Castrovel
Hot, humid, and stirred by intense storms and tides, the jungles and swamps of Castrovel abound with an unusually robust variety of life, from enormous saurian beasts to deadly moldstorms capable of devouring whole settlements. Of the many sentient races to make their home on the fertile world, the most prominent are Lashunta, followed closely by Elves and Formian, all three civilizations highly connected and cosmopolitan thanks to a network of ancient magical teleportation portals called aiudara.
Traditionally, Castrovel’s lashuntas have organized into independent city-states with a variety of governmental styles, elected matriarchies being the most common. In the modern era, however, local governance of smaller cities often takes a back seat to larger corporate concerns, with regional or interplanetary companies buying out officials or setting up their own independent, privatized settlements. While these economic ties mean lashunta nationalism rarely leads to outright warfare anymore, rampant industrial espionage and corporate influence over public policy present growing concerns for residents.
Of the city-states still capable of going toe-to-toe with corporate power, the most significant is Qabarat, the Shining Jewel of the Western Sea and the planet’s largest spaceport. From the city’s Threefold House, Lady Morana Kesh and her chief consort, Grantaeus, pull a delicate web of strings to keep the planet from becoming a corporate free-for-all. Also notable for their power and influence are the city’s many universities, renowned for their vast pre-Gap archives; they train some of the best explorers, researchers, and starship navigators in the system. Architecturally, the city is a work of art, its ancient walls of crushed and glittering shells blending seamlessly with modern additions. This sense of timelessness—of connection with the planet’s long history—is a matter of pride to many of the residents, who exult in the sounds of soldiers training in the Battle Yards, scholars arguing good-naturedly on university steps, or the roar and hiss of the landing starships that have largely replaced water-going vessels in Ship’s End. While most visitors to the planet enter through Qabarat’s port, numerous portals throughout the city connect it closely with other powerful lashunta settlements, such as isolated Laubu Mesa, Komena in the Floating Shards, Jabask the Unbroken, or Candares, with its endless waterfalls and dangerous cliffside corpsicum excavations.
Though the insectile formians battled with lashuntas for millennia, the coming of the Pact and careful shirren-brokered peace talks finally ended hostilities a mere 30 years ago. Today, the formian hives known as the Colonies work together to farm the land and trade with other races, with each individual hive queen paying tribute to the Overqueen—a purely philosophical entity established during the historic Meeting of Queens. Each of the largest formian hive-burrows can cover miles, sometimes bulging up in artificial honeycombed hills, making them confusing to visit (and historically impossible to conquer).
At odds with this new era of peace, the elves of Sovyrian are predominantly xenophobic traditionalists, trading with outsiders only when necessary. Members of other races are rarely allowed to settle permanently on the elven continent and are largely barred from even entering El, Sovyrian’s canal-choked capital city led by neighborhood-sized Great Houses. This border control is regularly violated by the city’s own ruling elite, however, as they hire foreigners for secretive or specialized tasks.
The abundance of seemingly untouched wilderness on Castrovel often confuses newcomers used to cutting-edge lashunta technology, yet to most of the world’s residents, these vast ecological preserves are proof of their enlightened society. To them, maintaining wilderness is key to advancing knowledge and allowing the same evolution that brought them sentience to continue uplifting others, and the planet’s abundant natural resources must be harvested sustainably for the good of all. Toward this end, both the planet’s primary shipyards and its most destructive heavy industries are relegated to Elindrae, the planet’s airless, rocky moon. Of course, various species of dangerous megafauna—from bug-eyed mountain eels to poison-beaked sky fishers—still regularly attack settlements on Castrovel, which leads to occasionally “accidental” burning of protected natural regions in rural areas, but a strong Xenowarden presence usually keeps such activities from getting out of hand.
Geography
Castrovel is divided into four major continents, each with a rich history and optimistic outlook toward the future.
The homeland of the lashuntas, Asana is the largest continent on Castrovel. It boasts everything from snowcapped mountains and sweltering jungles to rocky and rain-shadowed deserts. Its coastlines are for the most part mapped and understood, whereas records of the interior are largely confined to myth and broken history. In sharp contrast to their lashunta neighbors’ dozens of competing city-states, the ant-like formians of Castrovel have only one nation: a single vast country stretching from shore to shore across a continent to the south. This state has many names, depending on a particular formian’s region and beliefs, such as the Everlasting Queendoms, the Unified Hive, and the Glorious and Undeniable Dominion of All Beneath Moon and Soil. Most outsiders refer to it simply as the Colonies. The fertile continent of Sovyrian, homeland of the elves, has always been set apart from Castrovel’s other cultures, separated from the other continents by the icebergs and frost cyclones of the Snowsalt Sea and the vicious psiwhales and ship-breaking komohumes of the Sea of Teeth.
