Aerune is a vast, wild, and intensely magical world within the multiverse.
The easily-reachable continents, the well-known world, lie before you on a deftly-painted map.
HEARTSRAIN, UMARDOTHIEL, MOLTHUTH
Turn your eyes to the two main continents, each roughly the size of Australia. Elomawan is the center of civilization, historically a land of elves and Ophidians, both peoples rich in culture and magical prowess. Though other races may have pushed the last elves from the mainland of Elomawan, humans have made the inland freshwater sea of Heartsrain a bustling center of waterborne trade. The elves retreated to Umardothiel, a large island cloaked in a perpetual fog of cold rain and deep winter, and since most other races suffer poorly from such an environment, the elves were left alone in their last bastion.
Not far from Umardothiel is a tiny island of Molthuth, a magic-torn land of patchwork terrain and lightning-slashed sky that reveals glimpses of other planes. A small colony of tieflings lives here and guards the skies from other races who might bring the heavens crashing down on them all.
EASTERN ELOMAWAN, BRAGASH ISLAND
Moving southwards, we find humans trading freely with the Ophidian empire to the east, offering human-made contraptions, armor, and weaponry in exchange for alchemical wonders, potions, and bottled spells. As far as the humans are concerned, the mystical and venomous Ophidians buffer them from the horde-like half-orcs to the east and the barbaric half-giants to the south.
To the Ophidians, however, the half-orcs provide hearty leathers and woodcrafts, and the half-giants trade stonework and strangely enchanted stones. The half-orcs, tribal and proud but not without a sense of the greater world beyond their clans, are content to hold their territory with its abundance of cold grasslands, evergreen forests, and ample coastline. The musclebound half-giants, simple and often solitary, live out their long lives in the sparse forests and dry, craggy mountains with little care for the outside lands.
NIRADON
The elves and the Ophidians trade with the undersea people of Niradon, of which few other races are even aware. To the human empire that coats fully half of Niradon’s bordering shoreline, the merfolk are a myth, a superstition, a folktale to be laughed off over a round of ale. The Ophidians and elves find them to be excellent scholars of lore and traders of fine, strange jewelry and unidentifiable treasures buried for centuries in the deep. The merfolk guard their homes and their hoards fiercely, but are very civil to their trading partners when they meet in the shallows.
SOUTHWEST ELOMAWAN, FRAGMENTS OF GWAELLE
In the west, human nations encircle the mountainous, inhospitable territory that the goblins cling to. Though there is no open war, there is little question that the goblins, small and scrappy and clever, have been pressed into their strongholds at altitudes unfriendly to humans. To the far west, seafaring and forest-walking satyrs thrive in the thick jungles and bay-pocked coastlines, trading with anything that can speak Common.
Other races have made little progress against their fey-shielded territory, and the proud dragonborn to the south are likewise unmoving. Dragonborn, the humanoid bastard children of the true dragons of Qelira, hold their land with a ferocity and a fastness not unlike their mighty ancestors. Though they are firm in their borders, they are not hostile to others and do carefully trade with the satyrs, goblins, and even humans who are their neighbors.
To the south of Elomawan's southern coast lie a scattered set of islands called the Fragments of Gwaelle. Full-blooded giants reside here, and they tell stories of the first giant, the Titan Mother herself, Gwaelle, whose broken body and ancient bones comprise the islands that bear her name.
QELIRA, CHAIGOWIA
The large isle of Qelira does not accept visitors. The true dragons abide there in mystery, forms and names sinking nearly into legend but for the palpable fact of their presence on the horizon. Their dragonborn grandchildren on the mainland of Elomawan act as their representatives in greater society, establishing traditions of arcana and history and scholarship.
But the drakonka, the shrunken and wingless offshoot of true dragon bloodlines, were cut off from their progenitors as a weak and unworthy subrace. They retreated to the northern island of Chaigowia and still struggle to create their own independent culture, mimicking the true dragons that abandoned them. They are only slowly beginning to explore the wider world of Aerune outside their secluded island. Drakonka have a tense relationship with dragonborn, as each views the other as a less worthy and less valid descendent of the true dragons of Qelira.
ELM SHERAS
To the north of Elomawan is the mighty island of Elm Sheras, a sanctuary of civilization whose architecture has lasted centuries. On Elm Sheras, the elves still maintain a section of the rolling cities, most of which they constructed an eon past, while the humans contribute to this isle which seems to act as the capitol of Aerune itself. All races are represented here, both with political power and as common citizens, from the proliferous humans to the rare and foreign tieflings.
