The northern area of the Left continent looks to have some nice costal plains.
The eastern bit of that has a river running through it, which forks twice, which has its tributaries in the crystal springs and snowmelts of the mountian range, which the locals call Kavar. Where the peaks split from the range istelf is often marred by the murk, and as such, they've not named induvidual peaks, or called it such a thing as a range, because it, itself, seems its own singular object.
The river is strongest along its eastern bank, and the body of water which flows from Kavar to the Esiouty Sea along that eastern bank is called the Kavaratch, which means of the Kavar, with connotations to blood or fluids. From the north, the first river which forks from the Kavaratch is named the Rhuy, and is a shallow, slow, often forded thing. The second, Sessa, has cut through soft rock, and formed itself canyons through the low hills of southern Madar, the lowland region south of Kavar toward the sea.
The flora of Madar consists mainly of grasses, with the stray tree or bush. The Mabur trees, trees native to the region, outside of the coastal port towns of Katreet and Panafir, along the mouth of the Kavaratch and the Sessa respectively, where foriegn plants have been brought in, are of a sort. Thick, squat trees of enormous age and breadth, with large, flat leaves paired with evergreen spikes.
These grasses make it a home for many grazing animals, such as horses and bovines, as well as Elephants, Mamoths, and many rodents. The predators are generally pack animals which draw one induvidual from the herds of the larger grazers, with the notable exception of the Sutura, a leaping reptillian creature which hunts and lives alone, and predates the largest of animals, Mamoths and the occasional greater Oliphant.
The people of Kavar consist of two main brands, the Chel, whom are village settlers and farmers, and Thess, whom are nomadic herdsmen and riders.
The Chel form a rough confederation of towns and villages along the rivers: Katreet at the mouth of the Kavaratch, Panafir at the mouth of the Sessa, Vetra where the Sessa splits from Katreet, Pafas along the Kavaratch just inside the foothils of Kavar itself, and Preef high in the plains north of lower Kavaratch notable amoung them as they sport stone ringwalls rather than wooden palisades.
Thess are the caravaners between the Chel townships, and they control the high plain, training and riding Buffalo, Elephants, Mamoths and Oliphants. Some Thess caravans have entire towns, buildings built atop Oliphant saddles, connected by rope ladders. Others are just bands of horse raiders.
As far as the society of the Thess go, the riders maintain a strict heirarchy, and everyone despises any man who walks. Bigger animals denote higher tribes, with the Oliphant at the top, then the Mammoths, then the Elephants, next Buffaloe, then Horses.
I mentioned that the Zaz have buried cities and tombs. A few ideas:
Shrine of Revelation ("Khur" in ancient Zaz language): Once an ancient temple where those with exceptional control over Zaz magic resided, it is now a buried crypt, driven below the ground with it's numerous secrets and magically preserved corpses of perished Zaz. Archeologists have only uncovered a small portion of this buried structure, where large scriptures detailing Zaz history are rumored to be hidden. The few daring sould who found deeper tunnels into the Shrine either never returned or were driven to insanity by mysterious causes.
"Hoventi": A small town in the ancient Empire, this was the first sight where Zaz ruins were found. Remnants of this twon have allowed archelogists to decipher much about Zaz culture and living, but no real secrets are hidden here.
"Kula": Another small town that survived the Explosion, it contained remains of barracks, giving modern races a glimpse at ancient Zaz weaponry, all of which is too broken down and rusty to use today.
"Gestre" (pronounced like guess - tray): ruins of a temple-like structure held markings and runes of the ancient language. This was the first ruin to be unearthed by modern races, and what got them interested in the Zaz.
That's just a few for now. I am thinking that it is only the leaders of governments who know that the Zaz are still alive. Rest of the peeps think they are long-dead myths.
