Eoas is a world brimming with civilization and culture. Where nations have risen across the continents, and expanded their borders across the wilderness. Yet it is a world where fell gods walk, where monstrous beings hunt, and where the ruins of once great empires rise from the countryside. The peoples of the world are aware that theirs are not the first civilizations to rise, and that the great nations before them came to cataclysm ends. That even the gods suffer disaster and catastrophe. That life is precious and a great treasure because of its fragility, its precarious position.
The world of Eoas is a dark fantasy, filled with orcs and dragons, elves and dwarves, powerful mages and undead abominations. It is filled with great cities teeming and bustling with varied and diverse peoples, separated by vast wildernesses of dark forest and ancient caves. The ruins of the ancients dot the lands, and the scars of their wars are found across great swathes of the world. The gods walk the lands, granting magical power to those they deem worthy, and twisting those that offend them into agonized mockeries of their former selves.
The known world is split into three continents: the small continent of Naramun in the north, the vast continent of Zaramun in the south, and great Athol spreading to the east. Myriad species populate the continents, forming dozens of nations, and worshipping their cacophony of gods.
Naramun has historically been dominated by the empire of Baramun, formed by mighty dwarf clans. Its power has waned, however, in recent centuries, as its vassals and slaves has risen against it across the continent. The orcs of Tarvesh, the Empire of Ash, hold the eastern gates of Naramun against the advances of theocratic Aredhest. Though defenders of Naramun against this foreign incursion, they face hatred and derision from their western neighbours. The kobolds of Angukar and Volhov rule the north east, proving fierce competition to the Tarveshti. Sholdezar sits between the two groups, a nation of dwarven, orcish, and kobold stock. The west is held by Ferehkzar, a mixed dwarven and orcish successor to Baramun’s power. Allorthen, an Aredhesti occupied peninsula, sits as a time bomb in the south west. Poor, pitiful, Scremoor is a smoking wasteland in the centre of the continent’s northern reaches. And Vindirholm, humanity’s refuge, is a besieged archipelago that warped into Eoas from another world. Minor powers, such as the gnomish island of Wiheath and its mainland colony of Kharagzar, exist on the fringes.
Zaramun has faced much hardship since the old Lyrengari empire of the dragons fell. The Glass Wastes split the continent, severing nearly all trade and migration from the north to the south. Those nations remaining in the north have faced successive invasions by Aredhest and its Deep Forest, falling one by one to the ents and their empire. Of those nations, Abhainntine, Bethshalem, Eloahshalem, Ghenshalem, and Thakmital are now occupied by the Forest. Their occupation is not merely political, for the Deep Forest spreads where Aredhest does, and their native environments have been replaced by the enchanted forests. This series of conquests has allowed Aredhest to cross northern Zaramun, and then the Erem Sea between Zaramun and Naramun, to gain a foothold in Allorthen. Yet all is not hopeless for Zaramun, as three of the northern nations yet withstand Aredhest’s advances. Arbesh, a nation of ents who do not agree with the imperialist aims of the Deep Forest, exists just south of south of Abhainntine and provides aid to those who resist the Forest’s spread. Elensesh, a powerful empire in its own right, spreads across the south western regions of northern Zaramun, populated by many types of humanoid bugfolk. They, too, resist the spread of the Forest, and wage periodic war on Aredhest from the south. Herensum has no set borders, but instead are nomadic tribes of the deer centaurs who live within the mountains that the Deep Forest has difficulty spreading within, and who fight the occupiers horn and hoof.
Athol, the largest of the continents, is the homeland of the dragons who once united all three continents. Though their empire once spread across the world, the dragons are reduced to the nation of Karthengar, whose name means Stronghold. The new empire that spreads across the world also has its home in Athol, with Aredhest’s core territory being located in central Athol. Aredhest began as a nation of ents, but soon spread to the deer centaurs and elves that lived in proximity to them, with the ents forming symbiotic relationships through their flowered crowned envoys. Aredhest, as a nation, formed to spread the ent-groves and the Deep Forest, and it has done so in a truly amazing fashion. The continent is marked by its split between influence by the ents and the dragons, with most nations either falling into worship of the Forest or the old dragons.
Aside from Aredhest and Karthengar, there are occupied Limgoway with a majority elven population, and occupied Ras Tasqalidi, the homeland of the deer centaurs, both held by Aredhest. Gasterai, a nation of goblins, exists on the far eastern coast, protected from the advances of the Forest by many deep channels of salt water and the liberal use of alchemical explosives and defoliants. Mayasaf and Mistogitsu are nations of tengu, also living along the eastern coast, both following the religion of the old dragon empire. Synterai is a nation of shape changing slimes in the south east, another follower of the dragons, and sometimes rival of Gasterai. Ustergant is a vast steppe filled with beastfolk tribes that squabble amongst themselves as often as they cooperate, following neither Forest nor dragon, and agreeing on only their resistance to both. Nargath, the final power in Athol, is a nation of kobolds and beastfolk, who have come together to begin unifying the steppes.
And yet there are more. Nations who are not tied to the continents. The merfolk of the Erem Sea, and merfolk in the Karth Ocean between Zaramun and Athol. A nation of nomadic shape changers called the Asherai, travelling between all the continents, as well. Eoas is a storied and heavily populated world.
In total there are 32 nations, 15 species, and 16 religions filling Eoas. Expect more details on these lands, peoples, and beliefs in the future!
