Thassilon Today

Spanning all over western Avistan, Thassilon’s holdings ranged from jagged mountains to rolling hillocks, from verdant forests to rich grasslands. The woodlands were once all tamed, its mountains heavily mined, and its cities well watered by artificial rivers. The runelords used their powerful magic and the backs of enslaved giants to mold the very earth to their grandiose liking, and the scale of their work was so great that it remains visible to this day.

Thassilon’s days as a well-connected, thriving empire are long gone; Varisia’s own lands mirror the environments of that ancient kingdom, but are largely covered by mountain peaks and desolate valleys, and two of Thassilon’s old provinces are mostly sunken beneath the western sea. Today, the centers of trade and inf luence are independent city-states such as Magnimar and Korvosa. Much of the physical remains of Thassilon’s art and architecture have simply been lost to time, despite protective enchantments and hardy construction. The erosion of 10,000 years has destroyed Thassilon’s textiles, books, and weak magical items, and even much of its religion and faith.

The people of the region are marked by the struggles of their forebears: doughty humans in the lowlands and all manner of giants in the Kodar Mountains and Storval Plateau. The Varisians and Shoanti of this realm still whisper of their tyrannical masters in the myths of their people, though the specifics of Thassilon have been long lost to all but scholars—most commoners attribute the monumental works dotting their lands simply to “old giants,” not even aware of the name of Thassilon.

Despite—or perhaps because of—their great antiquity, many Thassilonian ruins remain undiscovered and others are only partially explored.