Also known as the realm of the Fae. This is the world from which magic flows strongest and the one that is naturally closest to ours. It is a world of strange forests and sweeping planes, filled with monsters, bands of wildlings and the fabled Golden City. The Golden City is where the High Court of the Fae normally convenes, from a distance it is incomparably beautiful, shimmering like a golden diamond day or night. But no human who has ventured close to it has ever returned.
Lauriea is a land of impossible beauty and calculated danger where the veil between wonder and terror is gossamer-thin. This central continent serves as the crown jewel of Fae territories, its landscape meticulously cultivated over millennia to reflect the aesthetic sensibilities of its immortal masters.
Dominating the exact center of Lauriea stands the Golden City, a metropolis of such architectural splendor that mortal minds struggle to comprehend its full scope. Towers of liquid metal solidified mid-flow reach toward skies that shift color with the emotional tenor of the city’s rulers. The streets follow patterns based on mathematical principles unknown to human scholars, creating a labyrinth that seems to rearrange itself when not directly observed. At the city’s heart rises the Palace of Changing Seasons, where the High Court of the Fae, comprising representatives from all major and minor courts, convenes to settle disputes and coordinate the grand machinations that occupy immortal attention.
Radiating outward from the Golden City, perfectly straight roads of polished stone cut through the landscape like sunbeams, each exactly one hundred feet wide and enchanted to remain clear of obstruction regardless of the wilderness that presses against their edges. These arterial highways extend in every direction until they reach the coast, facilitating the movement of Fae processions and the transportation of tribute from outlying territories.
The forests of Lauriea represent the pinnacle of Fae manipulation, ancient trees with bark of deep purple or midnight blue, their canopies forming perfect geometric patterns when viewed from above. These woods are carefully tended by the Sylvan Fae, who shape living matter as a sculptor shapes clay. The most renowned of these forest-shapers, Lord Thornheart, spent three centuries creating the Labyrinth of Whispers, where trees grow in tight corridors that capture and transmute the sounds of visitors, sometimes preserving conversations for decades until another traveler passes to hear them.
Human presence in Lauriea is strictly controlled, with most mortals existing as direct servants or possessions of Fae nobles. The Palace of Changing Seasons alone houses over a thousand human attendants, their lives extended through Fae magic to provide centuries of service. These servants are marked by elaborate tattoos that denote their owner and function, with the most valued bearing marks that glow with inner light.
The coastal regions of Lauriea host the Ports of Exchange, where vessels constructed from materials that should not float, glass, stone, or occasionally the bones of extinct creatures, dock to unload treasures and curiosities from distant realms.
Beneath the surface splendor of Lauriea runs a current of ancient tensions and rivalries. The seeming harmony of the Golden City masks countless intrigues among the Fae courts, each maneuvering for position and influence in games of power that have continued uninterrupted for thousands of years. Mortal visitors who fail to recognize these underlying dynamics often become unwitting pieces in plots spanning generations, their entire lives representing nothing more than a single move in a game whose rules they cannot hope to comprehend.
Nissenia stretches across the eastern expanse of the Other, with deep emerald forests that give way to sun-dappled meadows, while distant mountain ranges cradle valleys of perpetual spring. Unlike much of the Other, Nissenia hosts a substantial human population, souls who have either escaped direct Fae servitude or whose ancestors made complex pacts that allow for a measure of independence seldom seen elsewhere.
The continent is divided into loosely defined territories, their boundaries shifting with the whims of the Fae courts that claim dominion over them. Between the major seasonal courts exist countless lesser courts and independent Fae, each with their own territories and peculiar demands upon the mortals within their reach. Some desire nothing more than entertainment or companionship, while others collect specific emotions or memories, leaving their victims altered in subtle but profound ways.
The forests of Nissenia teem with creatures born of Fae experimentation or imagination, later abandoned to roam freely. The Chimeric Woods in the central region are particularly infamous, home to beasts combining aspects of multiple animals in ways that often defy natural law. Hunters brave enough to enter these woods can obtain materials of incredible rarity and power, but many never return, or perhaps worse, return fundamentally changed.
