IRGOSA

Marsanne is a region located in the north of the world, an archipelago of larger and smaller islands. To its east lies Dyranne - the largest continuous landmass in the world, an uninhabitable, cursed wasteland, home to beasts and abominations. Marsanne is vast and diverse in its climates, ranging from cold grass in the north, to sun-baked rocks in the south. One thing it all has in common, however. Instead of vast flatlands, a majority of the landmass is covered by mountains and thick forests, rendering it uninhabitable, except for scattered bands of Hunter-Gatherers and other savages.   Populations are centered around the coastlines, where sprawling harbors and fishing villages have sprung up. The socities of Marsanne are because of her terrain dependent on seafaring, her socities decentralized and power localized. It is a land where the one controlling the sea controls the world, and navies take heavier precedence over armies.   Once upon a time, all of Marsanne was tribal. Back then it was a peaceful land, conflicts restricted to local ones born of grudges between families. It all changes when the Vampires invaded from Dyranne at the head of a monstrous Horde. The scattered peoples of Marsanne were easily subjugated in a matter of years, and put under a tyrannical yoke. The Vampires instituted systems of feudalism, where peasants paid a tax in blood, the only escape being servitude in the Vampire armies.   While the Vampires have long-since been defeated, the peoples of Marsanne adapted many of their institutions. Large cities, complex architecture, agriculture and governance.   As mentioned, the societies of Marsanne are far from unified. Hereditary monarchs sit at the top of the food chain, with feudal families as their vassals: each with a private fleet, army, and ambitions. Aside from them there are tribes, living lives considered backwards by the city-folk, but too powerful in their martial abilities to be subjugated, and thus serve as vassals. Free cities, Burghers and minor Republics there are too, and powerful Companies wishing to extend their control over the world's trade routes.   The people of Marsanne are all descendants of an ancient tribe, but since then divided into many separate peoples. They have fair skin and hair, their eye colors ranging from nuances of blue, green and pink. Aside from that, thousands of years of restricted tribal living and various environmental factions have given them a greatly mutated variance in appearance. In cities, this rarely extends beyond a great variance in heights and weights, but outside, some tribes have very strange appearances. Tribes consisting entirely of midgets, giants, people with only four fingers, inability to control facial muscles, etc.   The core culture is one of hierarchy, loyalty, honor, modesty, freedom, family and discipline. Greed, treachery, and sexual deviancies are supposedly to be punished, grievously, yet are so often practiced in the dark corners of cities and courts - breeding grounds of hypocrisy.