Suto
Suto is the southernmost, and the most seismically active of the three continents, divided by a line of volcanoes. It lacks iron ore, but is well-supplied in sulphur and clay and is noted for its explosive powder. With much of the land taken up by volcanic slopes and basalt floes, the continent also lacks growing land. As a result, settlement is sparse and populations small compared to the other continents, with the cities of Suto clustered in valleys and flood plains made rich by volcanic ash.
The continent is divided into six regions, both in terms of climate and politics: The Pirate Principalities, the Free Kingdoms, the Scaled Kingdoms and Blackrock, the Empty Quarter, Grunga - notionally including the deep jungles of the interior - and the Fire Nests.
The coastal highlands of the south-east are made up of basalt terraces overlooking verdant, tropical wetlands which benefit from the proximity of the noonday sun. The population clusters in the latter, in the many port cities of the Pirate Principalities. The terraces are cooler, but still make excellent farmland. This land is controlled in expansive estates owned by the coastal Princes, and the wealth of the port cities is built less on piracy - although that was where much of it started - than on agricultural trade. Only a very limited amount of this wealth finds its way to the people of the terraces, and only to the small fraction of the population who serve the interests of the Princes.
The northern coast is drier, but also flatter, and by area holds almost half of the continent's cultivable land. The coast is broken into a multitude of small kingdoms with economies based on agriculture and fishing. Like the population of the Principalities, most of the people of the northern coast are Humans or Lizardfolk descended from escaped slaves of the Ophionic Empire, although there are also sizable numbers of orcs and hobgoblins. The north-west coast is dominated by a loose mercantile federation known as the Free Kingdoms, while the fisher-states of the north-east hue to a rival alliance known as the Scaled Kingdoms, which enjoys a close alliance with the Triton reef kingdom of Blackrock and has a notable population of Seafolk.
The arid western extreme of the continent is known as the Empty Quarter. While not exactly a desert, the Empty Quarter has almost no arable land. Its people are mostly nomadic hunters, living in small bands. The dominant culture is goliath, and based out of port cities whose primary exports are gems, dyes and spices mined in the Quarter from sources kept secret against all intruders.
The final coastal region is the Grung kingdom of Grunga. Grunga is, by area, the largest city on Aiaos, consisting of a network of platform-built districts spanning the mighty delta of the River Ranai. Many from more arcitechturally ambitious cultures see the raft-city as primitive, but in fact Grunga is home to many individuals and organisations devoted to advanced arcane and scientific study.
For all this, Grunga is but a shadow of its predecessor. Grunga-Grok was a sprawling, stone-built metropolis hugging the slopes of the Firestone mountains and extending across the interior as well as south into the delta. Grunga-Grok was lost in the firenewt schism, however, and the Fire Nests smoulder in its ruins while the interior is now an untamed wilderness.
Type
Continent
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