Ancient roads of smooth, opalescent stone crisscross the continent, remnants of an era when the Fae took greater interest in structured governance. These paths still maintain some of their original enchantments; travelers report accelerated journeys, protection from minor threats, and occasionally, conversations with the roads themselves, which seem to retain fragmentary awareness of all who have ever walked upon them.
Celestriana rises from the western reaches of the Other, a jagged monument to nature’s most sublime and terrible aspects. Towering mountains of obsidian and quartz catch the light of twin moons, creating a landscape that seems to shimmer and shift when viewed from different angles.
The terrain is dominated by the Spire Mountains, whose peaks are said to pierce the very fabric of reality, allowing glimpses into other worlds through the aurora-like phenomena that dance between them. Within these mountains lie countless caves and ravines, many leading to vast underground networks that the few human inhabitants have learned to navigate by necessity rather than choice.
Most notorious among these cavern systems is the Labyrinth of Echoes, where sounds repeat and distort until they transform into voices that whisper secrets or madness, depending on the listener. Fae lords occasionally use this natural wonder as a venue for their more elaborate games, releasing captives into the maze and wagering on how long they survive before the darkness claims them.
The largest human settlement, Solace, exists in a deep valley protected by natural formations that disrupt the hunting patterns of nocturnal predators. Built primarily underground with only minimal structures visible on the surface, the community has survived for seven generations by maintaining strict protocols: no fires after sunset, no metal objects that might gleam in moonlight, and no children allowed outside the central chambers until they can recite the complete Litany of Silence, the formal rules of quiet and not drawing attention.
By day, Celestriana offers resources worth the considerable risk, rare crystals with inherent magical properties, herbs that grow nowhere else in the Other, and the precious, luminous fungi that serve as both food sources and trading commodities for the human enclaves. Gathering expeditions are carefully timed and coordinated, with sentries posted to watch for the first signs of dusk.
Abandoned Fae structures dot the landscape, elegant ruins of impossible architecture left behind when their creators grew bored or moved on to new diversions. The wisest travelers use these locations sparingly and never twice in succession.
This is the place where the gods reside; it is also supposedly filled with monsters and wondrous things. Few sane men cross the gateway into the realm of the Gods without due caution, for the politics of the God Houses are fierce and brutal, and the divine do not take kindly to unwanted intrusion.
In the frozen expanse of the northern reaches lies Northgard, a realm of perpetual winter and breathtaking beauty. Vast glaciers stretch to the horizon, their blue-white surfaces reflecting the aurora that dances across the night sky for months at a time. This harsh land demands respect and offers little mercy to the unprepared, yet it holds wonders unmatched in all the Godrealm.
The Crown of Winter dominates the center of Northgard, a city carved almost entirely from ice which often glows at night as counterpoint to the aurora borealis overhead.
Scattered across the tundra are the Hearth Settlements, where the hardiest of mortals carve out an existence. These communities are built around massive fire pits that have burned continuously for generations, fed by the rendered fat of great beasts and magical fuels. The largest of these, Ember’s Cradle, hosts the annual Hunt Festival where warriors compete to bring down the largest game, earning not only honor but also the right to petition the gods directly.
To the west lies the Whispering Waste, a seemingly endless plain of snow where visibility can drop to nothing in mere seconds when the wind rises. Travelers report hearing voices in the howling gales; some claim these are merely the tricks of a mind strained by cold and isolation, while others insist they are the spirits of those who perished in the waste. The plains are also full of predators, such as the Pale Walker, a massive bear-like creature with translucent fur that makes it nearly invisible against the snow until it is too late to flee.
Beneath the ice sheets of northern Northgard lies the Undercroft, a network of caverns and tunnels warmed by hot springs and geothermal vents. This hidden ecosystem supports bizarre flora and fauna found nowhere else in the Godrealm.
Anupharis unfolds under a relentless sun, a vast tapestry of ochre and gold woven from endless dunes and shimmering heat haze. This southern jewel of the Godrealm is a testament to both divine might and mortal tenacity. Ages ago, drawn by the earth’s hidden wealth, gods shaped the very sands, raising cyclopean monuments and cities whose geometries defy mortal understanding. The grandest, Aethelgard, the City of Brass and Sunstone, stands not upon the sands but seems to grow from their depths.
