"In the wake of ash, we rose."
—Common Proverb of the Reclamation Era
Excerpt from "A Survey of the Known Realms," penned in the 807th Year of the Dawn Crown by Archivist Merel Vantros, Imperial Cartographer of Thalvenor:
Little remains of what came before. The Cataclysm—if indeed it was but a single event—shattered the world nearly eight centuries ago. The names of old kingdoms are lost to the wind, their histories scattered in broken tablets and buried vaults. What we know, we know from fragments. From ruins. From stories passed down by the few who survived.
And yet, we endure.
The Thalvaran Empire, founded just three centuries after the fall, stands today as a testament to what civilisation can rebuild. From its heart in Thalvenor, it extends roads, law, and diplomacy across the continent's centre. To the east, the Isil'varan Courts rule the seas with grace and guile, their ships as full of secrets as they are silk. In the north, the Molgrin Thanehold guards its mountain forges, where dwarf and gnome craft what the world cannot easily unmake.
Southward, across open savannas, ride the clans of the Graskari Dominion—warrior-poets who live by honour, memory, and the wisdom of the stars. Along the sunburnt coasts and inland deserts, the Free Merchants of Avrenhold trade in spices, scrolls, and secrets, their contracts more binding than any crown. And in the west, where storms walk the land, the Hadrathi Storm-Sworn carve out a life upon towering mesas, believing that strength must be earned against the fury of the world.
Beyond them lies the Unmarked West—a land unmapped, untamed, and unkind. What few expeditions return speak of wind-scoured plains, fractured landscapes, and a silence that weighs upon the soul. Yet even now, brave souls carve out new settlements at the edge of the known. One such place is Wyrdhollow, a fledgling village raised with the backing of the Empire and the sweat of those who would see the past buried, and the future built.
It is a time of rebuilding—but also of reckoning. The world before is gone. What comes next is ours to shape.