Editing Acrozatarim/Gazetteer (section)

=The Central Drakkath Basin=

The Central Drakkath Basin is a wide area including several smaller water-draining basins that merge into a larger whole.  These then feed the rivers, particularly the iril-Khun and Djantao, that flow through the Eastern Plains to the sea.  The Basin and the surrounding lands were once the heartlands of the Drakkath Empire; the throne may have been in Sukumvarang Prefecture, yes, but it was here in the Prefectures of Adhur, Kubhei and Lunwraight that a great deal of agriculture, mining and industry took place.  After the Elder God Ephras dropped a meteor into the Drakkath's heart while the fiercest struggles of the Dawn War were raging, though, the landscape was transformed; the geological damage done by the hate-star changed the drainage patterns and water margins of the region and shattered many of the northern dams, causing the creation of many new lakes in the western end of the Basin and the resultant growth of marshes and fens around the mountainous wound that the meteor left behind.

Even today, much of the Central Basin remains uninhabited wilds.  Sporadic settlements are found scattered across it, some gathered into small federations or united under a local lord; there are also a number of isolated enclaves and religious communities to be found.  More civilisation is to be found in the lands around the Basin, the forested hills and rising valleys that feed their waterways into its descent.  Many of the old Imperial highways peter out or are lost completely in the Basin; some disappear into marshes, while others have had their stones picked clean and carried off.  As well as the remnants of human settlement, there are other creatures dwelling in these lands - goblin clans, gnoll packs, Dreadspawn and other beings of the Dread Marches.  Despite these threats, for most of the communities of the Basin life is a quiet one; this is slowly changing as the years roll on, the population grows and the surrounding nations look with increasing interest at the resources and lands that the Basin holds.

The valleys and ridges of the Basin do play host to a number of remote religious enclaves and colonies, usually established by groups that have travelled west from the White Bay seeking somewhere isolated to practice and perfect their philosophies and disciplines.  Due to the lack of many other authorities or sources of power in the Central Basin, these brotherhoods, warrior-sects and elemental orders have become quite influential in their own little areas of control; in many cases, a village can expect far more protection from a local sect than from any so-called nation.  Indeed, some of the enclaves are beginning to grow to a more notable size themselves, spawning daughter monasteries and gaining more power.

There are three minor powers of note within the Basin itself.  The trade centre of Halstath is the most widely known; the Five Red Banners are a federation of townships in the south-west of the Basin that is the union of five noble families; and the Drakkadepti are an arcane enclave of magi in the northern Basin who have several towns under their protection, and who were founded shortly after the emergence of the Dread Marches one century ago.

Bizarrely, among the other inhuman inhabitants of the Basin are a small number of bitter, savage sahuagin septs.  As far as anyone can tell, the immense terraforming of Ephras's meteor impact caused geological movement that temporarily submerged a vast tract of Eastern Plains lowlands, connecting the now-flooded Basin's heart to the sea itself.  Over the course of about a century, further earthquakes and volcanic activity caused the land to rise again, but by then a number of sahuagin communities seem to have made their way into this inland sea - only to become suddenly trapped when a violent earthquake drained the connecting stretch of waters entirely.  Now confined to the water margin around Spider Mountain, they dwell in the lakes and marshes and are apparently both extremely angry about their fate while also being too territorially tied to their new home to risk the trip overland and back to the White Bay.

The nearest settlements of the Basin have a complicated relationship with Spider Mountain and its swamps.  The marshes provide an excellent hiding place for bandits, serve as a home for surly sahuagin and also provide lairs for other, more monstrous swamp inhabitants, including some ghastly servitors and aberrant fleshtwisted mutants.  However, these marshes are also a place of plenty and life, rich with plants, prey animals and resources that the villages and towns make use of.  They are also a traditional place that the dead are buried; corpses are wrapped then dropped with weights into the marsh waters.  To many, the marshes are a place to be both feared and respected, and shrines to Lliras and Kevayek are common here.  In honour of the dead and the gods, the edges of the marsh are commonly dotted with shrine-poles on which locals hang prayers and offerings; they also commonly leave a little tribute for the sahuagin, to stop irritable sept members pulling the shrine-poles down.