Whereas each of Castrovel’s three great species has a continent to call its own, few records suggest any large-scale colonization of the isolated continent of Ukulam has ever taken place. Its unconquered depths have remained the domain of deadly plants, immense fungi, and powerful beasts that drive a never-ending cycle of evolution, growth, and decay. These inexorable processes ultimately consume settlements, leaving most ruins damaged beyond easy identification.
History
Castrovel is a hot, humid world with a rich atmosphere that gives life to continent-spanning jungles that are home to mobile carnivorous plants, saurian predators, and devastating moldstorms. While nearly every terrestrial biome can be found somewhere on Castrovel, the planet remains thoroughly wild despite its densely populated settlements, with modern cities and cutting-edge industrial complexes separated from the ravages of the primeval wilderness by electrified fences and automated weapons turrets.
RESIDENTS
Given Castrovel’s extreme biodiversity, it is perhaps unsurprising that the planet has fostered several major races. Most prominent in the Pact Worlds are lashuntas, telepathic humanoids from the continent of Asana with a cultural emphasis on scholarship and self-improvement. The thousands of hives of the ant-like and equally telepathic formians of the Colonies are strongly aligned to the directives of their ruling council. This philosophical battle of collectivism versus individualism (combined with telepathy’s advantage in communicating such ideas) sparked a millennia-long war that raged between the two races until just 30 years ago. The elves of Sovyrian remain steadfastly aloof from this conflict—and everything else. They focus on magical pursuits and guard their shores with stony resolve. Relations between the three primary races are not as fractious as they seem, despite the planet’s tumultuous history. Outposts of all three can be found beyond the borders of their native continents, and the planet as a whole welcomes travelers from offworld, even if the elves largely restrict trade with nonelves to offshore ports designed for that purpose. The planetary economy is robust, due to the strength of Asana’s corporations and universities combined with the relentless efficiency of formian manufactory hives. In addition to the planet’s three most prominent species, a race of plantlike telepathic humanoids called Khizar inhabits the jungles of Ukulam in small, isolated settlements that usually number no more than a few dozen individuals. These groups are migratory, staying in one place for a few years at most. When asked about this behavior, khizars reply that they don’t wish to put too much ecological strain on any one area, but admit they also enjoy the constant change of scenery. Khizars have no innate prejudices against the planet’s other species or visitors to Castrovel, as long as they show some respect for nature. Despite the constant threat of megafauna, Castrovelians take pride in their planet’s wilderness, deliberately preserving large swaths of it for ecotourism and research. Castrovel has the largest population of Green Faith followers in the Pact Worlds, and the Xenowardens are a prominent theopolitical faction here. Even before the rise of starships, magical portals called aiudara (or “elf gates”) facilitated this commitment by connecting major settlements across the planet without the need for dangerous and expensive roads. Today, these arches remain a major public resource as well as a subject of intense speculation, since the secret of their creation has long been lost and many gates are broken or lead to unknown destinations.SOCIETY
The lashuntas of Asana traditionally organize themselves by city-state, with each state controlling a few smaller settlements and the land and resources immediately around them. Internally, these cities vary wildly, ranging from egalitarian communes to hereditary monarchies, though most favor democratically elected autocrats. Despite the lashuntas’ deep love of scholarship and intellectual and magical pursuits, the constant presence of bold predators just beyond their walls—from savage megafauna to intelligent monstrous races—leads every city to maintain a significant military. This spirit of militaristic self-reliance means that attempts to unify multiple city-states rarely last long, though warring between the states consists of daring raids and shows of force rather than outright slaughter, and even enemy cities typically work together when attacked by outside forces. The divided nature of lashunta government can be a double-edged sword for its citizens, however, as big businesses can easily play the competitive city-states off each other, and many lashuntas fear that their society may soon go the way of Akiton's—co-opted by commercial concerns without regard for the residents’ welfare. While Asana serves as a breadbasket for the solar system and the constant discovery of useful creatures and plants makes it an attractive base for research firms, its greatest resource is its people. The charismatic, educated, telepathic populace provides a talented and passionate workforce for interplanetary corporations. The relatively long history of Asana’s civilization and the constant reclamation of fallen cities by the jungle also means that a great deal of magical knowledge may be simply lying undiscovered in some jungle clearing. Before the Colonies became a unified land, the disparate formian hives were at constant war with each other, and