The city is constructed around a colossal sundial that serves not only to mark the passage of time but also as an intricate calendar predicting celestial events. The High Priests of the Sun Temple control access to the city’s central oasis, the largest in all Anupharis, using this power to maintain their authority.
Scattered throughout the dunes are the Life Wells, oases that serve as vital waypoints for desert caravans. Each is jealously guarded by nomadic clans who have developed intricate water-sharing rituals and laws older than many kingdoms. The most sacred of these, the Oasis of First Dawn, is said to have waters that grant visions of the future.
Beneath the sands slither the Dunebreakers, colossal sand serpents whose passage creates temporary valleys and whose shed scales are prized for armor that turns aside both blade and spell. The desert also harbors the dreaded Grit Storms, localized tempests of sand that can strip flesh from bone in moments. Some claim these storms are sentient, hunting those who disturb ancient burial sites.
To the west, the Godspine Mountains rise like the vertebrae of some primordial titan. Their caves and deep valleys serve as sanctuaries for the undergods, lesser divinities who find the politics of the greater houses too treacherous. Deep in the mountains is the Sunken Quarter, a region where ancient cataclysm caused miles of desert to collapse, revealing a lost city of black glass and tarnished silver.
In the deep desert, where even the nomads fear to tread, stand the Titan Bones, massive skeletal remains of beings that predate even the gods. Some ribs arch hundreds of feet into the air, creating natural shelters where strange cults perform rituals to entities best left unnamed. The marrow within these ancient bones is known to be a valuable ingedient for many arcanists.
Rhagost is characterized by rolling emerald plains, ancient forests, and towering snow-capped mountain ranges. Here, human settlements have managed to flourish in the shadows of their divine masters, creating a patchwork of city- states, baronies, and free towns.
The great city of Luminaris stands at the continent’s heart, its alabaster towers and golden domes visible for leagues across the Verdant Plains. With a large crystal spire at its center, the city serves as neutral ground where divine emissaries and mortal diplomats alike may treat with one another without fear of celestial retribution.
To the east lie the Whispering Woods, where the trees grow tall enough to scrape the underside of the heavens. The woods are full of bandits and mythological monsters, making them a dangerous locale to visit, but also a good hiding place from the agents of the divine houses, those who oppose divine rule often live in these places.
The western shores are dominated by the Seven Harbor Cities, a loose confederation of trading ports where merchant princes worship gold as fervently as any god. Their ships, venture to the farthest corners of the Godrealm and occasionally beyond, returning with exotic treasures and stranger tales.
Atop the peak of Mount Theogon is the Academy of Service, a towering temple of stone where angels and those of angel blood train the next generation of servants to the gods and maintain libraries and host debates on the nature of service.
The Blood Fields of southern Rhagost serve as grim reminder of the last time two of the godly houses went to war, the field carpeted in blood-red flowers that grow with almost preternatural speed even now, five centuries later.
Hell used to be a world not unlike our own, but a long time ago a vicious war broke out between two groups of powerful sorcerers, and they turned to fleshforming to create living weapons to send to the battlefield. Creatures with no purpose but to kill, destroy and cause suffering. As the war progressed these creatures became more and more deadly until the sorcerers created creatures capable of creating even better creatures. From this point it wasn’t long before the entire world was overrun by these living weapons, now usually called demons. Magic users from all other planes sealed the doors between their worlds and hell, trapping them inside. But they are always there, and always looking for a way to cross over and carry out their only goal, to bring death, destruction and misery.
Far removed from the central bureaucracy of Hell’s administrative core and the perpetual carnage of the Eternal War Fronts lies District 82, a mostly forgotten corner of the infernal realm where neglect has created an unexpected haven for those who exist on the margins of demonic society. This expansive territory centers around the vast expanse of the Black Forest, whose twisted trees grow to impossible heights, their branches intertwining to create a canopy so dense that in some areas, no light penetrates to the forest floor.
