Traveling in the Kingdom of Wind

Written by Valiant Requiem

If you've never been caught in a rainstorm in the Kingdom of Wind, you won't understand, so some context. Imagine the worst storm you've been caught out in. Thunder and lightning clap around you like a bard came into town. It's hailing, but the hail isn't hail, it's glass. Shards of it, some as big as swords, crash down around you, shattering into pieces. Get hit with one of those without protection and you're done for.
So there we were, my family and I, coming up from the mountains towards Glass as part of a caravan out of the Dwarven lands under the mountains. Passing through the Glass Outpost, we had the Elderfall River to our right and the Burrow to our left. The trees were stronger then, not as many torn apart like now. The storms threatened, but we had protection. The caravan was covered, protected, but those of us on the ground had to make do by stopping for shelter in buildings along the road. When the storms finally came down, we found a recently abandoned farm and tried to take shelter. Unlike most farms, this one didn't have a wind wall of trees and it definitely wasn't fortified as it should've been. The gouges in the wood made that plain. The barn we'd hidden in was shredded only after a few minutes under the force of the storm, forcing us to run.
I... stopped, though. I saw my mother and brother run under the force of the storm for the trees across the road. I couldn't tell if they'd been hurt, but I saw them make it. My father grabbed me by the hand and tried to pull me along with him, but I didn't budge.
"I'm gonna give you a count to three and then we'll run straight for the trees. Do you understand?" My father stood over me, covered in his metal overcoat, plates loosely resting in a series of pockets. Lining the inside of the coat was a weaved matting of Glassleaf and Shieldspines; it had a lot of green to it. I wore one of similar design, but made to fit me as I was a child at the time. It was designed so that one could move with some measure of speed and keep their inner organs from becoming outer. I listened for his count and knew it was either stay under a slowly collapsing barn or run into the glass storm, but you try getting an eight year old to do something like that. I did my best, waited...
One. I could see my brother and mother were waiting for us. They waved their arms frantically. Two. My father let go of my hand and prepared to give me a head start. Three. I ran.
Daggers, swords, and chunks of what seemed like rocks or shrapnel rained down on me, pelting my body. Above me, my father was taking the full force of the storm. I heard the sick chunk of glass cutting into meat and then there was quiet.
When I woke up two weeks later in a cathedral to Mithiri, the Goddess of Luck, it was to the weeping faces of my family. A seam in my coat had been split open, a careless mistake by the craftsman who swore by its quality. One well aimed piece of glass found its way past my father, through the seam, and into my back. I should've died.
But I didn't.
Salis Everbright, Paladin of Mithiri

Geography

The roads of the Kingdom of Glass can be more than treacherous at times. Were the country like most others, the journey through it would be uneventful and even brief, two days at most. Instead, with the threat of the Glass Storms looming overhead, a leisurely stroll to the villages outside of Glass becomes a dangerous game of hopping between cover and finding shelter for the night that will still be there by morning.
The roads themselves are hard-packed dirt, grass, as well as cobbled roads made for caravans. Most areas along the road will feature small waystations for passing travelers as well as underground emergency shelters for those caught in expected storms or without protection.
The coastal region is extremely fertile and allows the population to grow and harvest crops of nearly any environment around the world. Because of this, it's not unlikely for travelers to take shelter amongst the wind-walls of farms and fields or to even supply themselves with the odd fruit tree or naturally occurring crop. The local forest is incredibly fertile and also provides a safe haven from the storms, should the denizens allow travelers to enter.

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Region