their costly battles over territory prevented their civilization as a whole from advancing. To end this strife, several of the largest hives agreed to a conference now called the Meeting of Queens, in which they all agreed to work together in service of the “Overqueen,” which was a purely theoretical concept that would allow them to act as a federation while still acceding to their hive-insect need for a single ultimate authority figure. Within years, the wars ended, and the newly unified Colonies were able to begin expanding their territory—inaugurating a new age of war against the lashuntas of Asana that continued for millennia. Life in the Colonies is extremely regimented, as formian society is strictly collectivist and authoritarian. Workers bred and raised for specific jobs complete them without complaint under the oversight of taskmasters and warriors, who in turn bow before their own superiors, all the way up to the queen of a particular settlement. Transgressions against authority are rare. Depending on its impact, behavior outside of the order may be overlooked to reduce cognitive dissonance, seen as ignorance in need of correction, or punished as treason by immediate execution. Fortunately, generations of diplomatic missions (often by Shirren emissaries) have led most hive queens to the belief that non-formian races fall outside the “natural order,” and thus their individualism may be tolerated as long as it serves the Colonies’ best interests. As a result of this broadened perspective, the Colonies are now a hotbed of economic activity. Corporate employees granted honorary rank within hive society oversee massive manufacturing facilities in which the efficiency of formian workers outpaces all but the best automation. The formians’ relatively weak regard for environmental concerns compared to the planet’s other major races means that even the long-hostile lashuntas are now transferring more and more of their fabrication jobs to the Colonies. Strip mines follow seams of ore, industrial warrens belch smoke into the sky, and vast agricultural plantations stretch for miles aboveground and below, with photosynthesizing crops on the surface and tunnel upon tunnel of bioengineered fungus farms and chemical-synthesizing bacteria vats below. Yet for all of this industry, most of the continent remains strangely pristine. While formian hive-cities sometimes mound up into monolithic, tumorous structures, most run for miles underground, and the consolidation of their cultivation for greater efficiency means that large stretches of wilderness remain intact between settlements. Though the Colonies’ borders are fiercely defended, the unification of the hives means there’s little need to patrol the continent’s interior, and thus entire intelligent species live quietly in the trackless expanses overlooked by formian industry. The long-lived elves of Sovyrian were hit harder by the disaster of the Gap than most other races, and their traditional standoffishness has since grown into xenophobia. Those elves who choose to live among other races are called Forlorn by their Sovyrian kin, and their fraternization with lesser, untrustworthy cultures is seen as a stain on their legacy. To an elf of Sovyrian, it is an unfortunate necessity to go among other peoples to trade, and any right-minded elf does so as little as possible, returning home or to elven enclaves abroad as soon as the job is done. Given the elves’ low birth rate and their reticence to sully themselves with outside contact, Sovyrian is constantly in danger of becoming a bit player on the global and galactic stage, prompting the government to promote several workarounds. The first is the Blood Right, a policy that states any Half-Elf or person with observable elven blood can automatically claim citizenship in Sovyrian. This is crucial to the nation-continent’s economy, as these half-elves (as well as the Gnomes who are allowed to live among elves as part of ancient tradition) are able to travel and trade with both elves and outsiders without stigma. The second custom, the Masking, allows elves who are uncomfortable interacting with outsiders to wear masks while doing so, thus allowing any dishonor to be transferred to the masks instead of themselves. This practice is particularly popular among diplomats and soldiers, who find that masks also help emphasize their cultural unity and unsettle their opponents. For all its isolationism, Sovyrian remains sophisticated and worldly. The cultural norm of emphasizing craftsmanship and magic over mass production helps the elves maintain continuity with their ancestors. It also means that Sovyrian produces some of the most impressive spellcasters in the system, and its people regularly employ magic items rarely seen by outsiders. Though citizens have embraced modern technology, their designs tend toward the artistic and fantastical, with an emphasis on biotech; even their densest cities can feel like pastoral wonderlands. These magic and artisan technologies, operating in unique and proprietary ways, are Sovyrian’s chief exports, and governmental export restrictions create artificial scarcity to ensure that elven goods remain rare and expensive. The extremely unified front by Sovyrian’s residents leads most to assume Sovyrian is a restrictive totalitarian state. In fact, the opposite is true—the Sova, who are the leaders of the High Families of El and serve as Sovyrian’s heads of state, focus almost exclusively on preserving the nation’s borders and economic security, leaving