost thousands of lives. The other major troubles were called the ‘'''Brand-Wars'''’, which have calmed down a bit, including hanging and reprisals between Magi and Blackhands, but continue in the Badlands to this day. There are also the ‘'''Range Wars'''’ between various cattle barons over grazing right, the ‘'''Claim Wars'''’ between the mining Unions and of course raids by Hallowed (generic term for the Undead or recently risen), especially around the Ghost Mountains but spreading east (unofficially called the ‘'''Ghost Wars'''’).

The religions of this world are loosely based off those found in the D&D World of Greyhawk, but heavily changed due to the ‘silence’ or waning of the gods over the last thousand years. Some examples are the ‘'''Reformed Church of Pelor'''’ the ‘'''Churches of Truth and Justice'''’ the ‘'''Predawn Fellowship of the Raven Queen'''’ the ‘'''Keepers of Melora’s Ways'''’ and even the ‘'''Heart of Bane'''’. There are literally hundreds of different sects, including Druidic and Shamanic traditions practices and preached here. As the ‘gods’ have gone silent, as it were, people’s faith has become fractured but people still go to church and listen to the Padre’s sermons on Godsday (the day of worship).