==Adhur==

'''Icons''':  Magistrate Reshaan Purity-of-Fire

In the forested, rugged wilds in the Basin's north, the young and militant nation of Adhur stands guard from a series of fortress-towns amid crags and steep valleys.  This federation of settlements emerged over the centuries, slowly coalescing into a solid alliance and finally a unified people under a Sun-Council of town representatives, commanders and Solanthaari priests.  Ever since, Adhur has aggressively expanded, sweeping nearby lands into their grasp and engaging in brutal, bitter conflict with the Dread Marches.  Now they look north with concern at the Huronese advance, even as they seek to spread their brand of law and order across the Central Drakkath.

Established around a code of laws and responsibilities that has ensured Adhur's survival over the centuries, the culture of this nation is orderly and focuses on duty to the greater whole.  Solanthaar worship dominates over others of the Host, and she is considered the nation's patron.  Vigilant Inquisitors, ordained and legally empowered enforcers, are given leeway to investigate and hunt out the taint of Adhur's most hated enemy - the Elders and their servitors.  The Eclipse Hunt, when the fledgeling federation was nearly undone by vile Hashrukkite cultists and servitors, has never been forgotten - and the Adhuri intend that it never happens again, though they must burn out every nest and enclave of their enemy's corruption in the land.  The focus of the Solanthaari faith is the great Sun Cathedral, a Drakkath Empire era structure that has been lovingly maintained by expert Adhuri masons and architects and which still cuts an imposing shape against the skyline.

Indeed, Adhur is known for its masonry and the skill of its builders; the walls of Adhur towns are tall and strong.  Another of Adhur's strengths, that of alchemy, also contributes to the nation's defences - Adhuri alchemists have a number of unusual mortar and sealant concoctions that are supposedly much stronger than their traditional forms. Alchemy has advantaged Adhur in many other areas too - chemical concoctions are commonly used for armament fuels, for battle-drugs and to power strange alchemechanical engines that some of the crag-towns make use of for driving cranes and lifts.  It is claimed, though not proven, that Inquisitors undergo an alchemical transformation that renders them with strange abilities, including the capacity to smell out Elder taint and the numbing of their ability to feel fear.  A dangerous substance known as black powder is also a result of Adhuri alchemical advances, but the alchemists jealously guard the particular process for creating it.

The broken landscape of Adhur is rife with streams and rivers that tumble into frothing waterfalls, and these hold a particular place in Adhuri culture.  The Adhur place emphasis on purity, usually that born of purging fire, but many domestic rituals involve participants standing or swimming in the pools that the falls plunge into, letting the waters cleanse them of burdens and worries that they carry - this is a particularly important element of both marriages and also the bestowal of important official positions.

Another feature of southern Adhur are the dams and waterways of old Imperial construction.  All those streams and rivers eventually feed down into the Basin, but once a great series of mighty Drakkath dams formed immense reservoirs; many harnessed the power of the water with massive mills and other industrial buildings.  The impact of Ephras's hate-star caused earthquakes that wrecked many of the dams, contributing even more water into the ravaged Basin as the previously dammed lakes came crashing down.  However, several dams did survive, as well as portions of the elaborate locks and waterways that Imperial engineers had threaded between the reservoirs.  Many of these dams are in poor condition but excellent Adhuri masonry has reinforced them and prevented them from collapsing; and while much of the old water-powered industry is long since reduced to rubble there are several repaired mills that serve Adhur even today.


==The Dread Marches==

'''Icons''':  The Shadowfury

What is there to be said of the Dread Marches?  Even now, much of its interior remains a mystery beyond lurid tales of a bleak landscape where plants and trees grow in pained, twisted shapes and where savage terrors stalk the shadows.  One hundred years ago, it erupted into being in the hills north-west of the Basin, spilling fleshtwisted horrors and undead out in a wave of conquest; stopped by an alliance of nations, its rage has since quelled.  For so long it was a cursed place that no-one dared enter unless fired with a zealous desire to purge corruption and taint, but in recent years that has changed.  It has become evident that civilisation still exists in the Dread Marches, albeit in the form of the Shadowfury's authority.

Her true name is unknown, but it is said she looks not a day older than she did when she unleashed the Dread Marches.  Fearful whispers rumour that she is a master necromancer, a talented fleshtwister, the owner of terrible Elder technology, a demonologist or perhaps all these things together.  Once she fought for hatred and vengeance, but it would seem the years have cooled her madness.