Firstly, a little bit about the area around the Capitalis: The fertile plains surrounding the city which allowed it to grow to such a monstrous size, is called the Capital Plains. Along the plains of rural countryside there are roads and checkpoints that are maned by the Minions (a combined army that acts as guardians as well as carries out a policy of state terror against the poor farmers and enforces the city's foreign policy). Also, the Underdark part really wasn't fleshed out well, and you can take it out if you want, but the general city structure I had envisioned as a Venice or Florence deal, where the city was actually built over the river as tributaries flowed through the city blocks, facilitating travel, providing clean drinking water and taking care of sewage. (even going so far as to pump extra fresh water into the city from other locals, providing government jobs and increasing the popularity of the politicians)
As far as godhood, if I had ever played a cleric in any game, I always liked to pick the rogue god, the laughing god, or the trickster. With a rapier in one hand, and the blessings of the Masked One in the other, I was invincible. (And quite rich, I mean, it's not my fault valuables keep dropping into my pockets! They would have broken anyway...)
"The thirteen saloons that had lined the one street of Seney had not left a trace. The foundations of the Mansion House hotel stuck up above the ground. The stone was chipped and split by the fire. It was all that was left of the town of Seney. Even the surface had been burned off the ground.
Nick looked at the burned-over stretch of hillside, where he had expected to find the scattered houses of the town and then walked down the railroad track to the bridge over the river. The river was there."
"Lucend the Masked?" Or "Lucend, the Laughing God." Bah, I dunno. Never good with coming up with a pantheon, personally.
"The thirteen saloons that had lined the one street of Seney had not left a trace. The foundations of the Mansion House hotel stuck up above the ground. The stone was chipped and split by the fire. It was all that was left of the town of Seney. Even the surface had been burned off the ground.
Nick looked at the burned-over stretch of hillside, where he had expected to find the scattered houses of the town and then walked down the railroad track to the bridge over the river. The river was there."
God- Corron, Lord of Steel (only followed by a small cult)
Location- Mountain Cor ( below the plains of Madar)
The Coreliors are a relativelly small empire , ruling over the Cor mountain. Untill very recently , their nation was poor and had a small and poorly armed/trained army but due to the inhospitable terrain that they rulled they were mostly left alone by other , more powerfull empires.
This all changed five decades ago when a group of miners discovered a cave which yelded a strange mineral. Inside that cave was the statue of a man, dressed in heavy armor and with a sword in each hand. The statue seemed as if it had been melted on the spot from a large rock. With close study of this new mineral it was discovered that it was extremelly durable in its melted, metalic form. With it , the Coreliors were able to create the finest armors and weapons known to man. The Corelior Empire quickly realised the comercial potential of their new found metal and began selling it to nearby empires. The statue found in the cave had also started a small cult known as the Brotherhood of Cor which is bent on keeping the “sacred” mineral inside Corelior borders. ( think idealistic terrorists).
Inside the Corelior society whoever has the most money rules the Empire. The family of the miners who first discovered the mineral are currently in power , having ammassed enormous wealth with the discovery and patent of the metal. There are , however , numerous pretenders to the emperors throne, namelly scientists, traders and foreign emperors atempting to claim the empire ( and the metals) as their own.
Perfected my idea a litle bit ( mining in EVE can be a lil boring sometimes:P). Its most likelly still filled with tecnicalities , but meh.
The Everspire Mountains, the mountains to the east of Capitalis, are home to multiple Dwarven holds, formerly a loose confederation of clan holdings and petty kingdoms, each rich thanks to the efforts of their miners and craftsmen, prime targets for the barbaric monsters, such as trolls, that infest the surface of the Everspires as well as the once-grand tunnels connecting their strongholds.
Attacks against the proud, independent fortresses were common. Many fell after years and years of endless attack. Different measures were taken to defend what was theirs. Some of the Dwarven Kings attempted to flee with their clans, most of these being slain or disappearing (with their rumoured riches), although there is a sizeable diaspora in other nations from the descendants of these exiles.
Others tried to buy their way out, using their control of vast amounts of gold to hire on human mercenaries, or even to bribe the enemy. They used cunning business savvy to hold lout against the enemy, their control of the market being used as a deadly weapon, keeping their own clansmen out of danger, so long as the miners could produce the gold.
Some turned to despotism, such as the self-proclaimed, unrecognised by everyone else, High King Granite of the Adamantine Delve, the most militarily able of the holds, thanks to their elite soldiers and access to adamantine, which was used to armour their troops and exact tribute from neighbouring holds.