Elm Sheras is a land of peace and law where war and poverty cannot gain foothold for long. Where rich cities of politics and trade do not stand, the land is peppered with the finest magical and academic institutions of Aerune, many with the largest and most complete libraries of the known world. A “pilgrimage to Elm Sheras” to learn and complete one’s magical or scholarly training is very common among those fortunate enough to be able to go.
NORTHEAST FERAWETH
Across the Trade Sea from Elomawan, Feraweth lies in the west, an equal-sized but less-settled continent. Powerful centaurs control a wide swath of easternmost land ending in a peninsula, and while they rarely sail, they welcome satyr and human sailors and traders. They act as a shield against what might have been colonists from other races, had the centaur nation not been so well-ordered and alert over their expanses of desert and plains and dry hills. To the west of the centaurs are the aarakocra, a highly-organized nation of social but hierarchal flying humanoids. The aarakocra enjoy a fertile land of mixed evergreen and deciduous forests, where the hunting and foraging are plentiful and farming is not necessary.
To the west of their lands is a deep, compass-shattering forest haunted with feral magic. Within those shadowed eaves, beastfolk and shifters and monsters prowl their lands with primal intensity. No other race encroaches on their woodlands, but they do share their home with lizardfolk, who live simple and primitive lives around the soggy shores of Ladylake.
HIAVHOS, WHITEMARK ISLANDS
To the northwest of the wilderness called Krimisthaal is a large, unsettled island called Hiavhos. It is primarily is a swath of cold desert, populated by monsters and monstrous races.
South of Hiavhos is a chain of islands called Whitemark for the chalk-pale jagged stone that crests many of their silhouettes. The Whitemark Islands host a cluster of settlements called the Godhurst Colonies, home to the newest mortal race to grace Aerune--a half-insectoid, half-humanoid people called threshers.
SOUTHWEST FERAWETH
Towards the south of those northern races, the land breaks up into varied territories. Reptilian kobolds hold the mountain range in the center of Feraweth, quick and agile and avoiding nearly any enemy that may try to scale their snowy slopes or break into their cave networks. They still maintain a stretch of woodland to the south of their mountains, largely by virtue of being hard to catch and very good with an arrow from the shadows. Their neighbors to the east are gnomes, to the southwest are halflings, and to the southeast are dwarves, making a very large part of Feraweth the home of small humanoids.
Kobolds are surprisingly civil neighbors, not particularly eager to expand aggressively, content to utilize and improve upon the resources of their own territories. The gnomes and the halflings have similar lands, deeply green with deciduous forests and lush meadows, their coastlines rich with saltwater fishing. They utilize these lands somewhat differently, with gnomes living close to the natural world in nomadic bands or small villages and halflings building comfortable small towns surrounded by orchards and small patches of fertile farmland. The dwarves enjoy a colder, drier, and rockier land thick with ore and gems, which they use to build their family city-states and secure their descendents’ riches.
And in the central east, sandwiched between kobold and dwarvish mountains and the glittering sea of the Blueblood, another nation of Ophidians, these ones non-venomous, live and trade. They are less magical and civilized than their Elomawan kin, but they are no less intelligent and open to many relations with other races. Their specialization is more physical, with weapons and swiftness and choking coils, and their neighbors respect their prowess.
HISTORY
History is clear and recorded in many places, in many scripts. The true dragons were once conquerors and scholars, before too many heroes cut their numbers down and forced them to retreat to Qelira. Shorter-lived races chased the elves back to Umardothiel, but the tieflings came down from the broken sky to Molthuth, near aliens to Aerune and its inhabitants. How true dragons gave birth to drakonka and dragonborn, and why the two races are so drastically different, is not known to anyone but the dragons themselves, who are no longer sharing their knowledge.
Civilization never had a strong hold on Feraweth, unlike Elomawan, but it once had a better foothold via the dwarves and centaurs. [update needed] Once the wildness of Feraweth was established as paramount, the dwarves and centaurs kept to their own lands and did not press west.
On Elomawan, elvish empires shrank and retreated under the expansion of other races, and the rising population of half-orcs and half-giants also began nudging at formerly-static borders. Only Elm Sheras has stayed untouched by the tides of time and the rise and fall of empires, retaining its equality and inclusivity as much of Aerune reverts to wilderness or tribal hands.
