Hello all
Another article about my setting, this one is a list of regions.
May or may not update periodically.
Summary
This article is concerned with the major regions of the setting as they are broadly understood by the people who live within it. It is not a catalog of every province, city, ruin, or wilderness, nor an attempt to draw hard borders on a land that rarely respects them. Instead, it offers a high-level view of the dominant environments, cultures, and pressures that shape travel, politics, and daily life across the world.
Most inhabitants do not think in terms of continents or clean regional divisions. They think in grain routes, river crossings, mountain passes, seasonal winds, and the distance to the nearest market or temple. The regions described here are therefore practical ones: places defined by how people survive, how power is maintained, and what dangers are considered ordinary rather than exceptional. Within each, humans remain the majority and the primary political actors, but they are never alone. Non-human peoples, spirits, and strange creatures exist alongside them, sometimes openly, sometimes as rumors or half-acknowledged facts of life.
What is presented here should be read as a lens rather than a list. Each region contains contradictions, internal divisions, and local exceptions that are not addressed in detail. Entire cultures, sects, ruins, and lineages lie just outside the scope of this overview, and many places that seem familiar at a distance become far stranger up close.
Regions
The Central States and the Grain Heartland
This is the “center of the world” in the minds of most people who live there: broad, flat plains stitched together by canals, roads, and irrigation ditches. Wheat and millet dominate the fields, and entire towns rise and fall based on harvests and tax grain. Large cities cluster here, expensive and crowded, full of scribes, clerks, minor officials, scholars-for-hire, and mercenary bands scraping by between contracts.
Most humans never leave this region, and many barely believe the stories of stranger peoples. Elves appear rarely, usually as poets or philosophers attached to wealthy courts, tolerated so long as they remain useful. Tortles from the Sichuan mountains occasionally wander through to trade oral histories or odd philosophies. Spirits here tend to be subtle: hunger ghosts, ancestral shades, things that haunt wells or abandoned granaries. This is where someone like Tiantian blends in just enough to survive, but never enough to be comfortable.
The River Corridors and Floodplains
Rather than one region, these are long, dangerous arteries cutting through the land. Settlements cling to riverbanks, levees, and ferries, and the people here think in terms of water levels, seasonal floods, and omens in the current. Fishing villages, barge towns, river markets, and temple-ports are common.
Dragonborn villages are said to lie far upstream near mountain sources, rarely seen but spoken of with a mix of awe and fear. River spirits like Hebo Shangui are openly acknowledged, placated with ritual, song, and careful wording. Serpentfolk and half-serpent offshoots move through marshy tributaries and wetlands, sometimes openly, sometimes disguised. Floods, droughts, and poisoned water are more terrifying here than armies. This is a natural place for figures like Lin She or Hana to operate quietly, half-known and half-rumored.
The Southern Forests and Wetlands
Dense forests, humid lowlands, and wide swamps define the south. Roads rot quickly here; travel is by boat, raised causeways, or local guides. Chu’s old influence lingers in lacquerware, funerary customs, and temple ruins swallowed by vines.
Tabaxi villages are hidden deep in jungle interiors, and yuan-ti enclaves cling to forgotten former capitals, their power waxing and waning with Chu’s fortunes. Wildlife is loud, colorful, and dangerous: crocodiles, giant snakes, poisonous insects, and birds with unsettling intelligence. Spirits here are older and more physical—tree guardians, water demons, things that resent being named. Moha’s islander background makes her less out of place here than in northern courts, even if she never quite belongs.
The Western Plateaus and Desert Marches
Wind-scoured plateaus and open desert dominate the west, broken by oases, caravan towns, and fortress-cities guarding trade routes. Life is harsh but predictable if you respect distance and water. Halfling communities live far from major conflicts, acting as guides, scouts, and traders along long routes. Kenku occupy higher mountain ranges overlooking these plains, feared by caravans but pragmatic enough to tolerate humans who bring regular trade.
This region is where maps matter most. Merchants commission artists to mark plants, springs, and landmarks, not borders. Monsters and spirits tend to be opportunistic rather than territorial: desert goblins, wind-borne demons, things that follow caravans for days. Many people here have seen only one elf or dwarf in their entire lives, if that.
The Northern Steppes and Border Hills
Cold winds, open grasslands, and rolling hills stretch toward harsher lands beyond. Nomadic cultures mix with fortified states like Zhao and Yan, where walls and watchtowers dominate the horizon. Horses are wealth, and winters kill more people than battles.
Half-orcs are most common here, blending into raiding cultures and border armies alike. Goliaths are seen hauling stone or reinforcing walls, respected more for labor than lineage. Spirits are blunt and violent: storm beings, war ghosts, thunder deities. This is where martial sects like the White Tiger Hall thrive, and where someone like Feng feels most alive, even as danger constantly escalates.
The Mountain Belts and Cloud-Sea Ranges
High mountains cut across the land in several directions, forming natural borders and spiritual centers. Villages cling to cliffs, temples sit above clouds, and passes are controlled fiercely. Dwarves mine here, often resentful of nearby states. Dragonborn villages cluster near river sources, treated as auspicious locally and as barbarians elsewhere. Elves also maintain isolated settlements, older than surrounding human kingdoms.
These regions produce monks, ascetics, and dangerous secrets. Spirits are powerful and direct; rituals matter here, and mistakes are rarely forgiven. Legends speak of ancient beasts sealed in stone or ice, but few living people can say what is still true.
The Distant Seas and Outer Islands
Far from the mainland lie volcanic islands, rainforested giants, and cultures most mainlanders barely understand. Tieflings and lizardfolk live largely as hunter-gatherers, with oral traditions emphasizing endurance, trickster heroes, or spiritual balance rather than empire. Firbolg are rumored to inhabit a massive volcanic island far away, half fire-scarred, half overgrown.
Mainland myths paint these peoples as demons or curiosities, but sailors know better. Encounters here are rare, intimate, and often misunderstood. Moha’s origins sit in this liminal space—neither fully foreign nor fully accepted.
Conclusion
Taken together, these regions form a world that is coherent without being uniform. Trade, war, belief, and geography bind the land together, but no single perspective can fully encompass it. Power flows unevenly, knowledge is fragmented, and travel always carries the risk of misunderstanding as much as physical danger. As characters move between regions, they are not merely crossing distances, but passing between different assumptions about order, morality, and survival. What is familiar in one place may be taboo in another; what is feared in one region may be revered elsewhere.
Beyond these major regions lie countless local truths: villages with their own gods, roads that no longer appear on maps, and histories deliberately forgotten. Those are not detailed here, because they are meant to be encountered, not explained.
Thank you all for reading!