Nakaltia 101
The year is 301 AF (After Folly)
The world as you know it is called "Manix" (although in truth, Manix is just a centralized cluster of continents on the much larger world of Calador, but that knowledge is generally beyond those who are not scholars).
Three centuries ago, the world was enjoying a golden age of magic and technology until an awful demi-goddess-thing called Arch-Hagen Anaya Ro did something terrible, destroyed a city somewhere and caused an event that wiped out most of the magic in the world, killing a lot of wizards in the process. This event was called Anaya's Folly. Civilization in most of the world as it had been crumbled and they never really got over it.
HERE however - Nakaltia never relied as heavily on magic as the nations to the east. In Nakaltia, you worked for what you had. They built machines, steam engines, trains, windmills and waterwheels. When the Folly struck, many magi and their creations were destroyed. It was tragic, but far from catastrophic.
The nation of Nakaltia is home to the kingdom of the vaalar mountain dwarves and home of the thriken gnomes, who had been misplaced when their homeland was destroyed. There is a dwarven monarchy that rules Nakaltia, though in truth the military forces of the cities of Ulsteg and Cal Darga hold the power, with the monarch as little more than a figurehead. There are numerous threxen (human) that live in Nakaltia, descendants of the Carlitian people that had ruled the land centuries ago before the Wrath ravaged the lands, destroying most of their cities (and likewise destroying most of the dwarven cities that were underground back then).
Sharing the mountains with the dwarves and gnomes are numerous kobold tribes, though they try to keep their distance from their neighbors, preferring to be left alone, though they are often targeted by hobgoblin raiders that use them as slaves in their legions.
Hobgoblins are a constant threat in Nakaltia, they have taken the western grasslands and the northern mountains and continue to assault the northern dwarven stronghold of Cal Beron and the fortress of Beras to the northeast which guards one of the few entrances left to the Deepway roads linking the older dwarven cities.
To the north is the forested nation of Zalcoryn, a land ruled by a city full of madmen - alchemists, wizards, artificers and scientists. Founded by one of the most infamous of the ancient Archmages, Katrina Moonsinger, her lack of human decency and evasive morality seemed to have been the founding building blocks of their society. The forests are filled with their horrific creations and while Nakaltia and Zalcoryn maintain peaceful relations, the two are far from friendly with each other, though a major river does provide a profitable and busy trade route between them. Zalcoryn is still preferable to the nation that they act as a buffer for - to the north of them is the edges of the nation of Krive Del, and home to the harsh, warmongering volkar (minotaurs) and rofka (dogmen) and their hateful fire gods.
To the south is the pastoral meadows and farmlands of Valexys, populated primarily by humans, ilian (lightfoot halflings), cathian (a race of people with animal features, created through magic thousands of years ago) and the only surviving hobbits in the world, thought to have been wiped out by the Archmage Katrina millennia ago. Valexys is a peaceful region with no centralized government, but instead has many localized governments based around the various settlements and farmsteads. Beyond the southern shores Valexys is a narrow sea strait, which separates Threxantra from the great elven nation of Misantil.
To the west is the Ahl-Dimaryne Ocean, where somewhere far to the west is the nation of Darshiniath, where traders on massive zigguart ships the size of villages come from, bringing exotic goods from their homeland to trade int he port town of Otwar on the western coast.
To the east are the swamps of Dontholl Mex, said to have once been ruled by a living god, it is now a dangerous a cursed place, where diminutive swamp elves control the swamp to drown visitors and violent bullywugs and lizardfolk devour anyone they capture. And beyond that is the cursed forest of Katrica, where the massive trees themselves can move and speak, and are said to have a thirst for the blood of mortals. This is where the strange sethi elves live, lurking in the dark below the canopy, never knowing if they are the hunter or the hunted in that evil place.
Beyond those dreadful places are the human nations and the war torn nations of the orcs and ogres.