cities and settlements to govern themselves. As a result, most Sovyrian residents enjoy great freedom, living in traditional harmony with the land or following their passions in small settlements. Castrovel’s dominant species have long agreed that preserving Ukulam’s ecology is in the planet’s best interests. Following the peace accords, several nongovernmental organizations such as the Esowath Conservancy formed to maintain the continent’s sanctity, with all parties’ blessings. These NGOs tightly restrict travel to Ukulam, issuing a limited number of permits each year to a sizable waiting list of academics and tourists. Concerned with the impact of pollution, unrestricted access, and the disruption of the near-constant migratory patterns of Ukulam’s countless aerial species, these groups even limit transit over the continent, enforcing these regulations with a force of frontier soldiers supported by a coalition fleet of interceptor starships. For all these organizations’ efforts, reports of poaching—driven by a lucrative trade in hides, horns, and other items believed to hold pharmaceutical value, supernatural power, or simple prestige—regularly emerge on the planet’s infosphere.CONFLICTS AND THREATS
Thanks to a shirren-brokered peace treaty 30 years ago, the hostilities between formians and lashuntas have finally come to an end. Since then, the two sides have scaled back their military presences across the planet, especially in the southern half of Ukulam where they clashed often. Nature quickly reclaimed the decommissioned outposts and fortresses, but both sides still monitor the continent, maintain peace, and provide aid to travelers headed to or from smaller bases and research stations. The biggest dangers of Castrovel are the megafauna that thrive in the planet’s fecund forests, jungles, seas, and swamps. Many of these massive beasts are racked by constant hunger and feed on just about anything they can find, from plants to people. Occasionally, they are desperate enough to attack even well defended settlements, and while they are usually driven off or killed, they still can cause serious destruction and casualties. Some residents organize hunting safaris to take down these creatures before they can wreak havoc, but Xenowardens and other environmental groups often protect their habitats. In addition to attacks from creatures, unprotected settlements can be completely destroyed by the savage weather phenomena known as moldstorms, which occur during the periodic mass flowerings called “death blooms.” Though they are infrequent, these storms appear with almost no warning and sweep across wide swaths of land, leaving behind colonies of fungus that rots away most organic material in a matter of hours. Manufactured substances such as nanocarbon and polycarbon plate are generally resistant to these effects, but climate scientists warn that the moldstorms are growing more and more potent.Tourism
The following are several notable locations across Castrovel, grouped by continent.
Asana
Locales both ancient and modern are scattered across Asana.The Bulwarks
This chain of islands leads across the Strait of Glory to the Colonies, making its shores and causeways the most hotly contested territory in the planet’s history. For thousands of years, formians and lashuntas battled constantly over these islands, using them as beachheads to launch invasions onto each other’s shores or score political points at home through minor advances. As a result, the islands are shattered, grotesque palimpsests, with modern fortresses built atop the ruins of ancient castles and the husks of warhives, and entire valleys filled with slowly decaying bones and chitin. Some islands are completely uninhabitable today due to radiation or military biotech. Since the truce between the two civilizations, scholars from both sides have begun cautiously combing through the ruins for lost knowledge, while groups like the Xenowardens attempt to rehabilitate the most damaged isles.Candares
Every year, the spring meltwaters of the Tarakeshi River slowly back up, filling the massive Lake Nehan and turning the districts of Upper Candares into islands, until at last the waters crest their banks and come blasting down into the narrow valley of Lower Candares from every direction, creating dozens of spectacular waterfalls. The steep walls of this crevasse have traditionally been lined with hydroelectric turbines and seasonal temples maintained by native spider-limbed kaymos, who live in peace with the city’s lashunta citizens. In recent years, however, the city has been flooded not just with water but with riches, as technomancers for the Astral Extractions mining company have discovered new magical uses for corpsicum, a rare material produced when water seeps through the kaymos’ cliffside burial grounds. The resulting influx of cash has let the corporation buy leaders and votes, and most of the city is happy enough to let crab-like mining robots scale their cliffs. Exasperated and unheeded, the Wallkeepers—traditionalist rebels from both races who see the mining as a desecration of their ancestors—occasionally send the enormous machines falling in flames to the city below.Jabask
