The Kingdom of Alora

The Kingdom

The Kingdom of Alora controls two distinct zones of Seln: the inner and outer wards. The inner wards are mostly tamed, hold the lineage capitals, and house most of the folk. The outer wards are semi-feral, studded by outposts and wards, and represent the Kingdom’s outward expansion.

Its original territory encompassed only the Izu peninsula. Subsequent series of expansion pushed the Kingdom to the western coast of Seln. However, the Kingdom then declined, and the high plains between Alora and Izu have steadily reverted to wilderness.

The Spine of the World has blocked expansion to the north and east for generations, and the Kingdom has had little luck colonizing the smaller islands outside the mainland.

The inner wards

Alora

Seat of the Kingdom and the Crown. Dominated by the gentle rolling hills and verdant deciduous forests of the Scalewood, this is the most highly settled region of the Kingdom. Anchored at the center of the wards, Alora experiences four expertly regulated seasons.

Flora

The elder wood of Seln. Domain of the Rose Queens and home to pixie flocks. Starting from the Scalewood, the forest in a thousand flavors stretches to the west coast. Eastern Flora is heavily settled, and its highway to Alora forms the Grand Highway of civilization’s cradle.

Deepwood

The deepest and most powerful Spirit Realm of the Kingdom, the Deepwood overlays much of Flora. In its dimension, the primordial wood remains verdant, untouched, and dangerous. The Deepwood is home to many Florans that prefer to live wild, and its Ruler is known only to the Rose Queens.

Rhin

A winding river that crosses the great prairies. Home of the young Wehran lineage. Also home to the territorial centauri and still the center of periodic conflict. The river crosses the great plain, eventually rising into the foothills of the Spine of the World to the east.

Losthome

A series of sharp valleys at the mountainous source of the Rhin, once home of the Mousefolk. Now slowly being dragged into the Skyshadow Eagle’s voracious Shade Realm. The high peaks are still and silent by day, and the Realm grips the land by night with a malevolent hunger for the living.

Izu

The original Kingdom lands. With the dereliction of the plains and the loss of Losthome, it has become isolated from the greater Kingdom. A hilly, warm land dominated by a single white-capped peak known as the Father and a long, narrow peninsula where Harmony is said to have been born.

The outer wards

The outer wards mark the limit of the Kingdom’s harmonious influence on Seln. The lands within are unstable but inhabitable. Much of the land is shared with the Kingdom’s neighbors.

The Centauri Steppe

Thousands of miles of high prairie, ruled by the thundering hooves of the centauri tribes. In some places, the grass grows high as trees, and the Kingdom’s reach is limited. Despite frigid relations, the Centauri avoid disturbing the Kingdom’s wards; in return, they expect the same respect for their burial sites.

Northwood

The northernmost edges of the Floran wood, abutting the sea and the Pole of Air. This wood cycles between a chilly autumn and a frigid winter, limiting civilization’s reach. Hunters and salvagers ply the wood despite these hardships; Northwood is home to a dazzling array of rare fauna and many strange ruins of the ancient Fae manses. The kind of place where a prospector finds fortune or calamity.

The inner sea

The relatively placid waters of the inner sea include the Rhin delta, the bay of Alora, and Flora’s rocky coasts. It is ringed by many small islands in a daisy chain between Seln and the largest outlying island, Siwari. The Kingdom has no Arts to place wards in water, and the waters instead bend knee to the mysterious Sirens.

Siwari (eastward)

Jungle island marking the barrier between sane lands and the endless sea. A handful of neutral colonies sit at the edge of the jungle, but most of the island is either wild or inhabited by the Aufsland pirates. The interior is unmapped and unknown, its mountains shrouded in perpetual fog and drizzle.

Rumors of The Celestia

A few have said that a massive, metal ship crashed from the skies into the Roof of the World northeast of Seln Alora. If so, the ship crashed at the teetering edge of the wards. Little is known of the wreck or its survivors.

Perhaps that is a tale for another day.

Beyond the wards

Beyond the wards, a man takes his life into his own hands. Even Path masters struggle against the full force of elemental storms, and the far lands are home to dangers long forgotten.

Some whisper that, somewhere beyond the wards, the Grand Fae still linger, nursing their humiliation and plotting the downfall of the obstinate Kingdom that dared to claim what is rightfully theirs…

Here are a few sights to tease you beyond the wards.

The Conflux

Equidistant to all three elemental Poles, the Conflux is a perpetual hurricane of elemental power. It continually rewrites the terrain, sparing nothing. Its activity over millennia has worn down the Spine of the World in its path, creating an enticing path to the eastern far lands…if a traveler can find some way to predict when the storm would weaken enough to allow (dangerous) travel as opposed to suicide.

The Sea of Reeds

Far to the south, the Centauri Steppe yields to a strange world where the grass grows like trees and the beasts to such size that men are like mice. Or perhaps the Sea of Reeds is the same, but its essence forces men to shrink…

Siwari (beyond)

The misty interiors of Siwari are deep and perilous jungles teeming with serpents and reptiles of all sort. Even dinosaurs prowl the undergrowth, hungry for travelers! Legends speak of a jade palace deep within the jungle where lays Lamia the Collector, her treasures ripe for the picking.

Niflheim

The northern isle, its sky dominated by the Pole of Air. Beneath is eternal winter, though trees of ice and flowers of snow grow by an unseen sculptor’s hand. The island is suffused with a strange, oppressive silence that grows stronger as one travels inwards. Lore states this was once home to the frigid Vida the Silent.

Eastlands

Though nigh-unreachable from the Kingdom, the Eastlands reputedly overlook the rise of the sun over the Akashic Sea. There are reports of nomadic groups that live there, following the rhythm of the storms, but there has been no contact with such people by the Kingdom in hundreds of years.

Obsidia

The runoff of the Pole of Fire forms the isle of Obsidia. Its central volcano never ceases, and there are no places safe from the lava flows for long enough to settle. Rumored to harbor vast wealth in minerals and metals – if you could survive long enough to grasp them.