Impossible Lands

The independent kingdoms of Garund’s so-called Impossible Lands trace their histories back millennia. Even today the region’s sparkling cities, breathtaking monuments, and arcane accomplishments seem rooted in some distant epoch when miracles were commonplace and legendary monsters walked alongside heroes bound for grand destinies. In prehistoric times, the region fell under the domain of a vast cyclops empire, whose megalithic ruins and broad, half-buried causeways hint at a grandeur seldom matched in the present day. Long after Earthfall toppled these monuments and reduced their builders into scattered, survivalist masses, armies of the god-kings of Osirion established cities and colonies amid the ruins. Pharaonic legions brought an end to older human empires like the Jistka Imperium and the Tekritanin League along Garund’s northwestern coast. They also conquered many of the scattered indigenous peoples of the continent’s east coast, whether through pacification or subjugation, greatly extending the borders of their kingdom. Over millennia, the power of Osirion faded, and the weakened pharaohs cut off all contact with their distant colonies, leaving these nations to develop as independent kingdoms.   The history of the Impossible Lands has been dominated by two of the region’s most powerful nations—both of which take their names from their respective immortal wizard-king founders, Geb and Nex. The two kingdoms clashed thousands of years ago in a devastating, centuries-long arcane war that warped the fabric of the continent itself. The most obvious scar of this conflict is the twisted wasteland that lies between them, a gnarled landscape of magic-warped terrain ravaged by arcane storms known as the Mana Wastes. From nightmare beasts born of the Fleshforges of Nex to the countless undead making up the populace of Geb, the region remains stained with the hubris of these two mages, and the thought of their lands once having been free from Nex and Geb’s tyranny seems more fable than fact to the people caught in their wake.   Despite this tumultuous history, the realms of Nex, Geb, and Jalmeray, along with the city-state of Alkenstar, count themselves among the mightiest and most fantastical nations in all the lands of the Inner Sea. Nex, who remains one of the most powerful and influential archmages Golarion has ever known, set the archetype for the Impossible Lands. Over the millennia of his immortal existence, he has taken control of the city-states of Quantium, Ecanus, and Oenopion, lavishing arcane innovations and architectural marvels upon them. Nex’s hated enemy, the equally ancient ghost necromancer Geb, rules a cosmopolitan, prosperous nation that would be considered among Garund’s wealthiest and most promising kingdoms, if not for the fact that most of its inhabitants are undead monstrosities who willingly followed their baleful leader into eternity to serve his dark designs forever. Off the coast, the lush isle of Jalmeray is a portal to western Casmaron, offering a slice of culture from distant Vudra on the doorstep of the Inner Sea. Monks from all over the world flock to the isle to hone their bodies and minds, following esoteric traditions handed down in antiquity by otherworldly spirits. Like Nex and Geb before them, these stalwarts intend through great effort and even greater creations to transcend the limits of the ordinary world—a task suited for nowhere else but the Impossible Lands.