The district’s primary settlement, Refuge, sprawls along the forest’s eastern edge, a haphazard collection of structures built from scavenged materials, bone, chitin, and the hardened secretions of various hell-beasts. Originally established as a temporary camp for deserters from the Third Legion during the Obsidian Rebellion, the settlement has grown over centuries into a permanent community with its own peculiar social order. Governance falls to the Council of Necessity, comprised of representatives from the settlement’s major factions: deserter demons and a few desperate escapees.
Deep within the Black Forest stands the Grove of Whispers, where trees with bark like polished onyx grow in perfect circles around pools of luminescent liquid that neither evaporates nor can be removed from its depression. These pools serve as neutral ground for clandestine meetings and illicit trades, as they dampen all magical surveillance and prevent violence within their immediate vicinity, a property that many believe indicates they predate the realm corrupting into hell.
The northwestern quadrant of District 82 hosts the Reclamation Fields, where failed experiments in fleshforming are discarded by the other legions. This grotesque landscape of partially formed bodies and autonomous limbs is carefully harvested by the district’s flesh-crafters, who have developed techniques to stabilize and repurpose these castoffs.
Beneath the surface of District 82 runs an extensive network of tunnels, originally excavated as emergency evacuation routes during Hell’s early civil wars but long since abandoned by official forces. These passages, known collectively as the Undertrade, serve as both transportation system and marketplace for goods that would be confiscated or destroyed in more regulated areas of Hell. Access to the Undertrade is jealously guarded by the Tunnel Wardens, a loose confederation of demons who have evolved to thrive in perpetual darkness.
The greatest danger facing District 82 comes not from within but from periodic “cleansing operations” launched by Hell’s central administration, typically when a new commander rises to power and seeks to demonstrate authority by enforcing compliance in outlying regions. These campaigns rarely penetrate deep into the Black Forest, as the trees themselves seem to respond to intrusion, shifting positions to confuse invaders and occasionally exhibiting more direct defensive capabilities against larger forces.
For those seeking to escape notice in the infernal realms, District 82 offers a harsh but viable alternative to the rigid hierarchies and constant warfare that characterize much of Hell.
The Wilds is a world resembling the primordial, wild Earth, as it was millions of years ago. It is also the home of most wildlings; although there is a human diaspora to be found in the Godrealm and the Other, the vast majority call this untamed realm home. The Wildlings are humans who live in the Wilds, depending on the location they vary in sophistication from spear-wielding tribesmen to castle building kings. The Wilds is also home to amazing earth-like creatures, both animals that exist today as well as animals that did exist or present ones grown to a huge size. It is a place with wolves the size of houses, mammoths and even dinosaurs.
Westrend stands defiant against the churning seas that batter its rocky shores; a vast continent of mist-shrouded valleys, ancient forests, and mountains that pierce the very clouds. Here, the people are as unyielding as the land itself, organized into clans and holds that have waged war and forged peace in cycles as predictable as the harsh winters that blanket the land.
The Five Great Holds dominate the political landscape, each centered around a massive stone fortress carved into mountain sides or perched atop seemingly inaccessible peaks. Largest among these is Grimhold, whose granite walls stand three hundred feet high and enclose enough land to feed its population even during the longest sieges. Its current lord, Jarl Hrothgar Bonetide, claims descent from Westrend’s legendary first king, though such claims are common among the nobility.
Between these mighty strongholds lie countless smaller settlements, from coastal fishing villages to isolated hunting lodges deep within the primeval Blackwood Forest. Life in these communities follows the rhythms of nature: summer months spent farming, fishing, and raiding; winter spent in great communal halls where skalds recount ancient sagas and craftspeople ply their trades by firelight.
The coastal waters surrounding Westrend teem with leviathans and sea serpents, making fishing a profession as dangerous as it is necessary. The most feared of these creatures, the Kraken of Stormscar Deep, is said to be massive enough to engulf entire ships within its maw. Yet even the cousins of this great creature are hunted by the daring sailors of the Northfjord Harpooners, who seek its ink for scribing unbreakable contracts and its bones for crafting weapons of extraordinary strength.