The most reliable tales of those who have travelled into the Marches confirm that it is a bleak landscape, clearly direly affected by the fell magics unleashed upon it; nonetheless, it is not so inhospitable as it might first appear.  Several small townships exist amidst farms that are fertile enough to feed the population.  The monstrous inhabitants of the landscape, from the gibbering Dreadspawn to the immense ash leviathans, mostly leave the people well alone - indeed, a number of servitors guard and protect them at the Shadowfury's command.  The culture here is strange, mystical and reverential of their dark champion, but not half as strange as many of those who come to seek the Shadowfury's teachings in the arts of necromancy, fleshtwisting or the hate-fuelled mastery of the fury's style of martial arts.  Others come seeking knowledge of Elder technology, or to acquire actual artefacts of such.

Most stories of the Shadowfury confirm that there is a bastion at the Marches' heart, a likely Elder structure that probably contains the warp-vats and twystcrystal devices the Shadowfury used to create fleshtwisted minions.  A few reports by arcane-minded travellers and petitioners also hint that there are Umbral ruins in the Marches, several of surprisingly intact nature. A few surviving accounts from prior to the Dread Marches creation do seem to corroborate this, although the landscape has since changed and deformed so much that it's hard to be certain.


==Halstath==

In the eastern Basin, on the edge of the network of lakes and marshes that have grown up around meteoric Spider Mountain, Halstath serves as a major crossing point of trade routes and a bastion of order amidst the wilderness.  The town claims no dominion over other settlements and yet several have grown up in its vicinity, emboldened by the stability that Halstath imposes for several leagues around it.  Well-defended and with a population who are possessed of a tenacious spirit, Halstath has been a melting pot and point of exchange for many years, and now also has the protection of the Flame Guild.

Mhasurus Shen, a former Flame Guild warlock, is the nominal ruler of Halstath.  Having taken the unusual step of leaving the Guild, he has nonetheless maintained close ties with his former brothers and sisters, and Halstath is informally considered a major staging point for Flame Guild operations in the Drakkath.  This reputation has done Halstath no end of good, reassuring travellers and merchants about its safety and bringing fresh wealth to its markets.  Mhasurus dwells - as previous town leaders have - in an old temple to a lost Younger God; there was a reason for this tradition, but no-one is sure any more what it was, much as they cannot remember the god's name at all.  The more paranoid state that the god's name is still etched into the walls but that people simply forget it as soon as they leave the building, but this appears to just be fearful rumour.

Halstath sits on the shore of a wide, placid lake, maintaining a healthy flotilla of fishing boats.  However, there is believed to be a presence down in the waters; shapes have been seen flitting back and forth in the depths.  No-one's sure what these are, but some say it may be sahuagin.


==Qyashun==

'''Icons''': The Vault-Keeper Tyanlun Hamei

South of the Basin, taiga stretches towards the Storm mountain foothills.  It is here, nestled amidst wild and tangled valleys, that the nation of Qyashun is to be found.  Once, Qyashun Prefecture was the site of the Emperor's Summer Palace, and the city at the nation's heart still echoes much of that faded grandeur and luxury.  Despite a long and tumultuous history, Qyashun is still known in this age as holding the greatest repository of Drakkath-era lore in the entire region.

The libraries of Qyashun are grand structures, lovingly tended to by archivist sect adherents who train as much in the martial protection of their tomes as they do in cataloguing and appreciating their content.  The actual few Drakkath texts are kept within the Great Vault itself, a subterranean complex beneath the Grand Qyashun Library.  Defended by a complex array of Elder technology wards and defences, the Vault was once an armoury of arcane devices owned by the Imperial Family; now its rooms contain an unknown amount of ancient lore, valuable and rare tomes, pieces of Elder artefacts and other items of great value or knowledge.  Embarrassingly, this veritable fortress has been broken into once, by the enigmatic being known as the Solitary Flame.

Most of the nation is made up of terrace-farming villages amidst steep valleys, a few market towns and a number of hill-clans who pay mostly theoretical respect to the central council's authority.  However, the landscape here is extremely rich in minerals and timbers, something that has long brought Qyashun more than its fair share of wealth; more than that, though are the veins of materials that are left-overs from the Dawn Era, raw and unrefined elemental substances that escaped notice by the Elder Gods as they forged a new world into being from the elemental but barren creation of the Great Elementals.  These are incredibly hard to work but also incredibly valuable and are, along with knowledge, Qyashun's most treasured resource.