Located deep in the Glowsilk Jungle and accessible only by aiudara, arduous overland treks, or daredevil shuttle flights, Jabask is perhaps the most traditional of the major city-states—and the most embattled. Behind its ugly concrete ramparts, locals live in symbiosis with the Somana Tree-Sages, intelligent plant-creatures of extreme magic and confusing mindsets whose branches are tended by furry, split-tailed nobosets. The greatest of the Tree-Sages, the Prophet of the Wood, regularly offers eclectic pearls of knowledge, including advanced scientific revelations and disconcertingly accurate predictions gleaned via mystical communion with some greater power called “the Ken.” In exchange, the cityfolk protect the Somana from the horde of beasts that prey upon them, most notably the three-eyed fangsaras. This would be easier if not for the frequent moldstorms that sweep the city, eating through seals and circuits, shorting out technology, and forcing citizens to shelter inside thick bunkers. While the jungle’s eponymous lights make the city quite beautiful during calm periods, every citizen in Jabask is constantly listening for the sounds of the mold siren or the attack alarm.Komena
The closest major city to the Bulwarks, Komena remains heavily militarized despite its extremely defensible position in the Floating Shards. While originally named for the many fjords that cut through the mountains’ feet, making it look like the peaks are bobbing on the sea, the Floating Shards have also earned their name another way. Fueled by powerful magic lost during the Gap, ancient lashunta spellcasters lopped off the peak on which Komena originally stood and levitated it to build an ornate, cylinder-shaped city connecting the mountain’s base to its summit. In times of war, the entire city slides down into a subterranean cavity. While a number of these so-called Mountainheart Cities once existed, Komena is the last one known to remain. The wreckage of another to the north and records of up to five more lead many adventurers to brave the region’s peaks in hopes of finding one hidden since antiquity—perhaps even still inhabited.Laubu Mesa
This desert city sits atop the geological feature of the same name and has famously never been conquered. In ancient times, the city’s minaret-topped Aeries were home to the thakasa riders—cavalry who’d mastered a winged version of the planet’s famous reptilian Shotalashus mounts—but today these same flight schools train some of the best fighter pilots in the system, specializing in death-defying proximity flying and other atmospheric maneuvers. Technomagical pumps bring water and geothermal energy up through the center of the mesa, making the city self-sufficient in case of siege, and the Scholar’s Spiral, which winds down around the pumps, contains workshops and libraries handed down from master to student for millennia—ripe with rumors of lost treasures and encoded knowledge hidden behind secret doors.Ocean of Mists
An atmospheric mystery, this sea of roiling, multicolored mist somehow supports ships that have only minor gas-based flotation capability, yet it remains dispersed enough for divers to breathe freely as they descend to walk its shrouded canyon floors. Occupying a huge system of canyons, the ocean hosts many floating gas-harvesting platforms. Divers who hunt for salvage on the “seafloor” are always on the lookout for merfolk-like teshki and the deadly mistcallers, whose magical name-speech can turn an explorer into an expanding cloud of bloody droplets.Qabarat
The Shining Jewel of the Western Sea, Qabarat is arguably the greatest of the lashunta city-states and the planet’s largest spaceport. Where the Yaro River cuts through the sea cliffs at the edge of the Stormshield Mountains, ancient walls of crushed, glittering shells rise up to cradle a modern metropolis nestled among venerable structures dating to the civilization’s beginnings. Lady Morana Kesh (NG female damaya lashunta envoy) and her chief consort and battle leader, Grantaeus (CG male korasha lashunta soldier), rule the city from the Threefold House, the city’s capitol. They fight a quiet but desperate battle to maintain traditional governments and keep all of Asana from becoming a corporate free-for-all. Visitors to the city often arrive in the spaceport at Ship’s End, passing by soldiers and mercenaries training in the legendary Battle Yards and scholars debating on the steps of the city’s numerous great universities, before arriving in the Brightstreets, which form the city’s commercial center. The city also has several public-use aiudara that link to other settlements. QABARAT NG port city Population 819,000 (70% lashunta, 5% elf, 5% Human, 4% shirren, 4% Ysoki, 3% half-elf, 9% other) Government autocracy (Lady Morana Kesh) Qualities academic, cultured, financial center Maximum Item Level 16thThe Colonies
While the formians have little emotional investment in the names and identities of their territories, naming major settlements and features has made it easier to direct visitors.Broken Minds
Formian society brooks no disobedience, and those formians who refuse to serve are quickly dispatched. In recent years, however, shirren emissaries have succeeded in convincing several hives to sell their “malfunctioning” citizens rather than kill them. These rebellious individuals are brought to the Broken Minds, a sort of intellectual colony quarantined on the harsh desert coast. There shirrens work with these patients to prepare them for independent lives on other continents or planets—and also study them to see whether this spontaneous rebellion might hold the secret to the shirrens’ own break with the Swarm in ages past.Gulf of Legions