This despotism, in the strongest of the holds, proved the downfall of the old system. The miners and artisans of the Adamantine Delve were trampled upon by the military of King Granite, who demanded an extortionate amount of production to keep his grip on power.
The miners and the other workers had taken enough after years of troll assault, and now oppression from their supposed King. They went on strike.
The elite forces of the King were sent into the tunnels after them en masse. They butchered a number of civilians, the rest fleeing into the tunnels or being cut down.
The miners went back to work. For a week. This week is now known as Slave Week. One week is the time the Dwarves of Adamantine Delve spent enslaved before going on strike again.
The military moved in again, but the poorly armed miners were ready. A large number of calculated cave-ins crippled the elite forces sent after them, the most disciplined, best armed fighters for leagues. Dwarves that had felled countless trolls, crushed by falling rock.
There was revolution that week. Adamantine Delve fell to its people, who organised themselves into a militia of which everyone was a part. They executed the King, and installed their revolutionary leader as the diktat of a new state. It was no less autocratic, but the miners and artisans were not ruled over by the military. They were the military. Everyone got the same payment, taxes were used for social programs (largely defence). Theorists in Capitalis would call their state a 'Socialist' one.
Their leader, King Tenkar the Revolutionary, began a campaign of expansion, with significant backing from the peoples of the other holds, many switching to his side after seeing his victories against trolls and other Dwarven holds. The fact that those of the bottom rung of the social ladder saw that they would gain by rising against their lords helped too. Some went over willingly. Others were crushed by the Adamantine Delve militia, and later by the Union Grand Army.
After forty years, all of the surviving holds of note fell under Tenkar's control. He was crowned High King of the Union of the Everspire Forges. With the clans united (no longer clans, the term 'clan' actually being made illegal), the various holdings were able to unify their industries and strengthen their defences against the barbarians and monsters of the mountains.
Generally, the Dwarves can put up with despotism, so long as it's even-handed, and that is what began to occur. Previously, their Kings had, perhaps mistakenly, kept a hierarchy of sorts, which concentrated all the produce of labour towards to the top. With the advent of the Revolution, the hierarchy remained, but the wealth was spread out. Despotism remained, but Dwarves are hardy, rigid, and, above all, orderly people. In spite of having no right to truly decide their fate, if they did have such a right to choose, the vast majority would vote in favour of High King Tenkar.
However, recently, due to a border dispute between a Union surface settlement and a minor human clan over cattle grazing rights, which later developed into a minor conflict, some humans ended up ruled by the Union. This, leading up to the present day, began the Revolutionary Conquest.
The Union, realising that they could 'free' other peoples, conquered a small amount of minor human villages above their underground holdings at first. Then, interestingly, they turned from eradicating the goblinoids, trolls and other such monsters, to conquering them. The High King, different from the majority of his people, has decreed that all of these races are to be treated as equals under him, to serve as a part of the Union.
Things are tense, ancient feuds threatening to boil up, but more than a few engineers have come to realise how handy troll labourers are, and more than a few goblins have found that they make much better administrators and clerks than they do raiders, and that they die a lot less when they're pushing paper.
Things are very tense, that is for sure, ancient rivalries are hard to put right in but a few years, but they seem to be working in spite of the High King's warping of old Dwarven traditions, such as instating his socialist diktat, and even banning the worship of the vast majority of the Dwarven pantheon for being 'anathema to the virtues of the Revolution'. The military is now made up of multiple peoples, acting as a mixed-unit force, and it continues, via conquest, to bring more people (formerly known as monsters) into the fold.
The administration is largely goblin-run now, and although very complex and hard to understand, is a wonderfully efficient system of bureaucracy. The leadership is still mostly Dwarven, with the High King, although ageing, still creating policy.
At present, the Union is expanding into the forests on the Everspires, felling large amounts of trees for industrial purposes, creating large highways and similar, making huge tunnels between the holds, and roads on the surface. Sheep are farmed en masse on the hillsides for meat and wool. There has been more conflict with humans and elves on the surface, but it has largely been minor, no large settlements have yet been threatened by this expansion.