The government of Qyashun is a council of nobles and citizens of import from the nation's sole city; they serve for life, but elect the holders of other positions from amidst the scholarly institutions of the nation.  These positions are also held for life, making the seat of the Vault-Keeper subject to some often genuinely murderous power struggles amongst the scribe-halls.  For all its pretences to learning and truth, however, Qyashun seeks to serve itself more than it does others - objects of power or valuable knowledge are to be hoarded under lock and key, brought out to be used to benefit the nation or to trade with miserly negotiation for as much as can be gained.  The scholar-towers encourage a conservative, static culture rather than one of seeking truth for the sake of knowledge.  Still, anyone who would wish to wrest their treasures away from Qyashun faces a difficult proposition; the city, built up around the grand old summer palace, has a number of Empire-era defensive mechanisms tied into the cycle of the celestial heavens, harnessing the power of the turning seasons to provide arcane fuel to arcanomechanical guardians and strange energy-manipulating devices that stud the palace grounds.

The palace itself is a wonder, even with the damage that the passing centuries have done to it and with so many of its treasures lost and looted in the Empire's fall.  The great Herbarium is of particular note due to its size and the exotic collection of plants within it.

Qyashun remains a dangerous land beyond the city walls.  All sorts of creatures roam the valleys, including some quite human bandit gangs and marauders from the southern tribes of the deeper taiga.  Most of Qyashun's military capability is focused on maintaining the routes from the nation into the Basin that it sits on the edge of; beyond that, however, the council has made quite enough money from the trade of valuable resources that it often dips into its coffers to hire mercenaries whenever additional muscle is needed.

An immense statue stands in the northern valleys of Qyashun.  This colossal edifice depicts an inhuman, almost reptilian figure.  As far as anyone can tell, the vast, weathered figure is far older than even the Drakkath Empire, presumably one of the last artefacts of a civilisation from the earliest days of the Dawn Age.  Popular tradition has it that chips off the statue are worthwhile offerings to ancestors, since it reminds them that even the truly ancient are still remembered in this world; touching the statue where it emerges from the rocky ground is also supposed to help combat many a disease.  Arcane adepts have confirmed that the statue is still possessed of residual energies infused within it, though what this truly ancient enchantment was supposed to do is not clear.


==The Breach==

In the south-west of the Central Drakkath Basin is a wound in reality itself, usually called the Breach.  It was once the spot of a Drakath city until one of the sides in the Dawn War detonated a matter-eater weapon over it; the resulting rift tore the city apart, but did not then close.  Instead, it stabilised.

The Breach is still visible from miles away as a strange, fluttering tear in the sky that gives a dull, purple or lavender glow as it shifts and flows.  Beneath it is a mighty edifice, but this is not the city that once stood there.  When the Breach did not close, it was instead used as a gateway into the world by an insane order of creatures that have become known as the Ordinators, biomechanical horrors that seem to follow alien concepts of order and organisation.  Over the centuries, they have raised up a great tower-like structure of purple steel towards the Breach itself, a spined fortress of bizarre aspect that spits strange mists from exhaust vents and which opens and closes areas of its carapace, seemingly at random, to release fluttering drifts of winged Ordinators into the sky.  Around the tower, the Ordinators are literally terraforming the landscape with strange magic and simple brute force, thousands of biomechanical drones working in unison to move earth and redirect rivers.  In their wake is left a weird but undeniably ordered garden-plain, flattened and sculpted according to whatever mad drive pushes the Ordinators.

The Ordinators do not seem to desire to trade or, in general, interact with local inhabitants of this world.  If approached, they are not immediately hostile, but any sort of tampering with their 'garden' triggers increasing agitation; and Ordinator soldiers are armed with a terrifying array of claws, blades and mechanical weapons.  However, a few brave souls have discovered that the tended orchards of the Breach Garden are like nothing ever seen before, with unknown trees that bear fruit with incredible arcane properties.  For some, it's worth risking the Ordinators' wrath for.

Seven years ago, the famed arcanist and traveller Macht Weldrain made a startling new claim.  His observation of the Ordinators had revealed that, unlike previously believed, they are not some sort of simple hive-minded collective; rather, the clicks, whirrs and hypersonic, near-inaudible squeals of the region are Ordinator conversation, and that they appear to be highly developed.  He now hopes that he can establish communication with the beings.  The High Noble of the Five Red Banners has declared Weldrain outlawed now, fearful that tampering with the Ordinators might provoke a more extreme response and worried that the nearby Red Banners lands will suffer the brunt.