Oracus
Oracus is a dark land, and not just metaphorically. It is northern land made temperate by the trade currents of the Hinder Ocean and warm southern winds, but is currently in the midst of what the scholars and the wags call “Le Ice Petite” -- the Small Ice. Gray clouds hang above the country in day and night, thinning enough only to reveal the cold gaze of the full moon now and again. Fogs and rains are perpetual; and cold winds from the north chill both body and soul.
Oracus is also a land of dark fables, bloody wars, and cold warlords who rule their fiefdoms from within sprawling castles built in a time of architectural greatness that is long past and bow only to the distant Stone Queen in her fortress at Cair di Demonaica. To be less than a lady or lord in this time is to live a life of hardship and strife, even in these days when art and science is on the rise against the perniciousness of ignorance and children’s stories of wolves who can turn into men.
Oracus was not always like this. Before the shifting of the warm waters and the coming of the cold, in a Long Ago that is spoken of in terms of centuries, back to the time of the Once King Who Will Be Again, Oracus was a land of sunshine and kind rule, and though there might have been trolls and giants and dragons, these were hunted and slain by the Knights of the White Robe or by Heroes of the Crown. The Once King, Aranthur, ruled wisely beneath a blue sky, over rich fields. But he was slain, so the stories go, by his brother, Eranthur Brighthanded, his body made a husk, and the brother ascended the throne. This led to a time of dissolution and war, when the great castles of Oracus were built in their impregnable locations, raised by lost engineering and magic both holy and of witchy origin.
Type
Continent
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