This central sea, the hub of intercolony contact for the continent, takes its name from the flotillas of warriors who once darkened the waves as they crossed on the backs of massive water-striding yugolars to lay siege to other hives. Since the alliance, the sea has instead become a hotbed of trade, and most of the largest formian hive-cities—notably Chisk the Unyielding, Kebenaut, and Queensrock—are situated on its shores. Only Qarik on the shores of the Lemenore Ocean and Zysyk with its half-submerged ocean tunnels rival these metropolises in size.Jaws of the Mother
This comparatively narrow strait, where the Nestwall Mountains to the north dip into the ocean across from the larger Setae Range to the south, provides the only water access to the Gulf of Legions. This was long one of the most important defensive positions on the continent, and even before the era of the Overqueen, the nearby formian colonies worked together to defend it and repel invaders or break enemy blockades. At its narrowest point, the channel is only 30 miles wide, and floating warhives still regularly patrol it. To either side of the strait rise the Mandibles, looming, ancient fortresses that house the primary aerospace defense forces for the entire continent.Queensrock
The hive-city of Queensrock is constructed like an enormous termite mound; gaping docking bays and entrance tunnels break its mud-colored exterior, albeit with the occasional modernist steel-and-glass addition. Set just offshore in the Gulf of Legions, the city stands upon an island of the same name, artificially constructed along with the narrow causeways connecting it to shore. Thousands of formian workers gave their lives to the monumental task of engineering the city and causeways in ages past. Inside, its chambers are a disconcerting mix of traditional formian architecture and spaces designed to make other species feel at home, with limited degrees of success. The hive’s leader, Morgebard of the Thousand Spines (LN formian queen), is a commanding presence who brought her city to prominence by seeking trade and collaboration with organizations throughout the Pact Worlds. While the queen herself is almost never seen, her elaborately branded Heralds are a constant presence in the city, and Morgebard can peer through their eyes and take possession of their bodies as the need strikes.The Seacrown
Nominally controlled jointly by Asana and the Colonies, the Seacrown is actually owned by no one—or at least, no one known to the outside world. Believed to be the central peaks of the ancient impact crater that forms the Shattered Sea, the Seacrown is a collection of sharp mountains rising from the vast and trackless waves. Though the lower beaches are accessible, each island is wrapped in a cylindrical force field of unknown technology that starts halfway up the slopes and lances straight up, slowly tapering to a close in the upper atmosphere. Within these half-opaque cells, strange monastery-like cities that conform to no known architectural style are inhabited by lashunta-sized blurs that twist the eye and look like moving gaps in the air. Each time Castrovel’s moon eclipses the sun, a door opens briefly in one of the force fields. Several modern expeditions have entered in an attempt to make contact with the inhabitants, but so far none have returned, though their gear sometimes reappears on a beach unharmed or is found years later and thousands of miles away.Towers of Memory
While many of the continent’s other intelligent residents—the tri-winged fakoras, the serpentine zenuways, the armored and plains-roaming carinas traveling in clan-herds with mobile horn lodges—survive by paying heavy tribute to the hives or hiding themselves away in undesirable regions, the inhabitants of the Towers of Memory live bold and unmolested. Rising from the shores of Lake Kechavas, just east of the Plains of Ru, these five towers confound the eye, never quite holding a defined edge. Within them, mysterious creatures called caulborn—extraplanar scholars with two mouths and crests of skin and bone where their eyes should be—collect and catalog memories of select Castrovelians, taking sustenance from the petitioners’ psychic energy while they preserve these memories for eternity. No one knows when the first queen approached them, or what she was told, but all of the Colonies enforce a strict taboo against bothering the scholars, and even queens have their memories preserved if a caulborn requests it. In return, the hives are allowed to petition the scholars for information and otherworldly advice, though only those in great need dare approach the glistening towers, for the prices the caulborn demand are often unsettlingly personal.Watchpost Quinai
Little do the formians know that the Gulf of Legions’ most foreboding stretch of coastline hosts Watchpost Quinai, a secret lashunta listening post. During the war, highly trained agents at this facility, funded by an intercity coalition, monitored formian movements and occasionally launched raids into the heart of enemy territory. Despite the recent accord between the two civilizations, lashunta leaders have felt no particular inclination to decommission the facility or inform the formians of its existence, and mercenaries or patriots with more courage than sense are still sometimes recruited to launch high-paying—and high-casualty—incursions from its secret bunkers.Sovyrian
Below are some of the settlements of modern significance that stand among a surprising number of lost or abandoned ruins long since reclaimed by the continent’s evergreen forests.Cordona