The horses of Westrend deserve their legendary reputation; as swift as mountain winds, intelligent enough to respond to whistled commands from hundreds of yards away, and brave enough to charge directly at creatures twice their size. The finest specimens come from the Thunder Plains, where semi-wild herds roam under the loose stewardship of the nomadic Plainstrider clans. Exceptional Westrend thoroughbreds can cost as much as a small ship and is considered a diplomatic gift worthy of kings.
Recent decades have seen increasing contact between the Holds and foreign powers, particularly merchants from the Kingdom of Nar seeking to establish trade routes for Westrend’s prized iron, furs, and horses. These overtures have been met with characteristic suspicion by most jarls, though a growing faction advocates for stronger alliances to counter the looming threat of Imperial expansion.
Navorost unfolds beneath a canopy of vibrant skies; a land where fertile coastal plains give way to rolling hills and dense interior jungles. Three great rivers, the Serpentine, the Goldflow, and the Mistral, flow from distant shores to intersect in the central highlands, their waters sustaining countless settlements along their meandering courses.
The Kingdom of Nar claims dominion over the western half of the continent, its borders defined by a series of stone keeps. The ancient city of Kingfisher Landing on the coast serves as their capital of the region, although it has fallen heavily into decline and squalor.
The port city of New Illaris represents the Empire’s most substantial foothold, a planned community of precise grid streets and uniform white-stone buildings that stands in stark contrast to the organic growth of native settlements.
The eastern reaches of Navorost remain largely untamed, home to dozens of nomadic tribes collectively known as the People. On the plains is the sacred city of Nara’Khet which sprawls across seven hills at the confluence of the Serpentine and Goldflow rivers; a mixture of a few ancient, worn stone buildings and thousands of colorful tents which come and go with the seasons.
The rivers themselves are lifelines but also sources of danger, home to giant crocodilians and predatory aquatic beasts. In recent years, unsettling rumors have drifted downriver and along the coasts whisper of Illarin Empire surveyors sighted along the northern borders and warships mapping the eastern shores. While Nar officials publicly dismiss these reports, fortifications are quietly being strengthened, and a palpable tension underlies the surface prosperity, hinting at a looming conflict for control of Navorost’s rich lands. Deep within the jungle interior, crumbling ziggurats and vine-strangled statues speak of even older civilizations, perhaps connected to the rumoured eastern continent, their secrets guarded by the encroaching wilderness and its formidable megafauna.
Gharrek stretches beneath an endless sky, a continent of extremes where howling tundra winds give way to scorching scrubland heat, and where the clash between ancient ways and imperial ambition plays out across vast, unforgiving distances. Here, the horizon seems infinite, broken only by weathered stone formations that rise like ancient sentinels from seas of waving grass.
The southern reaches, where the Kingdom of Nar maintains its tenuous hold, center around the fortress-city of Last Stand. Built atop a massive granite mesa, the city earned its name during the War of Three Winters when Nar forces held against overwhelming odds. Today, it serves as both military garrison and trading post, where hardy merchants exchange furs, preserved meats, and rare tundra herbs for grain and manufactured goods from the warmer lands.
North of Nar’s borders, the Illarin Dynasty has imposed its rigid order upon the steppes through a network of garrison towns and patrol roads. The regional capital of Triumph’s Gate showcases Imperial engineering at its most ambitious, a planned city of concentric walls and aqueducts that channel meltwater from distant mountains. Yet for all its grandeur, the city feels like an island of stone in an ocean of grass, forever alien to the land it claims to rule.
The native tribes of Gharrek, collectively known as the Windwalker Clans, have seen their traditional migration routes disrupted by Imperial expansion. Many now cluster in designated settlement zones, their proud horseback culture slowly eroding under policies that favor sedentary agriculture. Others have retreated to the Bleached Wastes in the far north, where even Imperial patrols fear to venture, maintaining their ancestral ways among the wandering herds of woolly rhinoceros and the massive, shaggy aurochs.
