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Lands of Exile

The Lands of Exile

Head of State: None
System of Government: Independent Strongholds
Major Religions: Balance; Elementalism
Minor Religions: Various; Cults
Languages: Ancient Imperial; Tarn; Chelkra
Major Species: Humans
Minor Species: None
National Descriptor: None / Exiles

A mountainous, rugged, and inhospitable land to the north, this is where the Ancient Empire sends its malcontents and undesirables when it doesn’t simply kill them outright. Generations have made a home here despite its harshness, but the Ancient Empire still views them as merely unwanted exiles and barbarians.

Five Rumours about the Lands of Exile

Rumours may be known by characters who are not from and have not visited the Lands of Exile. This is just a small sample of rumours you might have heard about this harsh and bitter land.

  1. Lands of Exile? Nonsense! It’s just two incredibly grouchy goatherds on a mountain!
  2. The wild Humans of the Lands of Exile do not even understand fire. They live in caves and wear uncured hides to cover themselves against the cold.
  3. Nobody owns the Lands of Exile, because nobody wants them. There is nothing there for anyone – just a nasty inhospitable coast to sail past as swiftly as possible.
  4. There is a great and secret rebellion burning in the heart of the Lands of Exile. When the Ancient Empire has forgotten it exists, it will serve them its bloody revenge glacially cold.
  5. The forgotten bloodlines of long-dead princes live on in secret holdings in the Lands of Exile.

Five Facts about the Lands of Exile

For your OC reference, or IC if your character is from the Lands of Exile or has visited them in the past.

  1. A Pitiless Land: The Lands of Exile are uniformly rugged, rocky, and inhospitable. Crumbling mountains, treacherous ravines, and sudden sinkholes abound, and the landscape alone kills many people every year. Even the shoreline is all sheer cliffs and treacherous shoals.
  2. Exiles’ Memory: Everyone in the Lands of Exile can tell the tale of how they, their parents, grandparents, or further ancestors came to be exiled to this harsh land. Some consider it a liberation, while others nurse a bitter grudge down the generations.
  3. Tight-Knit Communities: It is almost impossible to survive alone for long in the Lands of Exile. Community bonds are valued more highly than any other, and each community will fiercely defend its own to the death regardless of any harm they may have done to others. Causing harm within one’s own community is the greatest taboo, punishable by exile from the community.
  4. Varied Cultures: Every community has its own culture, with its own beliefs, its own stories, and its own manner of interacting with its neighbours. Although people intermarry with reasonable frequency, they always adopt the culture of their new community – or face the consequences.
  5. Scratching a Living: Hunting and farming alike are difficult and potentially deadly in this harsh landscape. The Exiles must spend so much time and effort simply continuing their own existence that anything more than a few tiny raids into the Ancient Empire, South Bylltar (where the two countries more bleed into one another than possess a truly defined border), and Zantia is almost impossible. This doesn’t stop the resentful from dreaming of a grand unified invasion, however.