Verden

A broken world to some, everything that is known to all of its inhabitants. Verden is a world defined by a fractured relation with magic and the mighty beasts that prowl its expanse. A land of turbulence in both the material and spiritual sense

Geography

A majority of Verden's surface is covered with liquid water, with only four prominent landmasses, recently divided fragments of a super continent. These landmasses are (from most eastward to most westward): The Ancient Stretch, the Grand Hills, the Border Wall and the Wildlands. Dividing these continents are three oceans, known as the as the Dawn Ocean (bordering between the Stretch and the Hills), the Solar Ocean (bordering between the Hills anf the Wall) and the Ocean of Night (the border between the Wall and the Wildlands), The Ancient Stretch is the the most active center of civilization in Verden, due to the stable climate, rarity of strong beasts and uneventful topography suited to construction. Many of the most powerful nations are located on the eastern side, as to the west a large mountain chain blocks a large percentage of the western shores, at the nothernmost point lie pineforests and lichen fields, to the southern most point lies the Wuaksa Jungle, home to the most dangerous animals in the continent, though even these animals are nothing compared to the beasts of other continents. The Grand Hills are far less hospitable to civilised life but the hardy folk that call it home and the riches found within such a place, both mundane and mystical, are tempting enough for many nations within the Stretch to send expeditions to the more untamed areas, though rarely do these expeditions yield any success The Border Wall would be considered inhospitable by most civilized folk due to a unstable, harsh landscape, monstrous creatures that can decimate legions of soldiers and rampant Storms of Magic warping both the land and the inhabitants. Nevertheless there are people that have settled in the Border Wall, though these people few and scattered. The Wildlands are an absolute mystery to most of the world. Wile all of Verden is suffused with a tangible aura of magical energy. the Wildlands are so deeply entrenched in it to be outright lethal to unprotected mortals, many dying horrific and unusual deaths long before they reach shore. Legends of artifacts of incalculable power and beasts of godly strength coming from the Wildlands are plentiful but rarely can be credibly substantiated.

History

Verden's early history can be divided by the apperance of several off-world powers, each trying to colonize Verden for their own ends. These periods are known as the Landing of Giants, Landing of Steel and the Sundering of the Dead. The Landing of the Giants is perhaps the most momentous of the Landings, due to the permanence and size of what they left behind. As the name suggests this Landing was carried out by the mysterious Giants, beings of great size and magical prowess that built colossal structures across the planet and created several servant races colloquially known as the Crafted, which were left behind (this particular heritage is particular as the Giant lexicon would form the base of several languages and be the reason the Giant word for planet would be considered as Verden's name by consensus). The exact reason behind the Giants disapperance isn't exactly known to anyone, some hypothesize the Landing of Steel spelled their doom, others some pahtogen ravaged their immune systems, unsuited to prolonged exposure to the planet's biosphere. Regardless of what was the cause, no living Giant can be found in the current era. The landing of Steel was a shorter period compared to the one that preceded it but records of this time are far more accesible, in the wake of the Giants' disappearance several civilizations began to flourish in and around the ruins of the Giants, using their magic to both wage wars and form empires, it is not until the arrival of the Mechanized Plague that life on Verden fell under threat of disappearing, forcing the disparate nations of the time to unite and force the Disruption upon the unified mind of those that fell to plague, reducing the unified front of resistance into relatively easy pickings. It is around this time that some of the knightly orders that would form the modern day Brotherhood of Hunters were formed, though crucially not the orders that would form the core of the organuzation. The most mysterious of the eras is the Sundering of the Dead, despite being the most recent of this eras near to no records exist of such a time besides seemingly aporcyphal recollections of some sort of planetwide collapse involving legions of vengeful specters (the namesake of such an era by historians). Most currently reigning nations were formed either at a time after or during the tail end of the Sundering, the fate of the grand kingdoms during the Landing of Steel completely unknown besides dust-covered ruins and descendants with half-remembered legends.