The eastern scrublands harbor their own mysteries. Here, the Singing Stones, towering natural monoliths that emit haunting tones when the wind passes through their weathered hollows-mark sacred sites older than memory. Imperial scholars dismiss the local beliefs that these stones mark places where the world grows thin, yet patrol reports consistently note unusual wildlife behavior and unexplained phenomena in their vicinity.
Beneath Gharrek’s sparse soil lies unexpected wealth: veins of a meteoric metal prized for its ability to hold enchantments, and deposits of crystallized mammoth ivory from the great beasts that until recently dominated these plains. Control of these resources drives much of the current tension, as Nar prospectors, Imperial mining consortiums, and displaced tribal groups all stake competing claims.
The fauna of Gharrek has adapted to its harsh extremes. Dire wolves hunt in coordinated packs across the tundra, while the southern scrublands host prides of saber-toothed cats larger than any found elsewhere in the Wilds. Most fearsome of all are the storm bears of the northern reachesmassive ursines whose thick, white fur crackles with static electricity, allowing them to stun prey with a single swipe of their enormous paws.
Shrouded in perpetual mist and surrounded by treacherous reefs, Navvere rises from the eastern seas like a fevered dream, a verdant, volcanic isle where law is merely a suggestion and freedom must be paid for with vigilance. This island-nation defies both Illarin Imperial cartography and conventional governance, existing as a patchwork of territories controlled by rival pirate captains, smuggler kings, and mercenary companies.
The port city of Blackwater dominates the eastern coast, its sprawling docks and warehouses built from the weathered timber of captured vessels. The city operates under the loose governance of the Captain’s Council, thirteen pirate lords who meet in the upper chambers of the Drowned Court, a grand hall constructed from the salvaged hulk of an Imperial flagship. Here, disputes are settled with words when possible, steel when necessary, and never with Imperial law.
Inland, the jungle-covered slopes of Mount Karthex conceal the ruins of an ancient civilization predating even the oldest Imperial records. Expeditions into these ruins seldom return whole, if at all, yet the promise of forgotten artifacts and esoteric knowledge continues to lure the ambitious and the desperate alike.
Off the southern coast is the Smuggler’s Archipelago, a labyrinthine network of coves, hidden beaches, and submerged caves where contraband from across the realms changes hands. The most notorious of these, Siren’s Cove, is said to be protected by ancient pacts with creatures from The Fae, ensuring that Imperial vessels approaching its waters inexplicably lose their way or find themselves dashed against suddenly appearing reefs.
This is a place that even the forces of Hell fear. The void is nothingness, a huge black vacuum. Far from lifeless however, it is home to a myriad of mammoth Cthulian nightmares that float through the darkness and wait for millions of years in the void, always hungry. The creatures of the void have no known disciples on earth and nobody not entirely genocidal would ever open a door there – the entire world could be sucked through like opening a black hole or one of the creatures could come through and set about devouring our universe as they did their own.
These are worlds that are made entirely of a particular element, this is a water plane, a fire plane, a lightning plane and so on. The only creatures to inhabit these inhospitable climes consist entirely from the same elements as the planes they call home. While many such creatures are quite primitive, some exhibit remarkable sophistication and intelligence.
The dreamscape is a psychic realm accessible to all sentient beings during sleep, though normal people rarely enter it more than once or twice in their lifetime. Supernaturals and New Haven residents can access it almost nightly if they choose. Within this realm, dreamers inhabit various identities and scenarios influenced by their subconscious desires and real-world circumstances, someone wishing to fly might dream of being a bird, while someone held captive might manifest as a prisoner of war. Dreamers remain unaware they’re dreaming until they wake, retaining unusually sharp memories of their experiences compared to normal dreams.
While the dreamscape offers limitless possibilities for exploration and fantasy, it carries significant risks for those who overindulge. Frequent visitors may become addicted to its freedoms, spending increasing time living out fantasies and engaging in consequence-free experiences, including intimate encounters that lack physical sensation or results. However, excessive dreamscape use leads to withdrawal from reality, physical weakness, and psychological issues like agoraphobia. Those who favor dreamscape experiences over real-world connections suffer diminishing life force and develop emotional and physical dysfunctions, particularly when dream activities significantly outshine their mundane counterparts.