Positioned at the tip of the Clariel’s Arm peninsula, this port city is a bustling and pleasant metropolis, overshadowed only somewhat by the massive steel wall—guarded by soldiers and miles of automated defenses—that cuts it off from the rest of the mainland. All visitors seeking access to the continent without a direct invitation are funneled through Cordona, where they can petition at the various corporate enclaves, embassies, and guild offices. Cordona is one of the largest cities on the continent, and a study in irony, for while the elves may officially disdain the sea of outsiders living in its boroughs, they also feel the need to impress these same people with their wealth and majesty, and thus the city is a triumph of beautiful architecture and utopian hospitality. So great is the appeal that many elves actually vacation in the city, especially for Revelnight, the citywide masquerade lit by charming colored lanterns, whose ask-no-questions frivolity greatly bolsters the population of half-elves. This is in direct contrast to the rest of the year, when disembodied eyeballs controlled by the city’s overseers float magically on every street corner, carefully watching for danger or signs of subversion.El
The great capital city of the elves has changed little since antiquity. The neighborhood-sized Great Houses of the city’s aristocracy, the High Families, still climb the cliff walls to either side of the city’s magnificent waterfall, though their traditional structures are augmented with the latest biotech and magical architectural advances. The Woven River earns its name from the dozens of elegant canals that crisscross the city in looping designs; the island-neighborhoods created by the canals are connected by footbridges older than the Gap. Yet while many ancient structures still stand, proudly maintained by their owners, the spaces between them are thick with modern skyscrapers—gleaming glass melded with living trees to create a beautiful surrealist forest, between which hovercars and shuttles buzz like insects. With river trade largely abandoned, the canals are now plied solely by yachts and pleasure barges, and the venerable docks now serve as the city’s spaceport, where ships land under the shadow of artistically concealed energy shields and artillery capable of firing on aggressors in orbit, ensuring that no one lands without proper authorization. Just downriver from the docks stand the ruins of the Arch of Refuge, the great gateway that was once a magical portal to Golarion but crumbled—or was destroyed—during The Gap. Today, this site is a shrine where elves mourn memories lost to the Gap.Nerundel
Situated high in the Korinath Divide, the mountains that separate eastern and western Sovyrian, this city is inhabited by more gnomes than elves, with all the chaos that entails. While Nerundel’s resident university, Nerundel Halls, is a marvel of both eclectic scholarship and perilous cliffside architecture, the city's true claim to fame is the Greengate, a permanent portal to the First World that allows the gnomes here to trade freely with the fey. Likewise, some fey travel to Nerundel via the Greengate to study at the university. The Greengate also allows enough primal nature magic through to turn the otherwise rugged mountains into a blooming paradise for several miles around Nerundel, and biotech researchers and spellworkers flock to the city to harness the precious energy. The Xenowardens also keep a permanent delegation nearby to study the ancient artifact and ensure it isn’t abused.Southwatch
This city-fortress sits upon Sovyrian’s southernmost point, just miles from the frozen cliffs of Aurovas, Castrovel’s southern ice cap. Each winter, the narrow ribbon of ocean between the two landmasses freezes, creating a causeway of ice and snow. That’s when the soldiers of Southwatch earn their keep, for across this bridge flood the white-furred horrors of Aurovas’s windswept wastes: semi-intelligent aurovaks eager to drink the hot blood of northern prey. All winter, Southwatch holds them off, repeatedly blowing up the causeway only to watch it freeze into shape again. Once the weather grows warm, the aurovaks’ feeding frenzy ceases and the creatures vanish back into the glacier mountains of Aurovas. For generations, the elves have tried everything to eliminate the aurovaks once and for all, but the creatures burrow deep into the ice and disappear without a trace during the warm season, making even aerial bombardment ineffective. In recent years, however, the horde has not appeared, leading some to assume Southwatch has finally succeeded—and others to worry that the aurovaks have learned to plan more complex assaults.Telasia, the Portal Grove
Records show that in ancient times, Telasia was a magical transit hub, connecting far-flung settlements across the world. Inside each of the town’s fortified, tree-shaped buildings stood a different aiudara, and travelers paid the resident Transarchs for use of the portals. Sometime during the Gap, however, the situation changed. Today, the city is the sole domain of the green dragon Urvosk, who claims the title of High Transarch and ownership of the entire grove. As much as Sovyrian officials would love to reclaim the “lost” city, the dragon’s cadre of high-priced lawyers keeps them from getting far, and claims of thermonuclear devices embedded in every building keep them from trying to take it by force. For now, anyone wishing to use the portals must pay off or otherwise convince the capricious dragon, who smugly reminds travelers that no one but he knows where every portal leads and that some of them connect to magically hidden locations completely lost to history. The dragon does, however, have a soft spot for adventurers and sometimes hires them to explore these secret realms on his behalf.Ukulam
Most significant locations on Ukulam are either natural expanses or small settlements primarily dedicated to studying the area.Caliria Maze
Ukulam’s jungle is especially thick in this region, where two smaller rivers join to form the broad Ralhoma. Attempts to map it (even using satellites) have failed, suggesting that either the flora is constantly changing or some supernatural force obscures its true appearance from the outside world. Ukulam boasts numerous species with primal magic, and these adepts often speak of a sacred place called Caliria, whence the planet’s heart beats with water and life. In this area, armies composed of numerous species—especially khizars—have united to turn back prospectors and explorers, often using legendary Caliria as their battle cry. Rumors run wild as to whether Caliria is a grand woodland city, an unspeakably powerful magical font, or nothing more than a metaphor for Ukulam’s primal rage.Esowath Nexus
An erstwhile formian outpost, this comblike structure has been retrofitted to serve as the Esowath Conservancy’s base of operations on Ukulam, while the organization’s political offices are in Qabarat and Queensrock. Conservancy rangers travel far into the Ikal Expanse and patrol virtually all of the coastal waters, watching for poachers and turning away misguided travelers. The head of operations, Ualia (CG female korasha lashunta mystic), thinks that exposing offworld species to Ukulam’s beauty can lend politicians leverage in continuing to protect the land, so she regularly awards travel grants to explorers with good track records to survey the region’s geography and wildlife.Ikal Expanse
Ukulam’s southern forest is a virtually unbroken stretch of deciduous trees overshadowed only by titanic mushrooms that sprout and wither within weeks. Ecological studies suggest this is among the most biologically productive locations on Castrovel, if not in all the Pact Worlds. Like the plants and fungi, the fauna here is plentiful and numerous species are immense. Most famously, the powerful yaruks topple trees in pursuit of food, inadvertently aerating the forest and creating openings for new growth. Any signs of past civilization have disappeared beneath the leaves, but explorers regularly venture into the wilderness with dreams of uncovering lost treasures.Northern Steps
The tectonic buckling that formed the Singing Range has also uplifted the land to the north. Known as the Northern Steps, these broad plateaus descend with increasing abruptness the farther north and east one travels, eventually ending in dramatic cliffs shorn smooth by Castrovel’s last known glaciation event. Warmed only by the mild current flowing north from the Western Sea, the Northern Steps are fairly chilly, made all the more so by the katabatic winds that blow icy rainstorms from the KaiHebla Ice Sheet. A thick taiga of scaly cacti covers the Steps’ northern half, and the shovel-footed purhuams that graze on the plains regularly kick up nodes of meteoric iron and preserved scrimshaw carved from the bones of long-extinct species.Singing Range
Home to several species of ever-gnawing rock rats, these severe peaks are riddled with alpine burrows that whistle faintly in the wind during the summers, when the snow recedes from the highest summits. Millions of years ago, two smaller continents crashed into each other here, forming this constantly growing mountain range. Flyover surveys have sighted battered ruins in the high mountains; it may be possible that these belonged to a lost species that predates even elven and lashunta history.Station 9
The formians’ eastern fortresses boasted numerous defenses to intercept lashunta attacks before they could reach the Colonies. At the outpost identified only as Station 9, the formians developed carefully cultured countermeasures to defend against a possible biological or chemical attack. During the Gap, an attack devastated the site, which was promptly abandoned, but the living countermeasures persisted, reproduced, and evolved. In recent years, scientists have identified amorphous creatures that move about Station 9 with purpose and even skirmish with local wildlife. The Esowath Conservancy believes these creatures are an invasive species but dares not risk an air strike, which could scatter the biological material into the atmosphere. With public outcry building, the organization is desperate for a plan—and someone bold enough to execute it.Waklohar’s Expeditions
Some tourists can’t help but fetishize the exoticism of Ukulam’s wilderness, and the entrepreneurial lashunta Waklohar (N male korasha lashunta operative) has one of the few recreational installations on the continent. He organizes short-range adventures into the Ikal Expanse and to nearby islands for wide-eyed “adventurers,” leading them to several famous landmarks and guaranteeing an exciting wildlife experience. Although Waklohar is a capable survivalist, his strength lies in his ability to craft spectacle, and it is his stoic business partner, the formian Xcibiz (LN independent formian taskmaster soldier), who tirelessly manages the finances and ultimately organizes rescue operations when an expedition encounters trouble.
Alternative Name(s)
The Wild
Type
Planet
Included Organizations
Inhabiting Species
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